NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. (photo: Guardian UK)
The Work of a Generation
02 October 13
SA
whistleblower Edward Snowden's words were entered as testimony at the
European Parliament's Civil Liberties Committee in Brussels on Monday. Jesselyn Radack of the US Government Accountability Project (GAP) and a former whistleblower and ethics adviser to the US Department of Justice, read Snowden's statement into the record.
Ms. Radack came to prominence after she revealed that the FBI had committed what she said was a breach of ethics in its interrogation of John Walker Lindh, who was captured during the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and dubbed the “American Taliban.”
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 (United Nations) 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. Edward Snowden
