A Christmas Message From Edward Snowden
Edward Snowden, known all over the world today for disclosing secret documents of the NSA made a video on the occasion for Christmas where he talked about privacy. Below is the video and transcript. The video has been deleted on several occasion for copyright breach but we managed to get a copy of it on YouTube.
Video
Transcript
"Hi. A Merry Christmas.
I'm honored to have a chance to speak with you and your family this year.
Recently, we learned that our governments, working in concert, have created a system of worldwide mass surveillance, watching everything we do.
Great Britain's George Orwell warned us of the danger of this kind of information.
The types of collection in the book - microphones and video cameras, TVs that watch us - are nothing compared to what we have available today.
We have sensors in our pockets that track us everywhere we go.
Think about what this means for the privacy of the average person.
A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all.
They'll never know what it means to have a private moment to themselves; an unrecorded, unanalyzed thought - and that's a problem, because privacy matters.
Privacy is what allows us to determine who we are and who we want to be.
The conversation occurring today will determine the amount of trust we can place, both in the technology that surrounds us, and the government that regulates it.
Together, we can find a better balance."
I'm honored to have a chance to speak with you and your family this year.
Recently, we learned that our governments, working in concert, have created a system of worldwide mass surveillance, watching everything we do.
Great Britain's George Orwell warned us of the danger of this kind of information.
The types of collection in the book - microphones and video cameras, TVs that watch us - are nothing compared to what we have available today.
We have sensors in our pockets that track us everywhere we go.
Think about what this means for the privacy of the average person.
A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all.
They'll never know what it means to have a private moment to themselves; an unrecorded, unanalyzed thought - and that's a problem, because privacy matters.
Privacy is what allows us to determine who we are and who we want to be.
The conversation occurring today will determine the amount of trust we can place, both in the technology that surrounds us, and the government that regulates it.
Together, we can find a better balance."