Edward Snowden

The government is not ethical.

I'm not trying to be anything but myself.

I'm not trying to be a villain.

The government is not perfect.

Arguing that you don’t care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is like saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.

The government has granted itself power it is not entitled to. There is no public oversight. The result is people like myself have the latitude to go further than they are allowed to.

I would rather be called a traitor than a liar.

The greatest trick the NSA ever pulled was convincing the world that metadata isn’t content.

When you're in a position of power, particularly in government, the temptation is always to assume that you know best, and that you have a greater right to information than the public does.

The public has a right to know if their government is building a system of pervasive surveillance that collects every single communication of virtually every man, woman and child.

The Internet is not a free space. It is a controlled space. It is a surveilled space.

I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions, but I will be satisfied if the federation of secret laws, unequal pardon and irresistible executive powers that rule the world that I love are revealed even for an instant.

I am not a traitor, and I am not a hero. I am an American.

I'm willing to sacrifice all of that because I can't in good conscience allow the U.S. government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building.

Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.

The government has de facto declared that it's above the law. And that's what makes it dangerous.

When you grant the government the power to do these things, you're not just giving it to the current president. You're giving it to any future president.

The NSA is building a database of everyone's calls, emails, texts, chats, searches, locations, and financial transactions.

The greatest danger to our liberty is not from foreign enemies, but from our own government.

Mass surveillance is not about security; it's about power.