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
I don't want the stage. I'm terrified of giving these talking heads some distraction, some excuse to jeopardize, smear, and delegitimize a very important movement.
I told the government I'd volunteer for prison, as long as it served the right purpose,
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.
If I defected at all, I defected from the government to the public
I had been looking for leaders, but I realized that leadership is about being the first to act.
If I target for example an email address, for example under FAA 702, and that email address sent something to you, Joe America, the analyst gets it. All of it. IPs, raw data, content, headers, attachments, everything. And it gets saved for a very long time - and can be extended further with waivers rather than warrants.
There can be no faith in government if our highest offices are excused from scrutiny - they should be setting the example of transparency.
I have been to the darkest corners of government, and what they fear is light.
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.
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.
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.
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.
For me, in terms of personal satisfaction, the mission's already accomplished. I already won. As soon as the journalists were able to work, everything that I had been trying to do was validated. Because, remember, I didn't want to change society. I wanted to give society a chance to determine if it should change itself.
Allowing the U.S. government to intimidate its people with threats of retaliation for revealing wrongdoing is contrary to the public interest.