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All I was was a mechanism.

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
Mechanism

More quotes by 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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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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Your rights matter, because you never know when you're going to need them.
Edward Snowden
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At the trial of Chelsea Manning, the government could point to no case of specific damage that had been caused by the massive revelation of classified information. The charges are a reaction to the government's embarrassment more than genuine concern about these activities, or they would substantiate what harms were done.
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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The United States need to be focusing more on creating a more secure, more reliable, more robust, and more trusted internet, not one that's weaker, not one that relies on this systemic model of exploiting every vulnerability, every threat out there.
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
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I have used mass surveillance to target people, so I do know how it works.
Edward Snowden
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I know that fundamentally, changes to the fabric of the internet, and sort of our methods of communication, can enforce our rights.
Edward Snowden
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[Occupy Wall Street] had an impact on consciousness. It was not effective in realizing change.
Edward Snowden
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It also comes down to parenting. It is important to know what your beliefs are, and that you have to stand up for them or you don't really believe in them. You know, my father and mother - in fact, every member of my immediate family - have worked for the federal government. Sometimes misunderstood is that I didn't stand up to overthrow the system.
Edward Snowden
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As for labeling someone a whistleblower, I think it does them - it does all of us - a disservice, because it otherizes us.
Edward Snowden
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I'm not an anarchist. I'm not saying, Burn it to the ground.
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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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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What is right is not always the same as what is legal
Edward Snowden
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We have to decide why terrorism is a new threat. There has always been terrorism.
Edward Snowden
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Do you check it when you travel, do you check it when you're just at home? They'd be able to tell something called your 'pattern of life.' When are you doing these kind of activities? When do you wake up? When do you go to sleep? What other phones are around you when you wake up and go to sleep? Are you with someone who's not your wife?
Edward Snowden
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We don't have to ask for our privacy, we can take it back.
Edward Snowden
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We have seen enough criminality on the part of government. It is hypocritical to make this allegation against me. They have narrowed the public sphere of influence.
Edward Snowden