Edward Snowden Quotes

Arguing that you don't care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say.

I don't want to live in a world where everything that I say, everything I do, everyone I talk to, every expression of creativity or love or friendship is recorded.

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

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

If you’re not acting on your beliefs, then they probably aren’t real.

There have been times throughout American history where what is right is not the same as what is legal. Sometimes to do the right thing you have to break the law.

Privacy is a function of liberty.

A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all. They'll never know what it means to have a private moment to themselves an unrecorded, unanalysed thought. And that's a problem because privacy matters, privacy is what allows us to determine who we are and who we want to be.

Every time you pick up the phone, dial a number, write an e-mail, make a purchase, travel on the bus carrying a cell phone, swipe a card somewhere, you leave a trace, and the Government has decided that it's good idea to collect it all, everything, even if you've never been suspected of doing a crime.

I have been to the darkest corners of government, and what they fear is light.

Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped.

Being a patriot doesn’t mean prioritizing service to government above all else. Being a patriot means knowing when to protect your country, knowing when to protect your Constitution, knowing when to protect your countrymen, from the violations of and encroachments of adversaries. And those adversaries don’t have to be foreign countries.

I don't think there's anything, any threat out there today that anyone can point to, that justifies placing an entire population under mass surveillance.

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

When people say, "I have nothing to hide," what they're saying is, "My rights don't matter."

Richard Nixon got kicked out of Washington for tapping one hotel suite. Today we're tapping every American citizen in the country, and no one has been put on trial for it or even investigated. We don't even have an inquiry into it.

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

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

We do not live in a revolutionary time. People are not prepared to contest power.

I don't want to live in a world where there's no privacy, and therefore no room for intellectual exploration and creativity.

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

I care more about the country than what happens to me. But we can't allow the law to become a political weapon or agree to scare people away from standing up for their rights, no matter how good the deal. I'm not going to be part of that.

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

Because, remember, I didn't want to change society. I wanted to give society a chance to determine if it should change itself.

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