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We have to be able to ask questions in order to answer them.

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
Answers
Asks
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Able
Questions
Answer

More quotes by 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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I don't want to directly confront great powers, which we cannot defeat on their terms. They have more money, more clout, more airtime. We cannot be effective without a mass movement, and the American people today are too comfortable to adapt to a mass movement.
Edward Snowden
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If you’re not acting on your beliefs, then they probably aren’t real.
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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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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People in both parties from the congressional intelligence committees - all these co-opted officials who play cheerleader for spy agencies - go on these Sunday shows and they say: Snowden was a traitor. He works against Americans. He works for the Chinese. Oh, wait, he left Hong Kong - he works for the Russians.
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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When Clapper raised his hand and lied to the American public, was anyone tried? Were any charges brought? Within 24 hours of going public, I had three charges against me.
Edward Snowden
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As a general rule, US-based multinationals should not be trusted until they prove otherwise. This is sad, because they have the capability to provide the best and most trusted services in the world if they actually desire to do so.
Edward Snowden
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The question for us is not what new story will come out next. The question is, what are we going to do about it?
Edward Snowden
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You're not patriotic just because you back whoever's in power today or their policies. You're patriotic when you work to improve the lives of the people of your country, your community and your family. Sometimes that means making hard choices, choices that go against your personal interest.
Edward Snowden
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Before 2013, if you said the NSA was making records of everybody's phone calls and the [Government Communications Headquarters] was monitoring lawyers and journalists, people raised eyebrows and called you a conspiracy theorist. Those days are over.
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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Being confronted with the realization that work you intended to benefit people is being used against them has a radicalizing effect.
Edward Snowden
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All I was was a mechanism.
Edward Snowden
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We've got crazy little sites going up against established media behemoths.
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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The majority of people in developed countries spend at least some time interacting with the Internet, and Governments are abusing that necessity in secret to extend their powers beyond what is necessary and appropriate.
Edward Snowden
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You don't need to justify your rights as a citizen - that inverts the model of responsibility. The government must justify its intrusion into your rights. If you stop defending your rights by saying, I don't need them in this context or I can't understand this, they are no longer rights.
Edward Snowden
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The work of a generation is beginning here, with your hearings, and you have the full measure of my gratitude and support.
Edward Snowden