My government revoked my passport intentionally to leave me exiled. If they really wanted to capture me, they would've allowed me to travel to Latin America, because the CIA can operate with impunity down there. They did not want that; they chose to keep me in Russia.
Edward SnowdenThere's not much value to us attacking Chinese systems. We might take a few computers offline. We might take a factory offline. We might steal secrets from a university research programs, and even something high-tech. But how much more does the United States spend on research and development than China does?
Edward SnowdenAny analyst at any time can target anyone. Any selector, anywhere I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the President
Edward SnowdenBy leaning on companies, by leaning on infrastructure providers, by leaning on researchers, graduate students, post-docs, even undergrads, to look at the challenges having an untrusted internet, where we have to put our communications on wires that are owned by a phone company that we can't trust, that's working in collaboration with a government that we can't trust, in areas around the world, we can restructure that communications fabric in a way that it's encrypted.
Edward SnowdenThe reality is if we sit back and allow a few officials behind closed doors to launch offensive attacks without any oversight against foreign nations, against people we don't like, against political groups, radicals, and extremists whose ideas we may not agree with, and could be repulsive or even violent - if we let that happen without public buy-in, we won't have any seat at the table of government to decide whether or not it's appropriate for these officials to drag us into some kind of war activity that we don't want, but we weren't aware of at the time.
Edward Snowden