Quote

I'm just another guy who sits there day to day in the office, watching what's happening, and goes, 'This is something that's not our place to decide.' The public needs to decide whether these programs or policies are right or wrong.

Edward Snowden

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Place
Office
Sits
Right
Policy
Programs
Needs
Goes
Policies
Something
Public
Decide
Guy
Happenings
Wrong
Happening
Whether
Watching
Another
Program

More quotes by Edward Snowden

Image
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
Image
There is more action in some other countries. In Germany, they've called for a very serious inquiry that's discovering more and more. They've just discovered a significant violation of the German Constitution that had been concealed from the Parliament.
Edward Snowden
Image
We have got a CIA station just up the road – the consulate here in Hong Kong – and I am sure they are going to be busy for the next week. And that is a concern I will live with for the rest of my life, however long that happens to be.
Edward Snowden
Image
When the US government got word that I was planning to leave Russia to go to Latin America, they brought down the plane of the - the presidential plane, which had diplomatic protection, that had the Bolivian president on board. They closed the airspace in four different countries in Europe, I believe, which was extraordinary, unprecedented.
Edward Snowden
Image
I have had many opportunities to flee HK, but I would rather stay and fight the United States government in the courts, because I have faith in Hong Kong's rule of law.
Edward Snowden
Image
Internet exchanges and internet service providers - international fiber optic landing points - these are the key tools that governments go after in order to enable their programs of mass surveillance. If they want to be able to watch the entire population of a country instead of a single individual, you have to go after those bulk interchanges.
Edward Snowden
Image
The immoral cannot be made moral through the use of secret law.
Edward Snowden
Image
A zero-day exploit is a method of hacking a system. It's sort of a vulnerability that has an exploit written for it, sort of a key and a lock that go together to a given software package. It could be an internet web server. It could be Microsoft Office. It could be Adobe Reader or it could be Facebook.
Edward Snowden
Image
Are our competitors - for example, China, which is a deeply authoritarian nation - becoming more authoritarian or more liberal over time?
Edward Snowden
Image
The power of the presidency is important, but it is not determinative.
Edward Snowden
Image
I read these polls because civil-liberties organizations tell me I need to be aware of public opinion.
Edward Snowden
Image
Extremists are not going to disappear.
Edward Snowden
Image
Citizens have to fight suppression of information on matters of vital public importance. To tell the truth is not a crime.
Edward Snowden
Image
We have to confront the reality of our world, and make the hard decisions about which way we want to move forward.
Edward Snowden
Image
The internet has to be protected from intrusive monitoring or else the medium upon which we all rely for the basis of our economy and our normal life, we'll lose that, and it's going to have broad effects as a consequence that we cannot predict.
Edward Snowden
Image
We have to call mass surveillance mass surveillance. We can't let governments around the world redefine, and sort of weasel their way out of it by saying this is bulk collection.
Edward Snowden
Image
All I wanted was for the public to be able to have a say in how they are governed. That is a milestone we left a long time ago.
Edward Snowden
Image
And that's not something I'm willing to support, it's not something I'm willing to build and it's not something I'm willing to live under.
Edward Snowden
Image
We don't have to ask for our privacy, we can take it back.
Edward Snowden
Image
People have to be free to investigate computer security. People have to be free to look for the vulnerabilities and create proof of concept code to show that they are true vulnerabilities in order for us to secure our systems.
Edward Snowden