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
The public interest is not always the same as the national interest. Going to war with people who are not our enemy in places that are not a threat doesn't make us safe, and that applies whether it's in Iraq or on the Internet. The Internet is not the enemy. Our economy is not the enemy.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes that public interest and national interest can diverge, particularly regarding war and security.
Edward Snowden's quote invites us to reflect on the complexities of national and public interests, emphasizing that engaging in conflicts with those who pose no actual threat can undermine genuine safety. He points out that the real threats to safety are often misidentified, warning against erroneous perceptions of enemies, particularly in an era where technology and economic factors are frequently blamed.
Themes
Public InterestNational InterestWarEnemySafetyEconomyInternet
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used to advocate for peaceful resolutions in a political debate.
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.
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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?
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A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all.
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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.
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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
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