Guardian Interview of Edward Snowden, NSA Whistleblower

who has now disappeared.

Now increasingly we see that it's happening domestically. To do that NSA specifically targets the communications of everyone, it ingests them by default, it collects them in its system and it filters them and analyzes them and it measures them and stores them for periods of time simply because that's the easiest, most efficient, and most valuable way to achieve these ends. So while they may be intending to target someone associated with a foreign government or someone that they suspect at terrorism, they are collecting your communications to do so.

Any analyst at any time can target anyone, any selector, anywhere. Where those communications will be picked up depends on the range of the sensor networks and the authorities that the analyst is empowered with. Not all analysts have the ability to target everything. But I, sitting at my desk, certainly had authorities to wire-tap anyone - from you, your accountant, to a federal judge, even to the president if I had the personal email.

... ...

I'm no different from anybody else. I don't have special skills, I'm just another guy who sits there day to day in the office who watches what's happening, and goes "This is something that's not our place to decide, the public needs to decide, whether these programs and policies are right or wrong." I'm willing to go on record to defend the authenticity of them, and say "I didn't change these, I didn't modify the story, this is the truth, this is what's happening, you should decide whether we need to be doing this."

And "the public"? According to Pew Research, 56% of Americans are quite happy that NSA is tracking their phone conversations. The good government is doing all they can to protect us from "terrorists"!

It is hard to believe they are the citizens of a country born of a revolution, but if I remember right, the majority of residents of the American colony were happy to remain the English subjects under King George III.

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