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
America should be cooling down the tensions in the internet, making it a more trusted environment, making it a more secure environment, making it a more reliable environment, because that's the foundation of our economy and our future.
The internet has to be protected from intrusive monitoring or else the medium upon which we all rely for the basis of our economy and our normal life, we'll lose that, and it's going to have broad effects as a consequence that we cannot predict.
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.
The internet is shared critical infrastructure for everyone on earth. It's not supposed to be a domain of warfare. We're not supposed to be putting the Unied States' economy on the frontlines in the battleground.
When it comes to the internet, when it comes to the United States' technical economy, we have more to lose than any other nation on earth.
I have had no contact with the Chinese government. I only work with journalists.
We need to think about encryption not as this sort of arcane, black art. It's a basic protection.
I went to a website the other day and right at the top of the page it showed me my ip address. It was the most disturbing moment I have ever experienced. This website even told me what internet browser I was using, and what day it was. Computers can do anything.
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.
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.
I grew up with the understanding that the world I lived in was one where people enjoyed a sort of freedom to communicate with each other in privacy, without it being monitored, without it being measured or analyzed or sort of judged by these shadowy figures or systems, any time they mention anything that travels across public lines.
It's much more important for U.S. to be able to defend against foreign attacks than it is to be able to launch successful attacks against foreign adversaries.
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.
Someone responding to the story said 'real spies do not speak like that'. Well, I am a spy and that is how they talk. Whenever we had a debate in the office on how to handle crimes, they do not defend due process - they defend decisive action. They say it is better to kick someone out of a plane than let these people have a day in court. It is an authoritarian mindset in general.