Glenn Greenwald - Collected Quotes

"A population, a country that venerates physical safety above all other values will ultimately give up its liberty and sanction any power seized by authority in exchange for the promise, no matter how illusory, of total security. However, absolute safety is itself chimeric, pursued by never obtained. The pursuit degrades those who engage in it as well as any nation that comes to be defined by it."  (Glenn Greenwald, "No Place to Hide", 2014)

"A prime justification for surveillance - that it’s for the benefit of the population - relies on projecting a view of the world that divides citizens into categories of good people and bad people. In that view, the authorities use their surveillance powers only against bad people, those who are “doing something wrong,” and only they have anything to fear from the invasion of their privacy."  (Glenn Greenwald, "No Place to Hide", 2014)

"Converting the Internet into a system of surveillance thus guts it of its core potential. Worse, it turns the Internet into a tool of repression, threatening to produce the most extreme and oppressive weapon of state intrusion human history has ever seen."  (Glenn Greenwald, "No Place to Hide", 2014)

"Democracy requires accountability and consent of the governed, which is only possible if citizens know what is being done in their name."  (Glenn Greenwald, "No Place to Hide", 2014)

"Far from hyperbole, that is the literal, explicitly stated aim of the surveillance state: to collect, store, monitor, and analyze all electronic communication by all people around the globe."  (Glenn Greenwald, "No Place to Hide", 2014)

"For many kids, the Internet is a means of self-actualization. It allows them to explore who they are and who they want to be, but that works only if we’re able to be private and anonymous, to make mistakes without them following us."  (Glenn Greenwald, "No Place to Hide", 2014)

"Technology has now enabled a type of ubiquitous surveillance that had previously been the province of only the most imaginative science fiction writers." (Glenn Greenwald, "No Place to Hide", 2014)

"The ability to eavesdrop on people’s communications vests immense power in those who do it. And unless such power is held in check by rigorous oversight and accountability, it is almost certain to be abused."  (Glenn Greenwald, "No Place to Hide", 2014)

"The principle which protects personal writings and all other personal productions, not against theft and physical appropriation, but against publication in any form, is in reality not the principle of private property, but that of an inviolate personality."  (Glenn Greenwald, "No Place to Hide", 2014)

"To permit surveillance to take root on the Internet would mean subjecting virtually all forms of human interaction, planning, and even thought itself to comprehensive state examination."  (Glenn Greenwald, "No Place to Hide", 2014)

"We all instinctively understand that the private realm is where we can act, think, speak, write, experiment, and choose how to be, away from the judgmental eyes of others. Privacy is a core condition of being a free person."  (Glenn Greenwald, "No Place to Hide", 2014)

"We shouldn't have to be faithful loyalists of the powerful to feel safe from state surveillance. Nor should the price of immunity be refraining from controversial or provocative dissent. We shouldn't want a society where the message is conveyed that you will be left alone only if you mimic the accommodating behavior and conventional wisdom of an establishment columnist."  (Glenn Greenwald, "No Place to Hide", 2014)

"What made the Internet so appealing was precisely that it afforded the ability to speak and act anonymously, which is so vital to individual exploration."  (Glenn Greenwald, "No Place to Hide", 2014)