Glenn Greenwald Quotes

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

Edward Snowden may not be a Chinese mole, but he might as well be. He's just handed Beijing a major score, while the NSA struggles to pick up the pieces - and the rest of us pay the price in terms of future national security.

I worked with people like Edward Snowden. Well, not people who took stuff home.

President Obama and his successors are dependent on the 100,000-plus people inside the American intelligence community - the people Edward Snowden betrayed.

I think that Mr. Snowden raised some legitimate concerns. How he did it was something that did not follow the procedures and practices of our intelligence community. If everybody took the approach that I make my own decisions about these issues, then it would be very hard to have an organized government or any kind of national security system.

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.

[Chelsea] Manning leaked more than 700,000 classified files and videos to WikiLeaks about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and U.S. foreign policy.

Leaking of classified material is a concern.

The information I received as a member of the National Security Council, in my capacity as Vice—President, was so confidential that I would lose my right arm before I divulge it to anyone, even to members of my own family…

The Snowden leaks did cause damage.

We should stop thinking of Snowden, to the extent that we ever were, as a hero. We should stop thinking of him as a whistleblower.

The U.S. government places considerable trust in those given access to classified information, and we are committed to prosecuting those who abuse that trust.

A: Snowden has enough information to cause more damage to the US government in a minute alone than anyone else has ever had in the history of the United States. But that's not his goal. [His] objective is to expose software that people around the world use without knowing what they are exposing themselves without consciously agreeing to surrender their rights to privacy. [He] has a huge number of documents that would be very harmful to the US government if they were made public.

What many commentators have missed in the ongoing attack on Edward Snowden is not that he uncovered information that made clear how corrupt and intrusive the American government has become - how willing it is to engage in vast crimes against the American public.

My understanding is that espionage means giving secret or classified information to the enemy. Since Snowden shared information with the American people, his indictment for espionage could reveal (or confirm) that the US Government views you and me as the enemy.

Chelsea Manning's treachery put American lives at risk and exposed some of our nation's most sensitive secrets. President Obama now leaves in place a dangerous precedent that those who compromise our national security won't be held accountable for their crimes.

Edward Snowden: The Whistleblower Behind the NSA Surveillance Revelations

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.

Snowden has yet to tell me anything that was a fact that I have been able to rebut or that anybody in the U.S. government I have talked to has been able to rebut.

Mr. Snowden is a coward who has chosen to run.

For a spy novelist like me, the Edward J. Snowden story has everything. A man driven by ego and idealism - can anyone ever distinguish the two? - leaves his job and his beautiful girlfriend behind. He must tell the world the Panopticon has arrived. His masters vow to punish him, and he heads for Moscow in a desperate search for refuge.

It's sad to think right now, but probably the Russian and Chinese government know more about Hillary Clinton's e-mail server than do the members of the United States Congress. And - and that has put our national security at risk.

Some say Edward Snowden is a hero and a patriot. Others say he's a fool and a traitor. The evidence is mounting that the guy who leaked the details about the National Security Agency's Internet-eavesdropping program may be something more sinister - namely, a willing tool in China's ongoing cyberwar against our nation.

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

The secrecy stamp … has been used to withhold information which in 99 ½ percent of the cases would present no danger to national security.