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The surveillance revelations are critically important because they revealed that our rights are being redefined in secret, by secret courts that were never intended to have that role - without the consent of the public, without even the awareness of the majority of our political representatives.

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
Rights
Intended
Secret
Revelations
Redefined
Political
Court
Critically
Without
Majority
Surveillance
Important
Role
Courts
Even
Awareness
Consent
Never
Roles
Representatives
Public
Revealed

More quotes by Edward Snowden

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Citizens have to fight suppression of information on matters of vital public importance. To tell the truth is not a crime.
Edward Snowden
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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
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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
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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 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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These [NSA] programs were never about terrorism: they're about economic spying, social control, and diplomatic manipulation. They're about power.
Edward Snowden
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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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Let's put it this way. The United States government has assembled a massive investigation team into me personally, into my work with the journalists, and they still have no idea what documents were provided to the journalist, what they have, what they don't have, because encryption works.
Edward Snowden
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I have been to the darkest corners of government, and what they fear is light.
Edward Snowden
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I considered bringing forward information about these surveillance programs prior to the election, but I held off because I believed that [Barack] Obama was genuine when he said he was going to change things. I wanted to give the democratic process time to work.
Edward Snowden
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I told the government I'd volunteer for prison, as long as it served the right purpose.
Edward Snowden
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There is a technical solution to every political problem...
Edward Snowden
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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
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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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My government revoked my passport intentionally to leave me exiled. If they really wanted to capture me, they would've allowed me to travel to Latin America, because the CIA can operate with impunity down there. They did not want that they chose to keep me in Russia.
Edward Snowden
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There are cyber threats out there, this is a dangerous world, and we have to be safe, we have to be secure no matter the cost.
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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The new iPhone encryption does not stop them from accessing copies of your pictures or whatever that are uploaded to, for example, Apple's cloud service, which are still legally accessible because those are not encrypted. It only protects what's physically on the phone.
Edward Snowden
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We have to be able to ask questions in order to answer them.
Edward Snowden
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Something we have to remember is that everything about the internet is interconnected. All of our systems are not just common to us because of the network links between them, but because of the software packages, because of the hardware devices that comprise it. The same router that's deployed in the United States is deployed in China.
Edward Snowden