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" I never chose to be in Russia, and I would prefer to be in my own country, but if I can't make it home, I will continue to work very much in the same way that I have... What happens to me is not as important; I simply serve as the mechanism of disclosure. "

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

Edward Snowden

Government

Faith

Example

" When you are in positions of privileged access... you see things that may be disturbing. Over time, that awareness of wrongdoing sort of builds up. "

" I do agree that when it comes to cyber warfare, we have more to lose than any other nation on earth. "

Edward Snowden

Lose

Earth

" Most of the secrets the CIA has are about people, not machines and systems, so I didn't feel comfortable with disclosures that I thought could endanger anyone. "

" 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. "

" What we've seen over the last decade is we've seen a departure from the traditional work of the National Security Agency. They've become sort of the national hacking agency, the national surveillance agency. And they've lost sight of the fact that everything they do is supposed to make us more secure as a nation and a society. "

" I don't want to harm my government. I want to help my government. But the fact that they are willing to completely ignore due process, they're willing to declare guilt without ever seeing a trial, these are things that we need to work against as a society and say, 'Hey, this is not appropriate.' "

" If I had to describe myself, I wouldn't use words like 'hero.' I wouldn't use 'patriot,' and I wouldn't use 'traitor.' I'd say I'm an American and I'm a citizen, just like everyone else. "

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

Edward Snowden

Lists

Government

" Congress hasn't declared war on the countries - the majority of them are our allies - but without asking for public permission, NSA is running network operations against them that affect millions of innocent people. And for what? So we can have secret access to a computer in a country we're not even fighting? "

" Even though we may focus first on the rights of our own country, that does not mean that we should disregard the rights of everyone else. "

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

" Who I am really doesn't matter at all. If I'm the worst person in the world, you can hate me and move on. What really matters here are the issues. What really matters here is the kind of government we want, the kind of Internet we want, the kind of relationship between people and societies. "

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

" If I could go anywhere in the world, that place would be home. "

Edward Snowden

If I Could

Home

" I have had many opportunities to flee HK, but I would rather stay and fight the United States government in the courts, because I have faith in Hong Kong's rule of law. "

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

" It's important that we elevate and primarily focus on the rights of American citizens, but it's also important that we don't forget, 95 percent of the world's population lives beyond our own borders. "

" I don't see myself as a hero because what I'm doing is self-interested: I don't want to live in a world where there's no privacy and therefore no room for intellectual exploration and creativity. "

" Perhaps I am naive, but I believe that at this point in history, the greatest danger to our freedom and way of life comes from the reasonable fear of omniscient State powers kept in check by nothing more than policy documents. "

" We're losing our way as a society. If we don't stand up, if we don't say what we think those rights should be, and if we don't protect them, we will very soon find out that we do not have them. "

" The public interest is not always the same as the national interest. Going to war with people who are not our enemy in places that are not a threat doesn't make us safe, and that applies whether it's in Iraq or on the Internet. The Internet is not the enemy. Our economy is not the enemy. "

" The NSA and Israel wrote Stuxnet together. "

" Being called a traitor by Dick Cheney is the highest honor you can give an American, and the more panicked talk we hear from people like him... the better off we all are. "

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

" All I can say right now is the U.S. government is not going to be able to cover this up by jailing or murdering me. Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped. "

" I support a guaranteed basic income. I think we should take care of sick people. I believe women can make their own choices and that the government is at its best when it's building bridges instead of bombs. "

" I think it's important to remember that people don't set their lives on fire. They don't walk away from their extraordinarily, extraordinarily comfortable lives ... for no reason. "

" I carefully evaluated every single document I disclosed to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest. There are all sorts of documents that would have made a big impact that I didn't turn over, because harming people isn't my goal. Transparency is. "

" The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything. With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested without targeting. If I wanted to see your emails or your wife's phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get your emails, passwords, phone records, credit cards. "