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" When people say, 'Why don't you face the music?' I say, 'You have to understand the music is not an open court and a fair trial.' "

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

" 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. "

" If an NSA, FBI, CIA, DIA, etc analyst has access to query raw SIGINT databases, they can enter and get results for anything they want. Phone number, email, user id, cell phone handset id (IMEI), and so on - it's all the same. "

" 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.' "

" You shouldn't change your behavior because a government agency somewhere is doing the wrong thing. If we sacrifice our values because we're afraid, we don't care very much about those values. "

" We have seen enough criminality on the part of government. It is hypocritical to make this allegation against me. They have narrowed the public sphere of influence. "

" 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 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. "

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

" They still have negligent auditing, they still have things going for a walk, and they have no idea where they're coming from, and they have no idea where they're going. And if that's the case, how can we, as the public, trust the NSA with all of our information, with all of our private records, the permanent record of our lives? "

" 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. "

" What does that mean for a society, for a democracy, when the people that you elect on the basis of promises can basically suborn the will of the electorate? "

" That's the beauty of the Internet is that we're no longer tied to our communities by physical connections. "

" You could watch entire villages and see what everyone was doing. I watched NSA tracking people's Internet activities as they typed. I became aware of just how invasive U.S. surveillance capabilities had become. I realized the true breadth of this system. And almost nobody knew it was happening. "

" 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. "

" It may be that by watching everywhere we go, by watching everything we do, by analyzing every word we say, by waiting and passing judgment over every association we make and every person we love, that we could uncover a terrorist plot, or we could discover more criminals. But is that the kind of society we want to live in? "

" 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. "

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

" 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 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. "

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

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

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

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

" I have been a systems engineer, systems administrator, a senior adviser for the Central Intelligence Agency, a solutions consultant and a telecommunications information systems officer. "

" I grew up with the understanding that the world I lived in was one where people enjoyed a sort of freedom to communicate with each other in privacy, without it being monitored, without it being measured or analyzed or sort of judged by these shadowy figures or systems, any time they mention anything that travels across public lines. "

" After 9/11, many of the most important news outlets in America abdicated their role as a check to power - the journalistic responsibility to challenge the excesses of government - for fear of being seen as unpatriotic and punished in the market during a period of heightened nationalism. "

" I'm an engineer, not a politician. "

" No system of mass surveillance has existed in any society that we know of to this point that has not been abused. "

" 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. "