Edward Snowden
Edward Snowden
Edward Joseph "Ed" Snowdenis an American computer professional, former Central Intelligence Agencyemployee, and former contractor for the United States government who copied and leaked classified information from the National Security Agencyin 2013 without prior authorization. His disclosures revealed numerous global surveillance programs, many run by the NSA and the Five Eyes Intelligence Alliance with the cooperation of telecommunication companies and European governments...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionOther
Date of Birth21 June 1983
CityElizabeth City, NC
CountryUnited States of America
Edward Snowden quotes about
What is right is not always the same as what is legal
In the end the Obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers like me, Bradley Manning or Thomas Drake. We are stateless, imprisoned, or powerless. No, the Obama administration is afraid of you. It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised - and it should be.
America is a fundamentally good country. We have good people with good values who want to do the right thing. But the structures of power that exist are working to their own ends to extend their capability at the expense of the freedom of all publics.
I acted on my belief that the NSA's mass surveillance programs would not withstand a constitutional challenge, and that the American public deserved a chance to see these issues determined by open courts. Today, a secret program authorized by a secret court was, when exposed to the light of day, found to violate Americans' rights. It is the first of many.
My perspective is if you're not willing to be called a few names to help out your country, you don't care enough.
When you use any kind of internet based capability, any kind of electronic capability, to cause damage to a private entity or a foreign nation or a foreign actor, these are potential acts of war.
If you’re not acting on your beliefs, then they probably aren’t real.
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.
You can't come up against the world's most powerful intelligence agencies and not accept the risk.
When people conceptualize a cyber-attack, they do tend to think about parts of the critical infrastructure like power plants, water supplies, and similar sort of heavy infrastructure, critical infrastructure areas. And they could be hit, as long as they're network connected, as long as they have some kind of systems that interact with them that could be manipulated from internet connection.
A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all.
Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience. Therefore individual citizens have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring.
And that's not something I'm willing to support, it's not something I'm willing to build and it's not something I'm willing to live under.
What has a great value to us as a nation is the internet itself. The internet is critical infrastructure to the United States. We use the internet for every communication that businesses rely on every day.