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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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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
Simply
Decision
Conscientiously
Public
Participate
Point
Reached
Whether
Allow
Better
Continue
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More quotes by Edward Snowden

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I'm just another guy who sits there day to day in the office, watching what's happening, and goes, 'This is something that's not our place to decide.' The public needs to decide whether these programs or policies are right or wrong.
Edward Snowden
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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
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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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Even if you're not doing anything wrong, you are being watched and recorded.
Edward Snowden
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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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We are no longer citizens, we no longer have leaders. We're subjects, and we have rulers.
Edward Snowden
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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
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We can plant bugs in machines. Once you go on the network, I can identify your machine. You will never be safe whatever protections you put in place.
Edward Snowden
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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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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
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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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I don't think there's anything, any threat out there today that anyone can point to, that justifies placing an entire population under mass surveillance.
Edward Snowden
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The government doesn't want us to know what they're doing, how they're interpreting the law, how they're interpreting and redefining their powers, and increasingly, how they're redefining the boundaries of our rights and our liberties, broadly, socially, and categorically without our involvement.
Edward Snowden
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Richard Nixon got kicked out of Washington for tapping one hotel suite. Today we're tapping every American citizen in the country, and no one has been put on trial for it or even investigated. We don't even have an inquiry into it.
Edward Snowden
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So when they say I'm a low-level systems administrator, that I don't know what I'm talking about, I'd say it's somewhat misleading.
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
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I went to a website the other day and right at the top of the page it showed me my ip address. It was the most disturbing moment I have ever experienced. This website even told me what internet browser I was using, and what day it was. Computers can do anything.
Edward Snowden
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When you use any kind of internet based capability, any kind of electronic capability, to cause damage to a private entity or a foreign nation or a foreign actor, these are potential acts of war.
Edward Snowden
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Ultimately, if people lose their willingness to recognize that there are times in our history when legality becomes distinct from morality, we aren't just ceding control of our rights to the government, but our futures.
Edward Snowden
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If I am traitor, who did I betray? I gave all my information to the American public, to American journalists who are reporting on American issues. If they see that as treason, I think people really need to consider who they think they're working for. The public is supposed to be their boss, not their enemy.
Edward Snowden