Governments cannot require individuals, they cannot require the public as a body, and they cannot require corporations to make investigation and law enforcement easy for them in a liberal society.
Edward SnowdenI saw things that reached a point that I could no longer conscientiously participate with them. And I simply do what I could to allow the public to make a better decision about whether or not these things should continue.
Edward SnowdenOne of the saddest and most damaging legacies of the [George W.] Bush administration is the increased assertion of the "state secrets" privilege, which kept organizations like the ACLU - which had cases of people who had actually been tortured and held in indefinite detention - from getting their day in court.
Edward SnowdenI'm not a movie guy. I don't know all this stuff that comes with celebrity. I don't know who the actors will be and stuff like that. But anybody who wants to talk about the issues - that's great.
Edward SnowdenArguing that you don't care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say.
Edward SnowdenLet's put it this way. The United States government has assembled a massive investigation team into me personally, into my work with the journalists, and they still have no idea what documents were provided to the journalist, what they have, what they don't have, because encryption works.
Edward Snowden