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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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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
Tradition
Traditions
Democracy
Expanding
Rights
Preserve
Difficult
Check
Power
Preserves
Government
Liberal
Time
Checks
Civil

More quotes by Edward Snowden

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You would be surprised how effective, at least for influencing low-information voters, negative propaganda about me is.
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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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 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
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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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I saw things that reached a point that I could no longer conscientiously participate with them. And I simply do what I could to allow the public to make a better decision about whether or not these things should continue.
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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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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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
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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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The NSA was actually concerned back in the time of the crypto-wars with improving American security. Nowadays, we see that their priority is weakening our security, just so they have a better chance of keeping an eye on us.
Edward Snowden
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In the end, the Obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers like me, Bradley Manning or Thomas Drake. We are stateless, imprisoned or powerless. No, the Obama administration is afraid of you. It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised - and it should be.
Edward Snowden
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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
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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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It's interesting that you mention [Andrei] Sakharov's creative axis - he had produced something for the government that he then realized was something other than he intended. That's something [NSA whistleblower] Bill Binney and I share.
Edward Snowden
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If I and other whistleblowers are sentenced to long years in prison without so much as a chance to explain our motivations to a jury, it will have a deeply chilling effect on future whistleblowers working as I did to expose government abuse and overreach. It will chill speech. It will corrode the quality of our democracy.
Edward Snowden
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The work of a generation is beginning here, with your hearings, and you have the full measure of my gratitude and support.
Edward Snowden
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The government has granted itself power it is not entitled to. There is no public oversight. The result is people like myself have the latitude to go further than they are allowed to.
Edward Snowden
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They [the authorities] will act aggressively against anyone who has known me. That keeps me up at night.
Edward Snowden
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The Iraq war that I signed up for was launched on false premises. The American people were misled. Now, whether that was due to bad faith or simply mistakes in intelligence, I can't say for sure. But I can say it shows the problem of putting too much faith in intelligence systems without debating them in public.
Edward Snowden