[Bill] Binney will argue with you all day about ThinThread, but his idea was that it would collect everything about everybody but be immediately encrypted so no one could read it. Only a court could give intelligence officials the key to decrypt it. The idea was to find a kind of a compromise between [privacy rights and] the assertion that if you don't collect things as they happen, you won't have them later - because what the NSA really wants is the capability of retrospective investigation.
Edward SnowdenThe work of a generation is beginning here, with your hearings, and you have the full measure of my gratitude and support.
Edward SnowdenUS spend more on research and development than the other countries, so we shouldn't be making the internet a more hostile, a more aggressive territory.
Edward SnowdenPeople do not like being lied to, and they do not like having their rights violated. So as soon as [officials] stop making arguments, you see support for me starts to rise.
Edward Snowden