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.
Edward SnowdenI'm just another guy who sits there day to day in the office, watching what's happening, and goes, 'This is something that's not our place to decide.' The public needs to decide whether these programs or policies are right or wrong.
Edward SnowdenThe issue is we're losing leverage. Governments are increasingly getting more power and we are increasingly losing our ability to control that power, and even to be aware of that power.
Edward SnowdenWhen people talk about Web 2.0, they mean that when the Internet, the World Wide Web, first became popular, it was one way only.
Edward SnowdenWhen people say, "I have nothing to hide," what they're saying is, "My rights don't matter."
Edward SnowdenWe're opening the doors to people launching missiles and dropping bombs by taking the human out of the decision chain for deciding how we should respond to these threats. And this is something we're seeing more and more happening in the traditional means as our methods of warfare become increasingly automated and roboticized such as through drone warfare.
Edward Snowden