To do that they, the NSA specifically, targets the communications of everyone. It ingests them by default. It collects them in its system and it filters them and it analyses them and it measures them and it stores them for periods of time simply because that's the easiest, most efficient, and most valuable way to achieve these ends. So while they may be intending to target someone associated with a foreign government or someone they suspect of terrorism, they're collecting you're communications to do so.
Edward SnowdenWhen it comes to cyber conflicts between, say, America and China or even a Middle Eastern nation, an African nation, a Latin American nation, a European nation, we have more to lose.
Edward SnowdenIncreasingly we're seeing these ultra-partisan sites getting larger and larger readerships because people are self-selecting themselves into communities.
Edward SnowdenThe authoritarian one believed that an individual's rights were basically provided by governments and were determined by states. The other society - ours - tended to believe that a large portion of our rights were inherent and couldn't be abrogated by governments, even if this seemed necessary.
Edward SnowdenIf even one country, an Iceland for example, defects from this global legislative bargain and says no, we're not going to enforcement mass surveillance here. We're not going to do that. That's where all of the data centres, all the service providers in the world will relocate to. And I think that gives us a real chance to see a more liberal than authoritarian future.
Edward Snowden