Top 511 Quotes & Sayings by Edward Snowden - Page 2

If I could go anywhere in the world, that place would be home.

I never chose to be in Russia, and I would prefer to be in my own country, but if I can't make it home, I will continue to work very much in the same way that I have... What happens to me is not as important; I simply serve as the mechanism of disclosure.

I've been a spy for almost all of my adult life - I don't like being in the spotlight.

It's been vindicating to see the reaction from lawmakers, judges, public bodies around the world, civil liberties activists who have said it's true that we have a right to at least know the broad outlines of what our government's doing in our name and what it's doing against us.

If they had taught a class on how to be the kind of citizen Dick Cheney worries about, I would have finished high school.

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?

All I can say right now is the U.S. government is not going to be able to cover this up by jailing or murdering me. Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped.

The NSA has the greatest surveillance capabilities in American history... The real problem is that they're using these capabilities to make us vulnerable.

My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them.

When you are subverting the power of government, that's a fundamentally dangerous thing to democracy.

Suspicionless surveillance does not become okay simply because it's only victimizing 95% of the world instead of 100%.

I do not expect to see home again, though that is what I want.

All I wanted was for the public to be able to have a say in how they are governed. That is a milestone we left a long time ago.

When people say, 'Why don't you face the music?' I say, 'You have to understand the music is not an open court and a fair trial.'

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.

My intention is to ask the courts and people of Hong Kong to decide my fate.

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.

I support a guaranteed basic income. I think we should take care of sick people. I believe women can make their own choices and that the government is at its best when it's building bridges instead of bombs.

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.

I have had no contact with the Chinese government. I only work with journalists.

A lot of people in 2008 voted for Obama. I did not vote for him. I voted for a third party. But I believed in Obama's promises.

Ask yourself: if I were a Chinese spy, why wouldn't I have flown directly into Beijing? I could be living in a palace petting a phoenix by now.

The United States Government has placed me on no-fly lists.

I’m neither traitor nor hero. I’m an American.

The US government still has no idea what documents I have because encryption works

Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped.

We don't have to ask for our privacy, we can take it back.

The issue is we're losing leverage. Governments are increasingly getting more power and we are increasingly losing our ability to control that power, and even to be aware of that power.

Your rights matter, because you never know when you're going to need them.

Allowing the U.S. government to intimidate its people with threats of retaliation for revealing wrongdoing is contrary to the public interest.

A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all. They'll never know what it means to have a private moment to themselves an unrecorded, unanalysed thought. And that's a problem because privacy matters, privacy is what allows us to determine who we are and who we want to be.

You simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody even by a wrong call. And then they can use this system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you've ever made, every friend you've ever discussed something with. And attack you on that basis to sort to derive suspicion from an innocent life and paint anyone in the context of a wrongdoer.

Being a patriot doesn’t mean prioritizing service to government above all else. Being a patriot means knowing when to protect your country, knowing when to protect your Constitution, knowing when to protect your countrymen, from the violations of and encroachments of adversaries. And those adversaries don’t have to be foreign countries.

We do not live in a revolutionary time. People are not prepared to contest power.

These [NSA] programs were never about terrorism: they're about economic spying, social control, and diplomatic manipulation. They're about power.

When you say, ‘I have nothing to hide,’ you’re saying, ‘I don’t care about this right.’ You’re saying, ‘I don’t have this right, because I’ve got to the point where I have to justify it.’ The way rights work is, the government has to justify its intrusion into your rights.

I have been to the darkest corners of government, and what they fear is light.

We are no longer citizens, we no longer have leaders. We're subjects, and we have rulers.

Every time you pick up the phone, dial a number, write an e-mail, make a purchase, travel on the bus carrying a cell phone, swipe a card somewhere, you leave a trace, and the Government has decided that it's good idea to collect it all, everything, even if you've never been suspected of doing a crime.

I don't want to live in a world where everything that I say, everything I do, everyone I talk to, every expression of creativity or love or friendship is recorded.

What is right is not always the same as what is legal

You have to remember the way the internet works, when you communicate with the server, it's very likely not in your country. It's somewhere else in the world.

I don't want to live in a world where there's no privacy, and therefore no room for intellectual exploration and creativity.

Because, remember, I didn't want to change society. I wanted to give society a chance to determine if it should change itself.

The great fear that I have regarding the outcome for America of these disclosures is that nothing will change. [People] won't be willing to take the risks necessary to stand up and fight to change things And in the months ahead, the years ahead, it's only going to get worse. [The NSA will] say that because of the crisis, the dangers that we face in the world, some new and unpredicted threat, we need more authority, we need more power, and there will be nothing the people can do at that point to oppose it. And it will be turnkey tyranny.

I had been looking for leaders, but I realized that leadership is about being the first to act.

Our rights are not granted by governments. They are inherent to our nature. But it's entirely the opposite for governments: their privileges are precisely equal to only those which we suffer them to enjoy.

Any analyst at any time can target anyone. Any selector, anywhere I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the President

The US government is not going to be able to cover this up by jailing or murdering me. Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped.

If we don't do anything, if we go along with the status quo, we are going to have a mass surveillance world.

There have been times throughout American history where what is right is not the same as what is legal. Sometimes to do the right thing you have to break the law.

Privacy is a function of liberty.

If you’re not acting on your beliefs, then they probably aren’t real.

A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all.

Privacy matters; privacy is what allows us to determine who we are and who we want to be.

The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything.

It's really hard to take that step-not only do I believe in something, I believe in it enough that I'm willing to set my own life on fire and burn it to the ground.

Arguing that you don't care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say.

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.

It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised - and it should be.