The effect of that is to poison the flow of information to the President himself and to create a situation where a President can be almost, to use a metaphor, psychotically divorced from the realities in which he is acting.
Daniel EllsbergRead
I see Edward Snowden as someone who has chosen, at best, exile from the country he loves-with a serious risk of his assassination by agents of his government or life in prison (in solitary confinement)-to awaken us to the danger of our loss of democracy to a total-surveilla nce state
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the sacrifices made by Edward Snowden for the sake of democracy and warns against government surveillance.
This quote highlights the profound risks Edward Snowden took when he exposed government surveillance practices. By choosing to flee his home, he aimed to alert society about the dangers of losing democracy to pervasive surveillance, emphasizing the moral dilemma of prioritizing personal safety over the collective good.
Themes
Edward SnowdenSurveillanceDemocracySacrificeFreedom
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in discussions about civil liberties during a public debate on surveillance laws.
More from Daniel Ellsberg
All quotes →There should be at least one leak like the Pentagon Papers every year.
Daniel EllsbergRead
I felt that as an American citizen, as a responsible citizen, I could no longer cooperate in concealing this information from the American public. I did this clearly at my own jeopardy and I am prepared to answer to all the consequences of this decision.
Daniel EllsbergRead
EVERY attack now made on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange was made against me and the release of the Pentagon Papers at the time.
Daniel EllsbergRead
If there's another 9/11 or a major war in the Middle-East involving a U.S. attack on Iran, I have no doubt that there will be, the day after or within days an equivalent of a Reichstag fire decree that will involve massive detentions in this country.
Daniel EllsbergRead
We were young, we were foolish, we were arrogant, but we were right.
Daniel EllsbergRead
Similar quotes
..all arguments concerning existence are founded on the relation of cause and effect; that our knowledge of that relation is derived entirely from experience; and all our experimental conclusions proceed upon the supposition that the future will be conformable to the past. .... Without the influence of custom, we should be entirely ignorant of every matter of fact beyond what is immediately present to the memory and senses.
David HumeRead
The statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.
Mark TwainRead
I never felt any attraction towards violence. I never tried to express myself through violence. Violence is a language.
Elie WieselRead
But a stranger in a strange land, he is no one. Men know him not, and to know not is to care not for.
Bram StokerRead
To some degree, we're all thinking about the same things. It's the zeitgeist. The trick, in a way, as a writer, is to hope that your interests in some sense link up with the culture around you.
Jennifer EganRead
In the secular view, suffering is never seen as a meaningful part of life but only as an interruption.
Timothy KellerRead