Edward Snowden Quotes

It didn't really change my opinion about [Edward] Snowden all that much, but I definitely feel like as a culture, it gave us information that generated a responsibility to protect ourselves as much as we can and also a responsibility to hold our government accountable to honoring our constitutional rights.

The whole human rights structure is based on the accountability of governments.

But, you know, once you're in government, very often you need to shoulder responsibility. I hope the new Spanish government will think about this and will therefore act accordingly. I really and sincerely hope so.

The American people deserve truthfulness, not more political campaigning. The American people deserve a responsible government that seeks to address their needs, not more ideological dogma.

People want a grounded government. They want a government that's going to be responsible to them.

if any government does not acknowledge the rights of the human person or violates them, it not only fails in its duty, but its orders completely lack juridical force

People have increasingly come to regard the government as a source of rights rather than as a defender of pre-existing individual rights.

… nearly universal is a never-ending effort to balance the rights of individuals with the needs that, in the modern world, it seems only government can meet.

I am a mortal enemy to arbitrary government and unlimited power. I am naturally very jealous for the rights and liberties of my country; and the least appearance of an encroachment on those invaluable privileges is apt to make my blood boil exceedingly.

The Bill of Rights is a remarkable document because it weaves into the fabric of our democracy the idea that government has a responsibility to protect individual liberty.

Every segment of our population, and every individual, has a right to expect from his government a fair deal.

The government doesn't want us to know what they're doing, how they're interpreting the law, how they're interpreting and redefining their powers, and increasingly, how they're redefining the boundaries of our rights and our liberties, broadly, socially, and categorically without our involvement.

It does not matter what country we live in, who our leaders are, or even who we are. Because we are human, we therefore have rights. And because we have rights, governments are bound to protect them.

Rights are either God-given as part of the divine plan, or they are granted by government as part of the political plan. If we accept the premise that human rights are granted by government, then we must be willing to accept the corollary that they can be denied by government.

And a government that accepts that it will be judged more by its deeds than by its mere words.

The Bill of Rights was not written to protect governments from trouble. It was written precisely to give the people the constitutional means to cause trouble for governments they no longer trusted.

Freedom exists only where the people take care of the government.

Yes, and you should question your government.

Any time you find the government involved in a conspiracy to violate the citizenship or the civil rights of a people, then you are wasting your time going to that government expecting redress. Instead, you have to take that government to the World Court and accuse it of genocide and all of the other crimes that it is guilty of today.

The people are the best guardians of their own rights and it is the duty of their executive to abstain from interfering in or thwarting the sacred exercise of the lawmaking functions of their government.

In a democracy, everyone has the right to criticise the Government.

The First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment rights in the United States Constitution were being violated in Albany again and again - freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, the equal protection of the laws - I could count at least 30 such violations. Yet the president, sworn to uphold the Constitution, and all the agencies of the United States government at his disposal, were nowhere to be seen.

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?

The spread of democracy, the new foundation of the rule of law, and the creation of fledgling representative governments that honor and respect human rights-together these actions spell out the increasing marginalization of the terrorists, as they have fewer and fewer places to run and hide.

The peoples owe all political rights and privileges which we enjoy today in greater or lesser measure, not to the good will of their governments, but to their own strength. One need only study the history of the past three hundred years to understand by what relentless struggles every right has had to be wrested inch by inch from the despots.