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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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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
Rulers
Leaders
Subjects
Citizens
Longer
Leader
More quotes by Edward Snowden
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
Ever since I've been here [in Russia], my life has been consumed with work that's actually fulfilling and satisfying.
Edward Snowden
I told the government I'd volunteer for prison, as long as it served the right purpose.
Edward Snowden
You can't come up against the world's most powerful intelligence agencies and not accept the risk. If they want to get you, over time they will.
Edward Snowden
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
If a single Russian source would come forward, he would be in hot water. And in the United States, what I did appearing at that [Vladimir] Putin press conference was not worth the price.
Edward Snowden
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
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
It's becoming less and less the National Security Agency and more and more the national surveillance agency. It's gaining more offensive powers with each passing year.
Edward Snowden
The consent of the governed is not consent if it is not informed.
Edward Snowden
As for labeling someone a whistleblower, I think it does them - it does all of us - a disservice, because it otherizes us.
Edward Snowden
Initially I was very encouraged. Unfortunately, the mainstream media now seems far more interested in what I said when I was 17 or what my girlfriend looks like rather than, say, the largest program of suspicionless surveillance in human history.
Edward Snowden
Are our competitors - for example, China, which is a deeply authoritarian nation - becoming more authoritarian or more liberal over time?
Edward Snowden
[Occupy Wall Street] had an impact on consciousness. It was not effective in realizing change.
Edward Snowden
They still have negligent auditing, they still have things going for a walk, and they have no idea where they're coming from and they have no idea where they're going. And if that's the case, how can we as the public trust the NSA with all of our information, with all of our private records, the permanent record of our lives?
Edward Snowden
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
If we can't have an open and honest debate about the value of ideas in a university in Glasgow, or Boston, or anywhere else in the world, then where are they going to go?
Edward Snowden
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
The people at the NSA aren't trying to ruin your life. They're not trying to put you in authoritarian dystopia. These are normal people trying to do good work in hard circumstances.
Edward Snowden
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
