Mass surveillance worse than Orwell’s ‘1984,’ Snowden says

A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all,” Snowden said in a Christmas Day message shown by Channel 4. “They’ll never know what it means to have a private moment to themselves, an unrecorded, unanalyzed thought.”“Privacy matters; privacy is what allows us to determine who we are and who we want to be,” he said.




Six months ago, Snowden, a computer analyst turned whistleblower, brought to global attention top-secret National Security Agency (NSA) documents leading to revelations about widespread United States surveillance on phone and internet communications.

Snowden

In his first TV interview since arriving in Moscow, Snowden lays out his vision for why privacy matters and why he believes mass indiscriminate surveillance by governments of their people is wrong.

Edward Snowden's Christmas Message Transcript 

Hi, and Merry Christmas. I'm honoured to have the 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, unanalysed 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. End mass surveillance. And remind the government that if it really wants to know how we feel, asking is always cheaper than spying.

For everyone out there listening, thank you, and Merry Christmas.