Top 143 Snowden Quotes & Sayings

What Edward Snowden did amounted to the greatest hemorrhaging of legitimate American secrets in the history of my nation.

Whatever you think of Edward Snowden, it took bravery to do what he did.

Man was matter, that was Snowden's secret. Drop him out a window, and he'll fall. Set fire to him and he'll burn. Bury him and he'll rot, like other kinds of garbage. The spirit gone, man is garbage. That was Snowden's secret. Ripeness was all.

My links to WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden mean I am treated as a threat and can't return to the U.K.

Mr. Snowden is a coward who has chosen to run.

There are no consequences for Snowden breaking the law in Snowden's World. It's where his massively inflated ego dictates the rules and determines which he will follow.

No offense to Iceland, but Latin America is where the fugitive leaker Edward Snowden should settle.

Scott's Eastwood movie Snowden sounds fascinating. I want to see it because it's about deserting your country ... for whatever reasons you have. Edward Snowden became famous for the wrong reasons, as Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger became famous for doing something spectacular.

We believe Russian-American relations are broader and larger than emotions and mutual grudges, including the situation with the U.S. fugitive Edward Snowden.

I never praised Mr. Snowden or said his actions rise to those of Mohandas Gandhi or other civil rights leaders.

Snowden has demonstrated true love for his country. He has done something to improve the lives of people.

We don't stand here alone, it's possible through the great organisations that support us. The disclosures that Edward Snowden revealed aren't only a threat to privacy but to democracy, when the most important decisions made affect all of us. Thank you to Edward Snowden. I share this with Glenn Greenwald and other journalists who are exposing truth.

Any government that likes to call themselves democratic should welcome Snowden and allow him to live in their country.

A pardon for Edward Snowden would be good for America and would help burnish the president's legacy as one of the primary defenders of human rights.

It's not exactly an interview that's going on [in documentary]. I guess we do ask Edward Snowden some questions and we're recording him answering them and so on like that.

The Snowden leaks did cause damage.

For months, Obama administration officials attacked Snowden's motives and said the work of the NSA was distorted by selective leaks and misinterpretations.

The United States should give former NSA contractor Edward Snowden immunity from prosecution in exchange for congressional testimony.

ISIS is a learning enemy, and former Deputy Director of NSA Chris Inglis says that they have gone to school on the documents released by Edward Snowden and have changed their communications practices.

Snowden is almost preternaturally prepossessing and self-possessed. I think of a novelist whose dream character just walks into his or her head. It must have been like that with you and Snowden. But what if he'd been a graying guy with the same documents and far less intelligent things to say about them? In other words, how exactly did who he was make your movie and remake our world?

Saving Edward Snowden from prison is one of WikiLeaks' achievements of which I am most proud.

I was very happy to learn Oliver Stone had decided to make a film about Edward Snowden and believe this is a powerful and inspiring film.

I had traveled to Russia and met with Snowden, which was a pretty involved meeting that required encrypted communication and the like. And it was fascinating because of who he is and what he's done. And more so because what's going on between our two countries, Russia and the U.S., and to meet Edward Snowden in Russia was unforgettable.

There's no prospect that the Russians are going to send Snowden back. Snowden is in the land of spy swaps now. Putin is not going to give this guy up for nothing.

Pardoning Snowden would be a powerful way for the president to acknowledge that the government did wrong, kept us in the dark, acted unconstitutionally. And but for the actions of Edward Snowden, we would still be in a very dark place.

Snowden has presented us with choices on how we want to move forward into the future. We're at a crossroads and we still don't quite know which path we're going to take. Without Snowden, just about everyone would still be in the dark about the amount of information the government is collecting. I think that Snowden has changed consciousness about the dangers of surveillance.

The [Edward] Snowden disclosures created this perception that people's privacy was being put at significant risk.

My assessment of Julian Assange is a professional one, really, of what he's managed to achieve, and the idea that he came up with, which set the world alight and continues to inspire others like Snowden [NSA leaker Edward Snowden], about the secret goings-on that are done in our name with our tax dollars on behalf of big business or politics. He launched the revolutionary idea that citizens can start to claim back a paradigm for questioning power structures and those in authority through an anonymous, whistle-blowing website.

I was reading through all these NSA programs that Snowden has revealed, and one of the ones that fascinated me was that smart TVs can be used to look at you in your room. That is totally like the telescreen from 1984. It's not sort of like it, it's not a lot like it, it is it. And the ability of the NSA to turn on your cell phone, even if it's powered down, and listen to you in your home - that's insane to me. People had been warning that 1984 was just around the corner. Well, it has arrived, and Snowden has proven that.

I've had some pretty stimulating conversations about where we are politically as a result of this movie [Snowden], but then there are a lot of questions just about that sensationalism of it.

Was the leaker in question, Ed Snowden, was he a traitor?

Snowden is an orderly thinker, with an engineer's approach to problem-solving.

Look at Snowden or Julian Assange. In their own way, they are free without restrictions. They are dropped in a place because of political reasons.

I hope we follow Mr. Snowden to the ends of the Earth to bring him to justice.

Edward Snowden: The Whistleblower Behind the NSA Surveillance Revelations

I am incrementally a pessimist, but I see the international debate that Edward Snowden has engendered, and I think this is exactly where the discussion should be. So, I would say I'm more optimistic than pessimistic.

[Edward Snowden and his team] they're great characters. They're fascinating people. They were in an extraordinary situation.

The NSA is already bugging everything that everybody does. Each time there's a new revelation from Snowden, you realise the extent of it.

I worked with people like Edward Snowden. Well, not people who took stuff home.

What I believe is that a lot of the NSA's telephone metadata program is the result of misinformation spread by a traitor, Edward Snowden.

Snowden is the thoughtful, courageous saint of liberal reform. And Julian Assange is a sort of radical, feral prophet who has been prowling this wilderness since he was 16 years old.

I was really not familiar at all with Edward Snowden. I like to get that right out of the way and really learned most of what I know from Oliver's [Stones] script.

Even the former Attorney General of the United States Eric Holder has come out to say that he believed that [Edward] Snowden performed a public service, and I couldn't agree more.

Yossarian was cold, too, and shivering uncontrollably. He felt goose pimples clacking all over him as he gazed down despondently at the grim secret Snowden had spilled all over the messy floor. It was easy to read the message in his entrails. Man was matter, that was Snowden's secret. Drop him out a window and he'll fall. Set fire to him and he'll burn. Bury him and he'll rot, like other kinds of garbage. The spirit gone, man is garbage. That was Snowden's secret. Ripeness was all. I'm cold,' Snowden said. 'I'm cold.

Let us not compare Edward Snowden's situation with that of Chelsea Manning or Jeremy Hammond, who is also imprisoned in the United States. As a result of WikiLeaks' hard work, Edward Snowden has political asylum, has travel documents, lives with his girlfriend, goes to the ballet and earns substantial speaking fees. Edward Snowden is essentially free and happy. That is no coincidence. It was my strategy to undo the chilling effect of the 35 year Manning sentence and it has worked.

I’m cold,' Snowden said softly, 'I’m cold.' 'You’re going to be all right, kid,' Yossarian reassured him with a grin. 'You’re going to be all right.' 'I’m cold,' Snowden said again in a frail, childlike voice. 'I’m cold.' 'There, there,' Yossarian said, because he did not know what else to say. 'There, there.' 'I’m cold,' Snowden whimpered. 'I’m cold.' 'There, there. There, there.

Ecuador has never stated flatly that it would give asylum to Edward Snowden.

What we do with the information now is up to us, but certainly I have a lot of respect for the courage and integrity that was required for [Edard Snowden] to take that action.

I thought this was pretty timely and it was pretty interesting [to film in Snowden].

Snowden and NSA leaders should be brought together face-to-face for questioning in public by a congressional investigatory committee, with both parties allowed to make their points and to counter the assertions of the other. If Snowden is lying, it will come out. If the NSA is lying, it will come out.

Mr. Snowden did not start out as a spy, and calling him one bends the term past recognition. Spies don't give their secrets to journalists for free.

Documentarian Laura Poitras has crafted a first-rate Hitchcockian-type thriller telling the story of Edward Snowden.

It's a very complicated landscape and I don't think there's one easy answer about it [Edard Snowden movie].

The subject of Citizenfour, Edward Snowden, could not be here for some treason.

I don't think Mr. Snowden woke up one day and had the wherewithal to do this all by himself. I think he was helped by others.

America is the freest country on the planet, but for Snowden, this isn't enough. He is a state diplomat in Snowden land.

Snowden has enough [sic] information to cause harm to the U.S. government in a single minute than any other person has ever had. The U.S. government should be on its knees every day begging that nothing happen to Snowden, because if something does happen to him, all the information will be revealed and it could be its worst nightmare.

Any country that grants asylum to Snowden risks retaliation from the United States, including diplomatic isolation and costly trade sanctions. Several don't seem to care.

To charge Snowden with espionage is a severe form of political persecution.

Is Snowden a good man or a bad man? I have no clue and even less interest.