Whistleblowers have been instrumental in revealing the massive investments in state-sponsored and corporate digital surveillance and disinformation. Their personal accounts of what went on behind the scenes are usually presented in popular books marketed as offering insider stories. By interrogating the recapitulations of veteran data consultants, our article is interested in the way in which whistleblowers configure their role and place themselves in the context of their story in terms of agency and accountability. We examine and compare three recollections: Edward Snowden’s Permanent Record, Christopher Wylie’s Mindf*ck, and Brittany Kaiser’s Targeted. Our analysis shows how these high-profile memoirs offer a look that is both intimate and distant. They at once promise to get close to and even behind what has escaped public scrutiny and in return try to dissociate themselves from their former trade. Their position of privileged precarity, which results from the casualization of digital labor, allows these data consultants to quickly become insiders while staying uncomfortable with many of the taken-for-granted ideological convictions and organizational orders. Rationalizing their involvement as disoriented diligence affords the whistleblowers the capacity to craft a story of enchantment, delusion, and subsequent awakening. Both their experiences and their position enable these disenthralled renegades to style themselves as honest moral arbiters in service of the public interest and brokers of exclusive knowledge.

中文翻译：

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举报人回忆录：解构数据顾问的内幕故事

举报人在揭露国家资助和企业数字监控和虚假信息方面的巨额投资方面发挥了重要作用。他们对幕后发生的事情的个人描述通常出现在以提供内幕故事为目的的流行书籍中。通过询问资深数据顾问的概述，我们的文章对举报人如何配置自己的角色以及在代理和责任方面将自己置于故事背景中的方式感兴趣。我们检查并比较了三个回忆：爱德华·斯诺登的《永久记录》、克里斯托弗·怀利的《Mindf*ck》和布列塔尼·凯撒的《目标》。我们的分析表明，这些备受瞩目的回忆录如何呈现出既亲密又疏远的感觉。他们立即承诺接近甚至支持那些逃避公众监督的东西，作为回报，他们试图与以前的行业划清界限。由于数字劳动力的临时化，他们享有特权的不稳定地位，使得这些数据顾问很快成为内部人士，同时对许多理所当然的意识形态信念和组织命令感到不舒服。将他们的参与合理化为迷失方向的勤奋，使举报者有能力编造一个关于迷惑、妄想和随后觉醒的故事。他们的经历和地位使这些心不在焉的叛徒将自己塑造成为公共利益服务的诚实的道德仲裁者和专有知识的经纪人。