Edward Snowden Quotes About Liberty

Quotes about: Liberty

• 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.

  Edward Snowden

  Government, Nsa, People

  "Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind the NSA surveillance revelations". Article by Glenn Greenwald, Ewen MacAskill and Laura Poitras, www.theguardian.com. June 11, 2013.

• Privacy is a function of liberty.

  Edward Snowden

  Liberty, Privacy, Function

  Interview With Alan Rusbridger, Ewen MacAskill, www.theguardian.com. July 18, 2014.

• You have ceded the concept of your own rights. You've converted them into something you get as a revocable privilege from the government, something that can be abrogated at its convenience. And that has diminished the measure of liberty within a society.

  Edward Snowden

  Rights, Government, Liberty

  Source: www.thenation.com

• Sometimes that irrational commitment to principle is what society needs to survive. Whenever you talk about radicalism, whenever you talk about activism, whenever you talk about progressive activity, that sort of moves the measure of liberty in human society forward, makes us all enjoy a better standard of liberty, it typically starts out criminal. It typically starts out a little bit shaky, and rather radical. And that's irrational to put yourself up to do that.

  Edward Snowden

  Moving, Commitment, Liberty

  Source: www.nesta.org.uk

• I wonder if it's conservative or liberal [ inalienable rights idea], because when we think of liberal thought, when we think about the relation to liberty, we're talking about traditional conservatism - as opposed to today's conservatism, which no longer represents those views.

  Edward Snowden

  Thinking, Rights, Views

• I read these polls because civil-liberties organizations tell me I need to be aware of public opinion.

  Edward Snowden

  Organization, Liberty, Public Opinion

  Source: www.thenation.com

• People at civil-liberties organizations say it's a sea change, and that it's very clear judges have begun to question more critically assertions made by the executive. Even though it seems so obvious now, it is extraordinary in the context of the last decade, because courts had simply said they were not the best branch to adjudicate these claims - which is completely wrong, because they are the only nonpolitical branch. They are the branch that is specifically charged with deciding issues that cannot be impartially decided by politicians.

  Edward Snowden

  Sea, Organization, Issues

  Source: www.thenation.com

• The government doesn't want us to know what they're doing, how they're interpreting the law, how they're interpreting and redefining their powers, and increasingly, how they're redefining the boundaries of our rights and our liberties, broadly, socially, and categorically without our involvement.

  Edward Snowden

  Rights, Government, Law

  Source: www.nesta.org.uk

• I would argue that security and liberty, security and privacy are not actually opposing. The only place those can be oppositional is in the realm of rhetoric but not fact.

  Edward Snowden

  Liberty, Facts, Arguing

  Source: www.nesta.org.uk

• [I watch] all that stuff - Game of Thrones and all the other series. How about House of Cards? As for Boardwalk Empire - that's another period of government overreach, but at least they use the amendment process! In real life, the executive branch, by violating the Constitution, is using statutes in place of constitutional amendments to diminish our liberty.

  Edward Snowden

  Real, Government, Games

• What we're really debating is not security versus liberty, it's security versus surveillance. When we talk about electronic interception, the way that surveillance works is it preys on the weakness of protections that are being applied to all of our communications. The manner in which they're protected.

  Edward Snowden

  Communication, Liberty, Weakness

  Source: www.nesta.org.uk

• That's the key - to maintain the garden of liberty, right? This is a generational thing that we must all do continuously. We only have the rights that we protect. It doesn't matter what we say or think we have. It's not enough to believe in something; it matters what we actually defend.

  Edward Snowden

  Believe, Garden, Thinking

  Source: www.thenation.com

• 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.

  Edward Snowden

  Mean, Technology, Rights

  Source: www.nesta.org.uk

• When we think in the context of the last decade's infringements upon personal liberty and the last year's revelations, it's not about surveillance. It's about liberty.

  Edward Snowden

  Thinking, Years, Liberty

  Source: www.thenation.com

• 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.

  Edward Snowden

  People, Trying, Liberty

  Source: www.nesta.org.uk

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin