It's important that we elevate and primarily focus on the rights of American citizens, but it's also important that we don't forget, 95 percent of the world's population lives beyond our own borders.
Edward SnowdenRead
Perhaps I am naive, but I believe that at this point in history, the greatest danger to our freedom and way of life comes from the reasonable fear of omniscient State powers kept in check by nothing more than policy documents.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects a concern about government overreach and the potential loss of freedom due to unchecked state power.
Edward Snowden emphasizes the danger posed by an all-knowing government that operates based on policies rather than accountability or oversight. He draws attention to the fragility of freedom in the face of surveillance and state authority, suggesting that mere policy documents are inadequate to protect individual liberties.
Themes
FreedomSurveillanceGovernmentAuthorityPrivacy
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about privacy rights, one might quote Snowden to illustrate the risks of unchecked state power.
More from Edward Snowden
All quotes →I think the most important idea is to remember that there have been times throughout American history where what is right is not the same as what is legal.
Edward SnowdenRead
Congress hasn't declared war on the countries - the majority of them are our allies - but without asking for public permission, NSA is running network operations against them that affect millions of innocent people. And for what? So we can have secret access to a computer in a country we're not even fighting?
Edward SnowdenRead
A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all.
Edward SnowdenRead
Being called a traitor by Dick Cheney is the highest honor you can give an American, and the more panicked talk we hear from people like him... the better off we all are.
Edward SnowdenRead
I don't see myself as a hero because what I'm doing is self-interested: I don't want to live in a world where there's no privacy and therefore no room for intellectual exploration and creativity.
Edward SnowdenRead
Similar quotes
So says the most ancient book of the Earth; thus it is written on its leaves of marble, lime, sand, slate, and clay: ... that our Earth has fashioned itself, from its chaos of substances and powers, through the animating warmth of the creative spirit, to a peculiar and original whole, by a series of preparatory revolutions, till at last the crown of its creation, the exquisite and tender creature man, was enabled to appear.
Johann Gottfried HerderRead
When you see a man led to prison say in your heart, "Mayhap he is escaping from a narrower prison." And when you see a man drunken say in your heart, "Mayhap he sought escape from something still more unbeautiful.
Khalil GibranRead
The earliest sensation at the onset of illness, often preceding the recognition of identifiable symptoms, is apprehension. Something has gone wrong, and a glimpse of mortality shifts somewhere deep in the mind. It is the most ancient of our fears.
Lewis ThomasRead
Remember what is unbecoming to do is also unbecoming to speak of.
SocratesRead
There are some people who need to wear a label round their necks to show that they are Christians at all, or else we might mistake them for sinners, their actions are so like those of the ungodly.
Charles SpurgeonRead
Our fortunes rise together, and they fall together. 'All men are brothers,' said the Analects. We have a collective responsibility-to bring about a more stable and more prosperous world, a world in which every person in every country can reach their full potential.
Christine LagardeRead