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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
Things
Sacrifice
Willing
State
Surveillance
Talking
Understands
Whether
Privacy
Everyone
Gotten
Power
Decide
States
Everywhere

More quotes by Edward Snowden

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There have been so many individuals who have really put a lot on the line. That they've sacrificed so much to try to protect the principle of source protection in the journalism world. And I think Julian Assange, and WikiLeaks, and Sarah Harrison have really been extraordinary in standing up for that.
Edward Snowden
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Radicals are not going to disappear. They're going to go underground. They're going to be hardened. And they're not going to be exposed to contrary ideas made by educated people who can make real, convincing, and persuasive arguments to deradicalise these people.
Edward Snowden
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People would publish their websites other people would read them. But there was no real back and forth other than through e-mail. Web 2.0 was what they called the collaborative web - Facebook, Twitter, the social media.
Edward Snowden
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The question of whether I, as a whistleblower, should be pardoned, is not for me to answer.
Edward Snowden
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I talk to cryptographers, some of the leading technologists in the world, all the time about how we can deal with these issues. It is not possible to create a back door that is only accessible, for example, to the FBI.
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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We are all today being monitored in advance and in criminal suspicion. And I think that's terrifying, and deeply illiberal as concept. And that's something that we should reject.
Edward Snowden
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There can be no faith in government if our highest offices are excused from scrutiny - they should be setting the example of transparency.
Edward Snowden
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Properly implemented strong crypto systems are one of the few things that you can rely on.
Edward Snowden
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My intention is to ask the courts and people of Hong Kong to decide my fate.
Edward Snowden
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When it comes to cyber conflicts between, say, America and China or even a Middle Eastern nation, an African nation, a Latin American nation, a European nation, we have more to lose.
Edward Snowden
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Privacy is a function of liberty.
Edward Snowden
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I wasn't trying to change the laws or slow down the machine. Maybe I should have. My critics say that I was not revolutionary enough. But they forget that I am a product of the system. I worked those desks, I know those people and I still have some faith in them, that the services can be reformed.
Edward Snowden
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Ending mass surveillance of private phone calls under the Patriot Act is a historic victory for the rights of every citizen. Yet while we have reformed this one program, many others remain.
Edward Snowden
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Most of the secrets the CIA has are about people, not machines and systems, so I didn't feel comfortable with disclosures that I thought could endanger anyone.
Edward Snowden
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One of the reasons that I came forward and sort burned of my life to the ground, and I can't go back and see my family in the United States - I obviously lost my job, which I was quite comfortable with. I lost my home. It was because I felt there was no alternative.
Edward Snowden
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I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong.
Edward Snowden
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The immoral cannot be made moral through the use of secret law.
Edward Snowden
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I have been a systems engineer, systems administrator, a senior adviser for the Central Intelligence Agency, a solutions consultant and a telecommunications information systems officer.
Edward Snowden
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I carefully evaluated every single document I disclosed to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest. There are all sorts of documents that would have made a big impact that I didn't turn over, because harming people isn't my goal. Transparency is.
Edward Snowden