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Everyone everywhere now understands how bad things have gotten — and they’re talking about it. They have the power to decide for themselves whether they are willing to sacrifice their privacy to the surveillance state.

Edward Snowden

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Edward Snowden
Age: 41
Born: 1983
Born: June 21
Computer Scientist
Dissident
Intelligence Analyst
Intelligence Officer
Security Guard
System Administrator
Whistleblower
Elizabeth City
North Carolina
Edward Joseph Snowden
Ed Snowden
Power
Decide
States
Everywhere
Things
Sacrifice
Willing
State
Surveillance
Talking
Understands
Whether
Privacy
Everyone
Gotten

More quotes by Edward Snowden

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While the US Constitution marks these programs as illegal, my government argues that secret court rulings, which the world is not permitted to see, somehow legitimize an illegal affair. These rulings simply corrupt the most basic notion of justice - that it must be seen to be done. The immoral cannot be made moral through the use of secret law.
Edward Snowden
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People in both parties from the congressional intelligence committees - all these co-opted officials who play cheerleader for spy agencies - go on these Sunday shows and they say: Snowden was a traitor. He works against Americans. He works for the Chinese. Oh, wait, he left Hong Kong - he works for the Russians.
Edward Snowden
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Before 2013, if you said the NSA was making records of everybody's phone calls and the [Government Communications Headquarters] was monitoring lawyers and journalists, people raised eyebrows and called you a conspiracy theorist. Those days are over.
Edward Snowden
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My perspective is if you're not willing to be called a few names to help out your country, you don't care enough.
Edward Snowden
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There were no whistleblower protections that would've protected me - and that's known to everybody in the intelligence community. There are no proper channels for making this information available when the system fails comprehensively.
Edward Snowden
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We've learned that we've allowed technological capabilities to dictate policies and practices, rather than ensuring that our laws and values guide our technological capabilities.
Edward Snowden
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The charges [government] brought against me, for example, explicitly denied my ability to make a public-interest defense.
Edward Snowden
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Being confronted with the realization that work you intended to benefit people is being used against them has a radicalizing effect.
Edward Snowden
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We watch our own people more closely than anyone else in the world.
Edward Snowden
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Radicalism and extremism, while they are dangers, they exist in every society on some level.
Edward Snowden
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The government would assert that individuals who are aware of serious wrongdoing in the intelligence community should bring their concerns to the people most responsible for that wrongdoing, and rely on those people to correct the problems that those people themselves authorized.
Edward Snowden
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What we're seeing now, or starting to see, is an atomization of the Internet community. Before, everybody went only to a few sites now we've got all these boutiques.
Edward Snowden
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I went to a website the other day and right at the top of the page it showed me my ip address. It was the most disturbing moment I have ever experienced. This website even told me what internet browser I was using, and what day it was. Computers can do anything.
Edward Snowden
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I don't want to hide. If I get arrested, I get arrested.
Edward Snowden
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We have seen enough criminality on the part of government. It is hypocritical to make this allegation against me. They have narrowed the public sphere of influence.
Edward Snowden
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There are times throughout history and it doesn't take long for either an American or a German, to think about times in the history of their country where the law provided the Government to do things which were not right.
Edward Snowden
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It also comes down to parenting. It is important to know what your beliefs are, and that you have to stand up for them or you don't really believe in them. You know, my father and mother - in fact, every member of my immediate family - have worked for the federal government. Sometimes misunderstood is that I didn't stand up to overthrow the system.
Edward Snowden
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We have these traditional political parties that are less and less responsive to the needs of ordinary people, so people are in search of their own values.
Edward Snowden
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I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions, and that the return of this information to the public marks my end.
Edward Snowden
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I would rather be without a state than without a voice.
Edward Snowden