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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

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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
People
Aren
Circumstances
Normal
Hard
Dystopia
Trying
Nsa
Work
Authoritarian
Good
Ruin
Life
Ruins

More quotes by Edward Snowden

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We hack everyone everywhere. We like to make a distinction between us and the others. But we are in almost every country in the world. We are not at war with these countries.
Edward Snowden
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I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions, and that the return of this information to the public marks my end.
Edward Snowden
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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
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Every time you pick up the phone, dial a number, write an e-mail, make a purchase, travel on the bus carrying a cell phone, swipe a card somewhere, you leave a trace, and the Government has decided that it's good idea to collect it all, everything, even if you've never been suspected of doing a crime.
Edward Snowden
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Hong Kong has a reputation for freedom in spite of the People's Republic of China. It has a strong tradition of free speech.
Edward Snowden
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I would rather be without a state than without a voice.
Edward Snowden
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When it comes to cyber conflicts between, say, America and China or even a Middle Eastern nation, an African nation, a Latin American nation, a European nation, we have more to lose.
Edward Snowden
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Technology provides us means outside of governments to begin enforcing our rights, enforcing protection of civil liberties, regardless of law, through the implementation of systems and standards.
Edward Snowden
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I believe that when [senator Ron] Wyden and [senator Mark] Udall asked about the scale of this, they [the NSA] said it did not have the tools to provide an answer. We do have the tools and I have maps showing where people have been scrutinised most. We collect more digital communications from America than we do from the Russians.
Edward Snowden
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Are our competitors - for example, China, which is a deeply authoritarian nation - becoming more authoritarian or more liberal over time?
Edward Snowden
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I will be satisfied if the federation of secret law, unequal pardon and irresistible executive powers that rule the world that I love are revealed even for an instant.
Edward Snowden
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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
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I don't want to hide. If I get arrested, I get arrested.
Edward Snowden
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I talk to cryptographers, some of the leading technologists in the world, all the time about how we can deal with these issues. It is not possible to create a back door that is only accessible, for example, to the FBI.
Edward Snowden
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The charges [government] brought against me, for example, explicitly denied my ability to make a public-interest defense.
Edward Snowden
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People would publish their websites other people would read them. But there was no real back and forth other than through e-mail. Web 2.0 was what they called the collaborative web - Facebook, Twitter, the social media.
Edward Snowden
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I don't want to live in a world where everything that I say, everything I do, everyone I talk to, every expression of creativity or love or friendship is recorded.
Edward Snowden
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I'm still working for the government.
Edward Snowden
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Nobody's going to vote for Isis.
Edward Snowden
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In the United States and some of the other countries involved it's sort of a five eyes global spying alliance. That's the US, UK, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. They've had a little bit of a more muscular public response. Now, they haven't been satisfying or really meaningful in any country yet. But they have been engaging.
Edward Snowden