Edward Snowden Quotes

Personal privacy is a closely held American value.

Privacy isn't negotiable. It's the right of every American.

I believe that it is critical for this country to have a zone of privacy —– for everyone,

I'm very, very worried about the invasion of privacy rights that we're seeing not only from the N.S.A. and the government but from corporate America, as well. We're losing our privacy rights. It's a huge issue.

I care a lot about privacy. I also care an awful lot about public safety. There continues to be a huge collision between those two things we care about.

When people say, "I have nothing to hide," what they're saying is, "My rights don't matter."

Arguing that you don't care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say.

I certainly respect privacy and privacy rights. But on the other hand, the first function of government is to guarantee the security of all the people.

If surveillance infiltrates our homes and personal relationships, that is a gross breach of our human and civil rights.

The privacy and dignity of our citizens are being whittled away by sometimes imperceptible steps. Taken individually, each step may be of little consequence. But when viewed as a whole, there begins to emerge a society quite unlike any we have seen – a society in which government may intrude into the secret regions of a [person's] life.

People have rights and government must be kept from trampling on them.

I've made sure that I've stood for privacy and the rights of the people time and time again.

If you're doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide from the giant surveillance apparatus the government's been hiding.

The makers of our Constitution . . . conferred, as against the government, the right to be let alone - the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men.

I think that has a lot of dangers, as does government surveillance, which is way too high.

If we can't preserve the privacy of our right to procreate, I can't imagine what rights we will be able to protect.

If government can give you rights, government can take them away from you.

In an age when many of our citizens casually reveal information about themselves in social media wildly beyond anything imaginable only a decade ago, it would seem to be a useful exercise in civics to re-educate the public about the value and purpose of protecting against unwarranted government intrusion.

If the right to privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion.

When people talked about protecting their privacy when I was growing up, they were talking about protecting it from the government. They talked about unreasonable searches and seizures, about keeping the government out of their bedrooms.

I believe the American people have a genuine and justifiable fear of government intrusion in what they instinctively know is going to be an ever more intrusive world.

Americans chose a limited government that exists to protect our rights, not to grant them.

Privacy, in my point of view, is a civil liberty that our Founding Fathers thought of a long time ago and concluded ... was an essential part of what it was to be an American.

The right of individual privacy is essential to the well-being of a free society and shall not be infringed without the showing of a compelling state interest.

When awesome investigative power is entrusted to so many individuals, it is extremely important that they wield it with a proper regard for your constitutional rights, especially your right to privacy.