Whistleblower Edward Snowden gave this year’s Alternative Christmas Message on Channel 4. Transcript below.
He follows figures such as Ali G, Sharon Osbourne and Baroness Lawrence in giving the festive address which is the station’s answer to the Queen’s message to the nation.
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Hi, and Merry Christmas. I’m honored 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, 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. 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.
What do you think of Snowden’s message? Please comment below!
Recent comment:
He is so correct. People who call him a traitor are wrong. Where could he go to tell his story in the USA and live? Give me one person who went to school with Obummer or who has information about his grades, or “girlfriends” ANYTHING! Not one person who witnessed BO’s birth, or friend of his mother talking about his birth has ever been heard from. What about the doctor who delivered him, the nurses in attendance? The neighbors who went to his mothers shower or his baptism? Even other pols and CEO’s of mega companies live in fear of BO. There is enough evidence to impeach him, but if you want to live, forget about it. Did Snowden take away your job, your health insurance, your doctors, .did he send your kids to be killed in Afghanistan, did he spend hundreds of millions of dollars you worked hard for on vacations? All Snowden did is tell the truth. May God bless Edward.