Edward Snowden
I was hoping to catch [Vladimir] Putin in a lie - like what happened to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper [in his congressional testimony]. So I asked Putin basically the same questions about Russian mass surveillance. I knew he's doing the same thing, but he denied it.Collection: Lying
Nobody's going to vote for terrorism. So our governments don't have that sort of political pressure to act in a responsible manner when it comes to stewardship of our rights.Collection: Rights
It's critical how we want to use these spy programs, these electronic capabilities, where we want to draw the line, and who should approve these programs, these decisions, and at what level, for engaging in operations that could lead us as a nation into a war.Collection: War
Chelsea Manning got thirty-five years in prison, while I'm still free.Collection: Years
I'm still alive, and I don't lose sleep because I have done what I feel I needed to do, it was the right thing to do and I am not going to be afraid.Collection: Sleep
There was a real choice when [Barack Obama] became president. It was a very difficult choice - to say, "We're not going to hold senior officials to account with the same laws that every other citizen in the country is held to," or "This is a nation that believes in the rule of law."Collection: Senior
People have to be free to investigate computer security. People have to be free to look for the vulnerabilities and create proof of concept code to show that they are true vulnerabilities in order for us to secure our systems.Collection: Order
The public don't want to authorize the internet to become a battleground. We need to do everything we can as a society to keep that a neutral zone, to keep that an economic zone that can reflect our values, both politically, socially, and economically.Collection: Needs
What we need to do is we need to create new international standards of behavior - not just national laws, because this is a global problem. We can't just fix it in the United States, because there are other countries that don't follow U.S. laws. We have to create international standards that say that cyber attacks should only ever occur when it is absolutely necessary.Collection: Country
An investigation found the specific people who authorized the warrantless wiretapping of millions and millions of communications, which per count would have resulted in the longest sentences in world history, and our highest official simply demanded the investigation be halted. Who "can" be brought up on charges is immaterial when the rule of law is not respected. Laws are meant for you, not for them.Collection: Communication
There are times throughout history and it doesn't take long for either an American or a German, to think about times in the history of their country where the law provided the Government to do things which were not right.Collection: Country
[Our system of education ]not designed to create critical thinkers.Collection: Thinker
We have got a CIA station just up the road – the consulate here in Hong Kong – and I am sure they are going to be busy for the next week. And that is a concern I will live with for the rest of my life, however long that happens to be.Collection: Next Week
I have had no contact with the Chinese government ... I only work with journalists.Collection: Government
I'm just another guy who sits there day to day in the office, watching what's happening, and goes, 'This is something that's not our place to decide.' The public needs to decide whether these programs or policies are right or wrong.Collection: Office
The work of a generation is beginning here, with your hearings, and you have the full measure of my gratitude and support.Collection: Gratitude
Ultimately, if people lose their willingness to recognize that there are times in our history when legality becomes distinct from morality, we aren't just ceding control of our rights to the government, but our futures.Collection: Rights
I hope you have read the election programme of the Labour Party...this is not socialism. It is Bolshevism run mad.Collection: Running
Suspicionless surveillance has no place in a democracy. The next 60 days are a historic opportunity to rein in the NSA, but the only one who can end the worst of its abuses is you. Call your representatives and tell them that the unconstitutional 'bulk collection' of Americans' private records under Section 215 of the Patriot Act must end.Collection: Opportunity
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.Collection: Memorable
So when they say I'm a low-level systems administrator, that I don't know what I'm talking about, I'd say it's somewhat misleading.Collection: Talking
Our founders did not write that 'We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all US Persons are created equal.'Collection: Writing
To do that they, the NSA specifically, targets the communications of everyone. It ingests them by default. It collects them in its system and it filters them and it analyses them and it measures them and it stores them for periods of time simply because that's the easiest, most efficient, and most valuable way to achieve these ends. So while they may be intending to target someone associated with a foreign government or someone they suspect of terrorism, they're collecting you're communications to do so.Collection: Communication
As a technologist, I see the trends, and I see that automation inevitably is going to mean fewer and fewer jobs. And if we do not find a way to provide a basic income for people who have no work, or no meaningful work, we’re going to have social unrest that could get people killed. When we have increasing production - year after year after year - some of that needs to be reinvested in society.Collection: Meaningful
I believe that when [senator Ron] Wyden and [senator Mark] Udall asked about the scale of this, they [the NSA] said it did not have the tools to provide an answer. We do have the tools and I have maps showing where people have been scrutinised most. We collect more digital communications from America than we do from the Russians.Collection: Believe
The only thing I fear is the harmful effects on my family, who I won't be able to help any more. That's what keeps me up at night.Collection: Night
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?Collection: Nsa
We have the means and we have the technology to end mass surveillance without any legislative action at all, without any policy changes.Collection: Mean
I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things.Collection: Nsa
There's no saving me.Collection: Saving
I know the media likes to personalize political debates, and I know the government will demonize me.Collection: Government
If the Obama administration responds with an even harsher hand against me, they can be assured that they'll soon find themselves facing an equally harsh public response.Collection: Hands
Lawyers from the NSA, as well as the UK's GCHQ, work very hard to search for loopholes in laws and constitutional protections that they can use to justify indiscriminate, dragnet surveillance operations that were at best unwittingly authorized by lawmakers.Collection: Law
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.Collection: Suffering
My case clearly demonstrates the need for comprehensive whistleblower protection act reform. If we had had a real process in place, and reports of wrongdoing could be taken to real, independent arbiters rather than captured officials, I might not have had to sacrifice so much to do what at this point even the President seems to agree needed to be done.Collection: Real
There is a policy response that needs to occur. There is also a technical response that needs to occur. It is the development community that can really craft the solutions and make sure we are safe.Collection: Community
I took what I knew to the public, so what affects all of us can be discussed by all of us in the light of day, and I asked the world for justice.Collection: Light
One of the foremost activities of the NSA's FAD, or Foreign Affairs Division, is to pressure or incentivize EU member states to change their laws to enable mass surveillance.Collection: Law
Initially I was very encouraged. Unfortunately, the mainstream media now seems far more interested in what I said when I was 17 or what my girlfriend looks like rather than, say, the largest program of suspicionless surveillance in human history.Collection: Girlfriend
In the United States the White House has appointed two different independent panels who had full access to classified information for the last 10 years that master balance has been in place in the United States, and they found that despite intercepting the calls - everybody in the country, - it had never stopped a single terrorist attack. So the question is, why would these officials be pursuing these policies, if we know they don't work, if they don't stop terrorism?Collection: Country
You have ceded the concept of your own rights. You've converted them into something you get as a revocable privilege from the government, something that can be abrogated at its convenience. And that has diminished the measure of liberty within a society.Collection: Rights
The question for us is not what new story will come out next. The question is, what are we going to do about it?Collection: Stories
We have to recognise that rights are being violated. The United Nations actually filed a report that found that that was the case, that mass surveillance is a violation of rights.Collection: Rights
There's no question that the US is engaged in economic spying. If there's information at Siemens that they think would be beneficial to the national interests, not the national security of the United States, they'll go after that information and they'll take it.Collection: Thinking
What I wanted to do was give society the information it needed to decide if it wanted to change the system.Collection: Giving
Terrorism kills far fewer people than cigarettes, or alcohol, or car accidents. But we don't see ourselves restructuring society and lives in order to make those threats go away.Collection: Order
Radicalism and extremism, while they are dangers, they exist in every society on some level.Collection: Levels
[Brazil] went to the UN and said, "We need new standards for this." We need to take a look at what they're calling "data sovereignty."Collection: Data