[governance] FW: Edward Snowden: The Greatest Human Rights Challenge Of Our Time

[michael gurstein]

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article36412.htm

The Greatest Human Rights Challenge Of Our Time

By Edward Snowden


Sept. 30, 2013 hearing of the European Parliament Committee on Civil
Liberties, Justice & Home Affairs. GAP National Security & Human Rights
Director Jesselyn Radack reading NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden's
statement to the Committee.

Transcript

I thank the European Parliament and the LIBE Committee for taking up the
challenge of mass surveillance. The surveillance of whole populations,
rather than individuals, threatens to be the greatest human rights challenge
of our time. The success of economies in developed nations relies
increasingly on their creative output, and if that success is to continue,
we must remember that creativity is the product of curiosity, which in turn
is the product of privacy.

A culture of secrecy has denied our societies the opportunity to determine
the appropriate balance between the human right of privacy and the
governmental interest in investigation. These are not decisions that should
be made for a people, but only by the people after full, informed, and
fearless debate. Yet public debate is not possible without public knowledge,
and in my country, the cost for one in my position of returning public
knowledge to public hands has been persecution and exile. If we are to enjoy
such debates in the future, we cannot rely upon individual sacrifice. We
must create better channels for people of conscience to inform not only
trusted agents of government, but independent representatives of the public
outside of government.

When I began my work, it was with the sole intention of making possible the
debate we see occurring here in this body and in many other bodies around
the world. Today we see legislative bodies forming new committees, calling
for investigations, and proposing new solutions for modern problems. We see
emboldened courts that are no longer afraid to consider critical questions
of national security. We see brave executives remembering that if a public
is prevented from knowing how they are being governed, the necessary result
is that they are no longer self-governing. And we see the public reclaiming
an equal seat at the table of government. The work of a generation is
beginning here, with your hearings, and you have the full measure of my
gratitude and support.

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