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 NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything. With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested without targeting. If I wanted to see your emails or your wife's phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get your emails, passwords, phone records, credit cards.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The NSA has the capability to collect a vast amount of private communications without specific targeting.
This quote by Edward Snowden highlights the extensive surveillance capabilities of the NSA, suggesting that the agency's infrastructure is designed to indiscriminately gather personal data. It raises important concerns about privacy and the potential for abuse of power by government agencies, emphasizing the ease with which personal information can be accessed without consent or oversight.
Themes
SurveillancePrivacyData CollectionNsaEdward SnowdenCommunications
In practice
Example use cases
Discussing the importance of privacy in a technology conference.
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.
Edward SnowdenRead
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?
Edward SnowdenRead
A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all.
Edward SnowdenRead
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.
Edward SnowdenRead
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
Similar quotes
In the technotronic society the trend would seem to be towards the aggregation of the individual support of millions of uncoordinated citizens, easily within the reach of magnetic and attractive personalities exploiting the latest communications techniques to manipulate emotions and control reason.
Zbigniew BrzezinskiRead
Social media has taken over in America to such an extreme that to get my own kids to look back a week in their history is a miracle, let alone 100 years.
Steven SpielbergRead
What we want to do is make a leapfrog product that is way smarter than any mobile device has ever been, and super-easy to use. This is what iPhone is. OK? So, we're going to reinvent the phone.
Steve JobsRead
Any competent programmer has an API to cash, payments, escrow, wills, notaries, lotteries, dividends, micropayments, subscriptions, crowdfunding, and more.
Naval RavikantRead
Yes, I was the one people credit with inventing the cell phone. Now, whenever anyone gets a dropped call, they blame me.
Martin CooperRead
What is Apple, after all? Apple is about people who think 'outside the box,' people who want to use computers to help them change the world, to help them create things that make a difference, and not just to get a job done.
Steve JobsRead