Quote

What we're really debating is not security versus liberty, it's security versus surveillance. When we talk about electronic interception, the way that surveillance works is it preys on the weakness of protections that are being applied to all of our communications. The manner in which they're protected.

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
Talk
Protected
Protections
Really
Manner
Debating
Way
Protection
Communications
Weakness
Surveillance
Communication
Electronic
Works
Prey
Security
Applied
Interceptions
Liberty
Versus
Preys

More quotes by Edward Snowden

Image
Radicalism and extremism, while they are dangers, they exist in every society on some level.
Edward Snowden
Image
Where are we going to reject that easy but flawed process of letting the intelligence services do whatever they want? It's inevitable that it will happen. I think it's going to be where Internet businesses go.
Edward Snowden
Image
Going all the way back to Daniel Ellsberg, it is clear that the government is not concerned with damage to national security, because in none of these cases was there damage.
Edward Snowden
Image
There are proxies, proxy servers on the internet, and this is very typical for hackers to use. They create what are called proxy chains where they gain access to a number of different systems around the world, sometimes by hacking these, and they use them as sort of relay boxes.
Edward Snowden
Image
US administration does not want me to return. People forget how I ended up in Russia. They waited until I departed Hong Kong to cancel my passport in order to trap me in Russia, because it's the most effective attack they have against me, given the political climate in the United States.
Edward Snowden
Image
I have been to the darkest corners of government, and what they fear is light.
Edward Snowden
Image
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
Image
When it comes to political engagement, I'm not a politician - I'm an engineer.
Edward Snowden
Image
I don't care if I end up in jail or Guantánamo or whatever, kicked out of a plane with two gunshots in the face. I did what I did because I believe it is the right thing to do, and I will continue to do that.
Edward Snowden
Image
When we talk about the assertion of basically new government privileges with weak or no justification, we don't even have to look at international law to see the failings in them.
Edward Snowden
Image
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
Image
I'm not a communist, a socialist or a radical. But these issues have to be addressed.
Edward Snowden
Image
The New York Times and The Guardian came out and said, Hey, clemency for Snowden. But for me, the key - and I've said this from the beginning: it's not about me. I don't care if I get clemency. I don't care what happens to me.
Edward Snowden
Image
I read these polls because civil-liberties organizations tell me I need to be aware of public opinion.
Edward Snowden
Image
Society really seems to have developed an unquestioning obedience towards spooky types… Did we get to where we are today via a slippery slope that was entirely within our control to stop? Or was it a relatively instantaneous sea change that sneaked in undetected because of pervasive government secrecy?
Edward Snowden
Image
We decentralise the ability to decide the level of publicity that's attached to any of our communications.
Edward Snowden
Image
These [NSA] programs were never about terrorism: they're about economic spying, social control, and diplomatic manipulation. They're about power.
Edward Snowden
Image
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
Image
When you are subverting the power of government, that's a fundamentally dangerous thing to democracy.
Edward Snowden
Image
No one would argue that it's in the United States' interest to have independent knowledge of the plans and intentions of foreign countries. But we need to think about where to draw the line on these kind of operations so we're not always attacking our allies, the people we trust, the people we need to rely on, and to have them in turn rely on us.
Edward Snowden