Edward Snowden quotes - page 4

I do not expect to see home again, though that is what I want. (Edward Snowden)
I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions. View quote
Edward Snowden
I do agree that when it comes to cyber warfare, we have more to lose than any other nation on earth. View quote
Edward Snowden
That's the beauty of the Internet is that we're no longer tied to our communities by physical connections. View quote
Edward Snowden
Most of the secrets the CIA has are about people, not machines and systems, so I didn't feel comfortable with disclosures that I thought could endanger anyone. View quote
Edward Snowden
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? View quote
Edward Snowden
When you are subverting the power of government, that's a fundamentally dangerous thing to democracy. View quote
Edward Snowden
I have had many opportunities to flee HK, but I would rather stay and fight the United States government in the courts, because I have faith in Hong Kong's rule of law. View quote
Edward Snowden
If you ever wonder where we're at on the dystopia scale, consider that it's normal to believe the government is spying on you, and crazy to believe that they're not. View quote
Edward Snowden
If you love the truth, as I think everyone here does - you wouldn't be listening to this, you wouldn't be watching this, you wouldn't be participating in this, you wouldn't care about this, unless something in you told you that something important was happening here... We are unindicted co-conspirators in his quest to raise a lantern in the halls of power. View quote
Edward Snowden
I grew up in the shadow of government. Both my parents worked for the government, and I expected that I would, as well. September 11th happened when I was 18 years old... And when everybody else was protesting the Iraq War, I was volunteering to join it. And that's because I believed the things that the government was saying - not all of them, of course, but I believed that the government was mostly honest, because it seemed to me unreasonable that the government would be willing to risk sort of our long-term faith in the institution of government for short-term political advantage. As I said, I was a very young man. And I ended up going to work for the CIA undercover overseas out in the diplomatic platforms. Then I moved into contracting... because most people go into contracting still working for the government in these classified spaces because you make basically twice as much for the same work.... (Edward Snowden)
He's obviously violated the laws of America, for which he's responsible, but I think the invasion of human rights and American privacy has gone too far ... I think that the secrecy that has been surrounding this invasion of privacy has been excessive, so I think that the bringing of it to the public notice has probably been, in the long term, beneficial. View quote
Edward Snowden
While we can see Snowden's experience as an instructional primer on both the value of whistleblowers and the costs of vilifying them, there are elements of his story-fed by the character assassination reprisal tactics of the government-that perpetuate many of the misperceptions about whistleblowers and contribute to the view that whistleblowers are problems to be addressed, rather than potential solutions. Snowden's case also typifies the most egregious manifestations of the institutional belief that whistleblowers are problems to be addressed rather than sources of risk management and mechanisms for promoting compliance-the focus on the "messenger” rather than the "message.”. View quote
Edward Snowden
Our democracy, as Snowden I think has revealed, has become a fiction. The state, through elaborate forms of political theater, seeks to maintain this fiction to keep us passive. And if we wake up, the state will not shy away from draconian measures. The goal is complete subjugation, the iron rule of our corporations and our power elite. View quote
Edward Snowden
As head of state and government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela I have decided to offer humanitarian asylum to the young US citizen Edward Snowden so he can come to the fatherland of Bolivar and Chavez to live away from the imperial North American persecution. View quote
Edward Snowden
[Snowden]'s done a great service, because he's telling the truth and this is what we are starved for. The American people are starved for the truth. And when you have a dictatorship or an authoritarian government, truth becomes treasonous. For somebody to tell the American people the truth is a heroic effort. View quote
Edward Snowden
In a call with reporters hosted by the Freedom of the Press Foundation on Tuesday, board member John Cusack expressed his umbrage with the media's "character assassination” of Edward Snowden and neglect of The Real Issues. "Why are the red and blue elites in the establishment press so afraid of an informed public?” he asked rhetorically. "Why do they keep changing the subject?” "Have the establishment media been so co-opted by government access that they've lost all sense of proportionality?”. View quote
Edward Snowden