Quotes from Edward Snowden

I was living a charmed life.

I've got more than enough for my needs [for social life in Moscow], let's put it that way.

It's been vindicating to see the reaction from lawmakers, judges, public bodies around the world, civil liberties activists who have said it's true that we have a right to at least know the broad outlines of what our government's doing in our name and what it's doing against us.

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.

That's the beauty of the Internet is that we're no longer tied to our communities by physical connections.

You will never be completely free from risk if you're free. The only time you can be free from risk is when you're in prison.

We do not live in a revolutionary time. People are not prepared to contest power.

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.

All I wanted was for the public to be able to have a say in how they are governed. That is a milestone we left a long time ago.

If they had taught a class on how to be the kind of citizen Dick Cheney worries about, I would have finished high school.

What the government wants is something they never had before. They want total awareness. The question is, is that something we should be allowing?

How 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?

This whole pre-criminal investigation, where we watch everybody, all the time, just in case, is really an extraordinary departure from the Western liberal tradition.

Are our competitors - for example, China, which is a deeply authoritarian nation - becoming more authoritarian or more liberal over time?

I will be satisfied if the federation of secret law, unequal pardon and irresistible executive powers that rule the world that I love are revealed even for an instant.

If I could go anywhere in the world, that place would be home.

Citizens with a conscience are not going to ignore wrong-doing simply because they'll be destroyed for it: the conscience forbids it.

I am not trying to bring down the NSA, I am working to improve the NSA. I am still working for the NSA right now. They are the only ones who don't realize it.

Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped.

The sad truth is that societies that demand whistleblowers be martyrs often find themselves without either, and always when it matters the most.

You shouldn't change your behavior because a government agency somewhere is doing the wrong thing. If we sacrifice our values because we're afraid, we don't care very much about those values.

When you are in positions of privileged access... you see things that may be disturbing. Over time, that awareness of wrongdoing sort of builds up.

What we've seen over the last decade is we've seen a departure from the traditional work of the National Security Agency. They've become sort of the national hacking agency, the national surveillance agency. And they've lost sight of the fact that everything they do is supposed to make us more secure as a nation and a society.

If I had to describe myself, I wouldn't use words like 'hero.' I wouldn't use 'patriot,' and I wouldn't use 'traitor.' I'd say I'm an American and I'm a citizen, just like everyone else.