When governments go too far to punish people for actions that are dissent rather than a real threat to the nation, they risk delegitimizing not just their systems of justice, but the legitimacy of the government itself. Because when they bring political charges against people for acts that were clearly at least intended to work in the public interest, they deny them the opportunity to mount a public-interest defense.
Edward Snowden[Brazil] went to the UN and said, "We need new standards for this." We need to take a look at what they're calling "data sovereignty."
Edward SnowdenHow do we preserve our civil rights, our traditions as a liberal democracy, in a time when government power is expanding and is more and more difficult to check?
Edward SnowdenWe are a representative democracy. But how did we get there? We got there through direct action. And that's enshrined in our Constitution and in our values.
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 Snowden