Edward Snowden: governments want to lower our self-esteem to the level of chip animals

“With the only difference that we ourselves pay for the tracking devices that we have in our pockets”

Edward Snowden wrote the introductory word for the new book The Assasination Complex from Glenn Greenwald and The Intercept project activists. The book on the basis of secret documents tells about unmanned aerial vehicles of the CIA, which routinely destroy hundreds of terrorists and civilians in different countries of the world in remote mode. Documents on the drones provided an unknown informant.

Edward Snowden explains why draining secret crime information is a vital act of resisting and defending democracy. Article published in the newspaper The Guardian .

Edward Snowden says that the individual exploits of the informers cannot change the reality, because too much of the government is involved in secret activities. They will continue to do this, despite the reforms. But now they will have to live with the fear of being revealed, that they will be held accountable for offenses that do not correspond to the values ​​of society. They will know that a leak from just one person will put them at risk.
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Anyone can be the source of the leak. This can be an ordinary junior soldier, like Chelsea Manning, or a high-ranking military analyst, like Daniel Ellsberg , who in 1971 gave the Pentagon Documents to the press. The documents indicated that the administration of President Johnson had intentionally taken actions to escalate the war, despite assurances from Johnson himself that the United States was not seeking to expand it.


Daniel Ellsberg

The case of the publication of documents reached the US Supreme Court, which ruled that American newspapers have the right to publish them.

“I’ve been waiting for someone like you for 40 years,” these were the first words that Daniel Ellsberg said at a meeting with Edward Snowden last year.

The informants who decide to go against the system, reveal the secret truth - they risk everything they have. One act forever dramatically changing their lives. It takes a rare courage for such an act.

Although Ellsberg and Snowden feel related to each other, but their fate was different. Ellsberg managed to escape punishment, while Snowden is still hiding and his future is foggy.



One way or another, writes Snowden, in the case of abuse by the government, everyone can be a source of leakage. Inaider of any level, up to the technical staff.

Edward Snowden appealed to potential informants with a request to be silent and keep quiet if they are not sure that their actions will have an effect. Each successful plum is a lucky coincidence, you need to carefully choose the time for such an act. But sooner or later, such a moment will come when a person can no longer tolerate and put up with the criminal activity that he is forced to engage in, he can no longer hide it.

“As a member of the intelligence community, you give up a lot by going to this job. You happily obey tyrannical restrictions. You voluntarily pass polygraph tests; you disclose to the government all the information about your life. “You give up many rights, because you believe that the fundamental virtue of your mission justifies the sacrifices,” writes Snowden. “And when you come across evidence — not dubious evidence, not weirdness, but the root of the program — that the government violates the Constitution and the ideals you so hotly believe in, then you have to make a decision.” When you see that a program or policy is not consistent with the commitments and oaths that you have given to society and to yourself, that this oath and this commitment are incompatible with the program. To whom should you be faithful? ”

"Now we have the largest uncontrolled military machine in the history of mankind, and it relies on a political system, increasingly ready to allow any use of force for almost any reason."

Now terrorism is called such a pretext, but this is only a pretext. Even if the 9/11 attacks happened every year, the losses from them would be much less than from car accidents or heart attacks, but we do not see the same increase in funding in the fight against these phenomena, says Snowden.



On the basis of the “fight against terrorism”, the government has made the whole world a battlefield, and people - suspects. The authorities are helped in this by modern technologies that create the appearance of the surgical removal of people and non-invasive surveillance. Snowden gives an example of one of the most desirable devices for the authorities - a spy drone with solar batteries, which will be in the air for weeks, constantly tracking all electronic communications on the ground. The authorities will begin to monitor the identifiers of all laptops and phones, tracking the exact location and movement of each of them.

“If you know the devices, then you know their owners. When you start doing this in several cities, you will begin to track not just individuals, but entire populations.

Using the need for people to keep in touch in the modern world all the time, governments can lower our self-esteem to the level of chip animals, with the only difference that we ourselves pay for the tracking devices that we have in our pockets.

It sounds like fantastic paranoia, but on a technical level it is so trivial to implement that I cannot imagine that such an attempt will not be made.

At first, it will be limited to war zones, as usual, but surveillance technology tends to return home. ”

“People at the highest levels of government,” says Edward Snowden, “have extraordinary opportunities, unlimited resources, enormous influence and a monopoly on violence, but ultimately only one figure matters: it is a specific citizen.

And there are more of us. ”