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I’m neither traitor nor hero. I’m an American.

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
American
Nsa
Traitor
Neither
Hero

More quotes by Edward Snowden

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Until we reform our laws and until we fix the excesses of these old policies that we inherited in the post-9/11 era, we're not going to be able to put the security back in the NSA.
Edward Snowden
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We have to confront the reality of our world, and make the hard decisions about which way we want to move forward.
Edward Snowden
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The government doesn't want us to know what they're doing, how they're interpreting the law, how they're interpreting and redefining their powers, and increasingly, how they're redefining the boundaries of our rights and our liberties, broadly, socially, and categorically without our involvement.
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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If you’re not acting on your beliefs, then they probably aren’t real.
Edward Snowden
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I know the media likes to personalize political debates, and I know the government will demonize me.
Edward Snowden
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I'm saying we need to be aware of it, and we need to be able to distinguish when political developments are occurring that are contrary to the public interest.
Edward Snowden
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As inequality grows, the basic bonds of social fraternity are fraying - as we discussed in regard to Occupy Wall Street. As tensions increase, people will become more willing to engage in protest. But that moment is not now.
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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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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For me, in terms of personal satisfaction, the mission's already accomplished. I already won. As soon as the journalists were able to work, everything that I had been trying to do was validated. Because, remember, I didn't want to change society. I wanted to give society a chance to determine if it should change itself.
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'm still working for the government.
Edward Snowden
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When it comes to political engagement, I'm not a politician - I'm an engineer.
Edward Snowden
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The question for us is not what new story will come out next. The question is, what are we going to do about it?
Edward Snowden
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[Brazil] went to the UN and said, We need new standards for this. We need to take a look at what they're calling data sovereignty.
Edward Snowden
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We are no longer citizens, we no longer have leaders. We're subjects, and we have rulers.
Edward Snowden
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After 9/11, many of the most important news outlets in America abdicated their role as a check to power - the journalistic responsibility to challenge the excesses of government - for fear of being seen as unpatriotic and punished in the market during a period of heightened nationalism.
Edward Snowden
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How do we preserve our civil rights, our traditions as a liberal democracy, in a time when government power is expanding and is more and more difficult to check?
Edward Snowden
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There's not much value to us attacking Chinese systems. We might take a few computers offline. We might take a factory offline. We might steal secrets from a university research programs, and even something high-tech. But how much more does the United States spend on research and development than China does?
Edward Snowden