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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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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
Example
Public
Ability
Interest
Explicitly
Government
Charges
Make
Denied
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More quotes by Edward Snowden

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I'm saying we need to be aware of it, and we need to be able to distinguish when political developments are occurring that are contrary to the public interest.
Edward Snowden
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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
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They still have negligent auditing, they still have things going for a walk, and they have no idea where they're coming from and they have no idea where they're going. And if that's the case, how can we as the public trust the NSA with all of our information, with all of our private records, the permanent record of our lives?
Edward Snowden
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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
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One journalist said that everybody in Russia is miserable. Russia is a terrible place. And I'm going to end up miserable and I'm going to be a drunk and I'm never going to do anything. I don't drink. I've never been drunk in my life. And they talk about Russia like it's the worst place on earth. Russia's great.
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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These activities can be misconstrued, misinterpreted, and used to harm you as an individual even without the government having any intent to do you wrong.
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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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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There have been so many individuals who have really put a lot on the line. That they've sacrificed so much to try to protect the principle of source protection in the journalism world. And I think Julian Assange, and WikiLeaks, and Sarah Harrison have really been extraordinary in standing up for that.
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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I was living a charmed life.
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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A zero-day exploit is a method of hacking a system. It's sort of a vulnerability that has an exploit written for it, sort of a key and a lock that go together to a given software package. It could be an internet web server. It could be Microsoft Office. It could be Adobe Reader or it could be Facebook.
Edward Snowden
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I have been a systems engineer, systems administrator, a senior adviser for the Central Intelligence Agency, a solutions consultant and a telecommunications information systems officer.
Edward Snowden
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Americans 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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We've learned that we've allowed technological capabilities to dictate policies and practices, rather than ensuring that our laws and values guide our technological capabilities.
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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I describe myself as an indoor cat, because I'm a computer guy and I always have been.
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