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Quote by Edward Snowden

“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?”

Quote by Edward Snowden

Author

Edward Snowden, born on June 21, 1983, is a system administrator. He is renowned for his disclosure of the global surveillance programs of the United States National Security Agency (NSA). In 2013, he leaked a large number of documents about these programs, which sparked widespread international attention. more

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“Imagine, if you will, you're sitting at my desk in Hawaii. You have access to the entire world, as far as you can see it. Last several days, content of internet communications. Every email that's sent. Every website that's visited by every individual. Every text message that somebody sends on their phone. Every phone call they make.”

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“We can't simply scare people into giving up their rights, on the basis, oh, this protects us from terrorism.”

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“Now terrorism is not the greatest threat facing our societies.”

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“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.”

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“We don't have a great clash of civilizations, a clash of ideologies, a clash of alternative models, where governments thought to themselves, if we go too far, if we sort of trample unreasonably on rights, we'll give birth to a political movement which will cost us our credibility, and will possibly cost us our offices, because people will vote for the other team, the other guys.”

“Nobody's going to vote for Isis.”

Author:Edward Snowden

“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.”

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“Technology provides us means outside of governments to begin enforcing our rights, enforcing protection of civil liberties, regardless of law, through the implementation of systems and standards.”

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Author:Edward Snowden

“If you begin acting contrary to the public's interest, and there is no alternative governmental model, with which you're willing to engage, we, the people, will have to put forth our own extra governmental models and methods of trying to restore the balance of liberty to the liberal tradition of Western society.”

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Author:Edward Snowden

“There have been so many individuals who have really put a lot on the line. That they've sacrificed so much to try to protect the principle of source protection in the journalism world. And I think Julian Assange, and WikiLeaks, and Sarah Harrison have really been extraordinary in standing up for that.”

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Author:Edward Snowden