Edward Snowden - New York Times Interview lyrics

Edward Snowden: [I didn't take any files to Russia] because it wouldn't serve the public interest. What would be the unique value of personally carrying another copy of the materials onward? There's a zero percent chance the Russians or Chinese have received any documents. The secret continuance of these programs represents a far greater danger than their disclosure. So long as there's broad support amongst a people, it can be argued there's a level of legitimacy even to the most invasive and morally wrong program, as it was an informed and willing decision. However, programs that are implemented in secret, out of public oversight, lack that legitimacy, and that's a problem. It also represents a dangerous normalization of ‘governing in the dark,' where decisions with enormous public impact occur without any public input. [I had] access to every target, every active operation [mounted by the N.S.A. against the Chinese]. Full lists of them. If that was compromised, N.S.A. would have set the table on fire from slamming it so many times in denouncing the damage it had caused. Yet N.S.A. has not offered a single example of damage from the leaks. They haven't said boo about it except ‘we think,' ‘maybe,' ‘have to a**ume' from anonymous and former officials. Not ‘China is going dark.' Not ‘the Chinese military has shut us out.' [Inside the NSA] there's a lot of dissent — palpable with some, even. [But people are kept in line through] fear and a false image of patriotism - obedience to authority. [If I tried to question the N.S.A.'s surveillance operations as an insider, my efforts] would have been buried forever. [I would] have been discredited and ruined. The system does not work. You have to report wrongdoing to those most responsible for it. You can't read something like that [the cla**ified NSA report Snowden read] and not realize what it means for all of these systems we have. If the highest officials in government can break the law without fearing punishment or even any repercussions at all, secret powers become tremendously dangerous. I handed over the documents to journalists because [I want my own bias] divorced from the decision-making of publication. Technical solutions were in place to ensure the work of the journalists couldn't be interfered with.