There is a massive apparatus within the United States government that with complete secrecy has been building this enormous structure that has only one goal, and that is to destroy privacy and anonymity, not just in the United States but around the world.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the government's efforts to undermine personal privacy and anonymity through secretive means.
Glenn Greenwald's quote emphasizes the extensive and covert operations undertaken by the United States government to erode individual privacy rights. He warns that this undermining of privacy is not limited to the U.S. alone, but is a global issue, indicating a widespread effort to surveil and control citizens' information and identities, ultimately threatening the fundamental liberties associated with privacy.
In practice
During a lecture on digital rights, this quote can be used to illustrate the importance of safeguarding personal information.
There are different ways that kids who are gay take on the rejection and alienation they feel. The way I dealt with it was to say, 'You know what? You're imposing judgments on me and condemnations, but I don't accept them. I'm going to instead turn the light on you and see what your flaws are and impose the same judgmental standards on you.'
The point of asylum is not to declare to the world what country you think is the pinnacle of civilization. The point of asylum is to find a country that's both willing and able to protect you from political persecution. In no way is asylum an endorsement of a country's politics, laws, or values.
Nobody has the right to shield any idea as so sacred it can’t be challenged. ... Almost all human progress is driven by people who stood up and said ‘I disagree’ with this idea that society at the time considered to be the most precious.’
It's hard to imagine a more potent sign of a weak, declining empire than having one's national 'credibility' depend upon periodically bombing other countries.
The fact that war is the word we use for almost everything—on terrorism, drugs, even poverty—has certainly helped to desensitize us to its invocation; if we wage wars on everything, how bad can they be?
Incestuous, homogeneous fiefdoms of self-proclaimed expertise are always rank-closing and mutually self-defending, above all else.
The Internet is the first thing that humanity has built that humanity doesn't understand, the largest experiment in anarchy that we have ever had.
The Internet will make every enterprise a publisher.
All countries will eventually need to rebuild their growth models around digital technologies and the human capital that supports their deployment and expansion.
Skin has become inadequate in interfacing with reality. Technology has become the body's new membrane of existence.
Big Data is like teenage sex: everyone talks about it, nobody really knows how to do it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, so everyone claims they are doing it.
Bitcoin is mostly about anonymous transactions, and I don't think over time that's a good way to go. I'm a huge believe in digital currency... but doing it on an anonymous basis I think that leads to some abuses, so I'm not involved in Bitcoin.
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