Quotes About Edward Snowden

The only way I could be extradited is through the principle of what my lawyers call "politics trumps law."

The US government still has no idea what documents I have because encryption works

Allowing the U.S. government to intimidate its people with threats of retaliation for revealing wrongdoing is contrary to the public interest.

Despite Russia's move to raise interest rates this week, the value of the ruble has continued to crash. Russia's economy is so bad, Edward Snowden had to put government secrets on Craigslist.

In my estimation, there has not been in American history a more important leak than Edward Snowden's release of NSA material – and that definitely includes the Pentagon Papers 40 years ago.

The United States Government has placed me on no-fly lists.

I can't in good conscience allow the U.S. government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building.

The NSA routinely lies in response to congressional inquiries about the scope of surveillance in America.

I don't think political reform is likely to succeed. [Senators Tom] Udall and [Ron] Wyden, on the intelligence committee, have been sounding the alarm, but they are a minority.

I care more about the country than what happens to me. But we can't allow the law to become a political weapon or agree to scare people away from standing up for their rights, no matter how good the deal. I'm not going to be part of that.

Most of the secrets the CIA has are about people, not machines and systems, so I didn't feel comfortable with disclosures that I thought could endanger anyone.

To some, incredibly, Russia has become a human rights leader. Edward Snowden, the American whistleblower, has succeeded in his asylum application in Russia, and White House spokesman Jay Carney appears flummoxed and wrong-footed as the mantle of free speech and liberty appears to pass from West to East.

I never chose to be in Russia, and I would prefer to be in my own country, but if I can't make it home, I will continue to work very much in the same way that I have... What happens to me is not as important; I simply serve as the mechanism of disclosure.

Edward Snowden, who worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, professes to have had access to whatever he wanted to know about anyone's anything. If he's telling the truth, why does he have such permeability without any government oversight? Is that OK with you?

It also made the government secretly eager to go far beyond that, at least until Edward Snowden ruined things.

Prior to the 2013 Snowden leaks, few people were aware of the NSA's existence, even as it rapidly grew around them. Those

Saving Edward Snowden from prison is one of WikiLeaks' achievements of which I am most proud.

We're in this amazing frontier of transparency. WikiLeaks. Edward Snowden. 'Westworld' is reflecting that with these robots gaining consciousness. Them coming into consciousness is almost like us, human beings, coming into the truth of the fact that government is corrupt. Police are corrupt. Banks are corrupt. Etcetera, etcetera.

Mr. Snowden did not start out as a spy, and calling him one bends the term past recognition. Spies don't give their secrets to journalists for free.

I don't want to harm my government. I want to help my government. But the fact that they are willing to completely ignore due process, they're willing to declare guilt without ever seeing a trial, these are things that we need to work against as a society and say, 'Hey, this is not appropriate.'

What Edward Snowden did amounted to the greatest hemorrhaging of legitimate American secrets in the history of my nation.

I'm worried that the government might kill Edward Snowden with a drone. --Ron Paul

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.

I don't think Edward Snowden deserves a death penalty or life in prison. I think that's inappropriate. I think that's why he fled, [because] that is what he faced.