Edward Snowden who achieved international prominence earlier this year by leaking details of the agency's gathering of phone and Internet records to newspapers in the U.S. and Great Britain, has said that his "mission's already accomplished" and claimed that he's "working to improve the NSA."
Snowden's thinking is that he did not set out to “bring down the NSA” but that his theft of and distribution of documents will help to refocus the agency on its true purpose.
In an interview with The Washington Post published Tuesday, Snowden, who was granted temporary asylum in Russia August 1, said "I didn’t want to change society. I wanted to give society a chance to determine if it should change itself.”
NSA's bulk collection of Americans' phone records to address the public's concern about privacy. His comments came in a week in which a federal judge declared the NSA's collection program probably was unconstitutional. A presidential advisory panel has suggested 46 changes to NSA operations.
The effects of Snowden's revelations have been evident in the courts, Congress, Silicon Valley and capitals around the world, where even U.S. allies have reacted angrily to reports of U.S. monitoring of their leaders' cellphone calls.
Brazil and members of the European Union are considering ways to better protect their data and U.S. technology companies such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo are looking at ways to block the collection of data by the government.
Here's a few of Snowden's more interesting quotes from the interview:
Author Venkatesh Yalagandula Follow us Google + and Facebook and Twitter
Snowden's thinking is that he did not set out to “bring down the NSA” but that his theft of and distribution of documents will help to refocus the agency on its true purpose.
In an interview with The Washington Post published Tuesday, Snowden, who was granted temporary asylum in Russia August 1, said "I didn’t want to change society. I wanted to give society a chance to determine if it should change itself.”
NSA's bulk collection of Americans' phone records to address the public's concern about privacy. His comments came in a week in which a federal judge declared the NSA's collection program probably was unconstitutional. A presidential advisory panel has suggested 46 changes to NSA operations.
The effects of Snowden's revelations have been evident in the courts, Congress, Silicon Valley and capitals around the world, where even U.S. allies have reacted angrily to reports of U.S. monitoring of their leaders' cellphone calls.
Brazil and members of the European Union are considering ways to better protect their data and U.S. technology companies such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo are looking at ways to block the collection of data by the government.
Here's a few of Snowden's more interesting quotes from the interview:
- “If I defected at all, I defected from the government to the public.”
- “All I wanted was for the public to be able to have a say in how they are governed. That is a milestone we left a long time ago. Right now, all we are looking at are stretch goals.”
- “For me, in terms of personal satisfaction, the mission’s already accomplished. I already won. As soon as the journalists were able to work, everything that I had been trying to do was validated. Because, remember, I didn’t want to change society. I wanted to give society a chance to determine if it should change itself.”
- “That whole question — who elected you? — inverts the model. They elected me. The overseers. [US Senator] Dianne Feinstein elected me when she asked softball questions. [US Congressman and Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence member] Mike Rogers elected me when he kept these programs hidden. . . . The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court elected me when they decided to legislate from the bench on things that were far beyond the mandate of what that court was ever intended to do.”
- “I don’t care whether you’re the pope or Osama bin Laden. As long as there’s an individualized, articulable, probable cause for targeting these people as legitimate foreign intelligence, that’s fine. I don’t think it’s imposing a ridiculous burden by asking for probable cause. Because, you have to understand, when you have access to the tools the NSA does, probable cause falls out of trees.”
White House spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden told the Associated Press: "Mr. Snowden faces felony charges here in the United States and should be returned to the U.S. as soon as possible, where he will be afforded due process and all the protections of our criminal justice system."
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