Edward Snowden Quotes

What is right is not always the same as what is legal

You can't come up against the world's most powerful intelligence agencies and not accept the risk.

I had been looking for leaders, but I realized that leadership is about being the first to act.

If they had taught a class on how to be the kind of citizen Dick Cheney worries about, I would have finished high school.

When you are subverting the power of government, that's a fundamentally dangerous thing to democracy.

I hope you have read the election programme of the Labour Party ... this is not socialism. It is Bolshevism run mad.

I can do more good outside of prison ... This country is worth dying for.

If I defected at all, I defected from the government to the public

Properly implemented strong crypto systems are one of the few things that you can rely on,

Ask yourself: if I were a Chinese spy, why wouldn't I have flown directly into Beijing? I could be living in a palace petting a phoenix by now.

Citizens with a conscience are not going to ignore wrong-doing simply because they'll be destroyed for it: the conscience forbids it.

We are no longer citizens, we no longer have leaders. We're subjects, and we have rulers.

A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all.

The definition of a security state is one that prioritizes security over all other considerations.

We don't have to ask for our privacy, we can take it back

Citizens have to fight suppression of information on matters of vital public importance. To tell the truth is not a crime.

We need to think about encryption not as this sort of arcane, black art. It's a basic protection.

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.

The consent of the governed is not consent if it is not informed

Even if you're not doing anything wrong, you are being watched and recorded.

I told the government I'd volunteer for prison, as long as it served the right purpose,

I have had no contact with the Chinese government. I only work with journalists.

I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things.

What the government wants is something they never had before. They want total awareness. The question is, is that something we should be allowing?

The immoral cannot be made moral through the use of secret law.

A lot of people in 2008 voted for Obama. I did not vote for him. I voted for a third party. But I believed in Obama's promises.

The greatest fear that I have regarding the outcome for America of these disclosures is that nothing will change.

There are cyber threats out there, this is a dangerous world, and we have to be safe, we have to be secure no matter the cost.

The NSA routinely lies in response to congressional inquiries about the scope of surveillance in America.

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.

I know the media likes to personalize political debates, and I know the government will demonize me.

My perspective is if you're not willing to be called a few names to help out your country, you don't care enough.

Your rights matter, because you never know when you're going to need them.

I'm not a spy, which is the real question

There can be no faith in government if our highest offices are excused from scrutiny - they should be setting the example of transparency.

Allowing the U.S. government to intimidate its people with threats of retaliation for revealing wrongdoing is contrary to the public interest.

I have no relationship with the Russian government at all.

FBI creating a world where citizens rely on Apple to defend their rights, rather than the other way around.

The work of a generation is beginning here, with your hearings, and you have the full measure of my gratitude and support.

You will never be completely free from risk, if you're free. The only time you can be free from risk is when you're in prison.

We need to put the security back in the National Security Agency. We can't have the national surveillance agency.

I would rather be without a state than without a voice.

So many of the things we're told by the government simply aren't true.

Being called a traitor by Dick Cheney is the highest honor you can give to an American.

I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under.

I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong.

I don't want to hide. If I get arrested, I get arrested.

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.

Our founders did not write that We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all US Persons are created equal.

It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised - and it should be.

We have to be able to reject disproportionate and unjustified responses in the cyber domain just as we do in the physical domain.

They are intent on making every conversation and every form of behavior in the world known to them.

The NSA and Israel wrote Stuxnet together.

We watch our own people more closely than anyone else in the world.

Under observation, we act less free, which means we effectively are less free.

My intention is to ask the courts and people of Hong Kong to decide my fate.

We have the means and we have the technology to end mass surveillance without any legislative action at all, without any policy changes.

These programs were never about terrorism: they're about economic spying, social control, and diplomatic manipulation. They're about power.

I'm not a spy for Russia or China or any other country for that matter.

I'm neither traitor nor hero. I'm an American.

The sad truth is that societies that demand whistleblowers be martyrs often find themselves without either, and always when it matters the most.

I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions.

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.

I do not expect to see home again.

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,

Suspicionless surveillance does not become okay simply because it's only victimizing 95% of the world instead of 100%.

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.

My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them.

You can't come forward against the world's most powerful intelligence agencies and be completely free from risk.

I'm still working for the government.

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.

You gotta fight for your right ... to party!

The US government still has no idea what documents I have because encryption works

Privacy matters; privacy is what allows us to determine who we are and who we want to be,

I've been a spy for almost all of my adult life - I don't like being in the spotlight.

US has to be able to rely on a safe and interconnected internet in order to compete with other countries.

The United States Government has placed me on no-fly lists.

Privacy is a function of liberty.

The 'music' is not an open court and a fair trial.

I wanted to fight in the Iraq war because I felt like I had an obligation as a human being to help free people from oppression.

There is a technical solution to every political problem,

I do not expect to see home again, though that is what I want.