#edward snowden quote

[reality-detective]

[quotelr]

Every person remembers some moment in their life where they witnessed some injustice, big or small, and looked away because the consequences of intervening seemed too intimidating. But there's a limit to the amount of incivility and inequality and inhumanity that each individual can tolerate. I crossed that line. And I'm no longer alone.

Edward Snowden

[kntxt]

WHY FREE SPEECH MATTERS

by Edward Snowden (npub1sn0wdenkukak0d9dfczzeacvhkrgz92ak56egt7vdgzn8pv2wfqqhrjdv9)

[normavasquez]

When exposing a crime is treated as committing a crime, you are being ruled by criminals. - Edward Snowden

[harmontown-quotes]

Dan: we have these systems that we totally accept…but as soon as one person says ‘this system’s fucked up and I as one person am going to do something so powerful that it’s going to fuck up the whole system (or just fuck with it a little bit)’ we focus on that person -because they’re a person- and if they have a stutter or they also have a weird personality or a sex offense trial…we focus too much on [them as] people. And the systems that aren’t human in the first place, that are doing all the fucked up shit, that’s how they like it — it’s a system and it just stays in place. And then anybody that starts to speak up like ‘hey can we adjust the air conditioning in here?’ Everyone can turn to that person and go ‘ok what’s your name, where did you make your money last year, what do you like for dinner’ and you’re in the spotlight, and sooner or later because you’re human you’re gonna fail, and then the system goes “hmph so much for that alternate point of view, that failed.’

Kumail: but don’t you think [Snowden] is totally cultivating that [hero perspective]? He’s presenting himself as that.

D: yes because he’s a human being, because human beings are braggarts and narcissists and rapists and thieves and liars and politicians and diplomats and villains. …Systems never get held to that scrutiny — you don’t get to say ‘this is what Google is’, you have to anthropomorphize it in order to do that. And so they continue on being systems, which if a person did what these systems did you would go ‘well that’s kinda fucked up of you. You keep talking about freedom all the time, you sure are blowing a lot of people up. Fucking weirdo. Hypocrite. Look at Jerry over there, why don’t you talk about freedom some more and kill some more people.’

A system can do that.

Harmontown 59: Writing Tips From a Jerk

[chillinaris]

We're next!

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CxkdyeESHQv/?igshid=NjZiM2M3MzIxNA==

[donotdestroy]

Watch Edward Snowden detail how phones are used to spy on you

[pjimerson]

profound quotes

“We will not starve from lack of wonders, but from lack of wonder.” - I do not know who said it, but it was quoted in the movie Supernova and attributed to "A Wise Man" “If we want things to stay as they are, everything will have to change.” - These words are spoken by young aristocrat Tancredi in the novel "The  Leopard" by Tomasi di Lampedusa “I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned.” - Richard Feinman “Monsters exist, but they are far too few in number to be truly dangerous; the most dangerous monsters are ordinary [men and women] ready to believe and obey without asking questions.” - Primo Levi in "The Truce" “That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.” - Edward Snowden in a speech entitled "Snowden: Democracy Under Surveillance" streamed live on april 18th 2017 and posted on the "Learn Liberty" channel on youtube.com “If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.” --Lao Tzu

[the-chosen-none]

I have no real interest in mods aside from somewhat following the Frontier mess, but when I found out that the fairly popular old New Vegas Bounties mods included incredibly blatant references to Judge Holden and Glanton from Blood Meridian, plus a character named "Javier Sugar" who speaks several lines lifted straight from No Country for Old Men, I wanted to find out how many references to other things pop up throughout the three mods. Turns out, a LOT.

I identified some of them myself, but eventually when I realized how much time it would take for me to watch a whole playthrough or try it out myself, I decided to look up the rest on TV Tropes and put them all together in a list.

The aforementioned Judge Holden knock-off is also said to be seven-feet tall and is a child predator (though only technically implied to be in Holden's case)

The character literally named Glanton runs a group who goes around killing "tribals"

There's a character named Cormac, as in Cormac McCarthy

During the scene with "Javier Sugar", in addition to all the NCFOM quotes there's also a random quote from the movie The Outlaw Josey Wales thrown in there... to spice things up? IDK, the quote is something like "Dyin' ain't no way of livin', boy"

A character called "Harmonica" references one of the main characters of Once Upon a Time in the West

The ghoul Doc Friday references the historical figure Doc Holiday, and his revolver the Huckleberry references the famous quote from his depiction in the movie Tombstone, "I could be your huckleberry"

Marko's outfit seems to reference the character Loco from the movie The Great Silence.

The Frosthill segment of III is also lifted from The Great Silence, what with its Utah setting during the winter, the main character getting shot through the hand, and bounty hunters pretty much kill the whole town.

Aaron Flagg the cult leader seems to be inspired by Randall Flagg the Stephen King villain

The sniper Charlie Halfcocked references the U.S. Marine sniper during Vietnam, Carlos Hathcock, the previous record holder for the most kills

Tom Quigley references the movie Quigley Down Under, the titular character being played by Tom Sellick.

Enclave members Quantrill and Onoda, who keep fighting despite the Enclave's repeated defeats, are named after Confederate guerilla William Quantrill and WWII Japanese soldier Hiroo Onoda, who did the same for their sides (okay, I thought that reference was pretty good)

Eileen the Fiend = serial killer Aileen Wuornos

Tony Idaho = Tony Montana from Scarface

Tommy the former Omerta enforcer who killed a made man references Tommy DeVito from Goodfellas

Alex and his gang in Freeside reference Alex DeLarge and his droogs from A Clockwork Orange

Freddie the ghoul = Freddy Krueger

Jack, former muscle for Heck Gunderson, references the villain Jack Wilson from Shane, his revolver is called "Shane's Bane"

Albert Quisling = Vidkun Quisling

Mario Barksdale = character from The Wire

Prometheus is named after the subtitle for Frankenstein: "The modern Prometheus", his Deathclaws are Mary and Shelley

Pancho Cortina = Pancho Villa

"Squirrelly" Bill Blasius references outlaw "Curly" Bill Brocius

Angel Lee is a combination of Angel Eyes from The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, and the actor Lee Van Cleef

Godwin, who mails out bombs, probably references Unabomber

Joe Frost = Edward Snowden

Guys fighting over treasure named Clint and Tuco

Fiend chem lab has characters Walter and Pinkman, references Breaking Bad

John Ramsey's body is put on display with a quote referencing the movie Unforgiven, "This is what happens to assassins/rangers around here".

Those are the ones that I either caught myself or saw other people list, if there's more, go ahead and add on.

Some of the historical references are kinda funny, though others are either tasteless (Aileen Wuornos) or eye-roll worthy (Carlos Hathcock = Charlie Halfcocked, GEDDIT IT'S A GUN JOKE), and the majority of the pop culture references are so blatant and so numerous that it gets annoying.

If I made my own mod or anything else, of course I too would love to stick in a bunch of references to the things I love, though I would try to be less obvious about them, put different spins on them, you know? You can't really judge mods to the same standard as the source, and I would be more forgiving if the rest of the mods didn't look like such an edgy slog.

[vidreview]

VIDEO ESSAY ROUNDUP #6 [PART 1]

[originally posted august 1st 2024]

at last, it's time for another roundup! things were fairly dry for a minute there. i tend to go through peaks and valleys vis-a-vis video essay consumption, where i'll watch a bunch of them for a few months and then not be able to watch any for a few months after that. this has been especially true as i've been getting back into the habit of making my own scripted essays. did you know i did one about the Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Specials a few months ago? i share this so you can judge for yourself if i know what i'm talking about enough to be worth taking recommendations from. i am a fallible beast, and our tastes are likely not the same! also i'm proud of that video and i'd like you to watch it.

but we're here to talk about other people's work, and let me tell you, the last month and a half has yielded a real bounty. let's jump in.

"Investigating a forgotten Edward Snowden Quote" by Allie Meowy.

edward snowden was a bit of a mystery to me beyond the headlines. all i knew was that he leaked highly classified documents detailing secret mass-surveillance, and that he liked hentai games.

this is one of the funniest, strangest essays i've encountered in years. what happens when the wikipedia page for games based on movies doesn't include Elf: The Movie: The Game for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance, and also you happen to discover that Edward Snowden is on the record as liking "some" hentai games? i'm not even sure what this essay ultimately adds up to, but i had such a blast watching it that i honestly don't even care. a wild ride that's well worth your time.

"a pocket full of stones" by Glouder Glens.

i've been thinking about an interview with People's Joker director Vera Drew where she talked about how many young queer artists have relegated themselves to the anti-recognition of youtube. if her film was proof that there's room in the film fest circuit for artfully essayish digital cinema, then we have no choice but to campaign for the incredible works of Sylvia Schweikert, AKA Glouder Glens, to reach a similar level of recognition. if you've yet to encounter its work, Sylvia's half-essay half-werewolf-erotica about it/its pronouns is a classic, but everything on her channel is a gem (not to mention its excellent short films). lately, Sylvia's been experimenting with the form in a big way. her last essay, "Self Discovery Stories," is artfully vertical, a true phone video that digs deep and hits hard. "a pocket full of stones" takes a huge step sideways, rendered in 4:3 at a scalding 360p and edited with a post-adobe-flash Lynch-esque animation style that rockets you back in time to the earliest days of internet video in the best way. what i wouldn't give to see this one on the big screen, i'm telling you. this kind of work simply doesn't have a place on youtube as far as youtube's concerned, so it's up to us as champions of the medium to share widely what the algorithm will not. definitely heed the content warnings though.

"The Miraculous Horror of Stop Motion" by Henry Kathman.

here's a cozy, enthusiastic dive into the often unforeseen externalities of stop-motion animation, that doesn't outstay its welcome or get too sanctimonious. i appreciate Kathman's use of alternate backdrops to give each section its own mood. through three unique and interesting examples of stop motion, he explores how the medium itself is an artform that can't be streamlined through technology the way so many other forms of animation have been-- even just to recreate the feel of stop motion digitally, you still pretty much have to hand animate it with an equivalent amount of brute labor. it's a satisfying analysis, which is unsurprising from the ever-consistent and thoughtful Kathman. and the soundtrack by Molly Noise is, as always, fantastic.

"The Religious Gamification of Indika" by Pim's Crypt.

i watched an essay a couple weeks ago about Indika which heavily criticized it for being boring and overly talkative, that really just convinced me that i wanted to see someone look at the game on its own terms. Pim here does a great job doing exactly that, wasting zero seconds of the universe's limited window of coherence on lip service to the harsh critical consensus in favor of simply examining what Indika says on its own terms. they explore how the complexities of faith are successfully gameified in Indika, making a compelling case for its quality. i've highlighted Pim in a previous roundup, and i'm happy to see them back with another solid work.

"So What's Up With Those PS2 Castlevanias?" by Trans Witch Reviews.

this one's pretty much what it says on the tin. when it comes to analyzing game franchises long-running enough to have titles across multiple console generations, i'm always drawn to essays that dig into the red-headed step-children no one ever really talks about. like the PS2 Castlevania games. i didn't even know they existed until now! granted that's probably because i never owned a Sony console before the ps4, but whatever. like a lot of games with 2D roots, Castlevania seemed to struggle finding its feet in the third dimension, and the historical consensus seems to have largely landed on "the 2D ones were best." i think this Trans Witch makes a very compelling case that at the very least Castlevania: Curse of Darkness is an underrated classic-- enough so, anyway, to make me want to give it a shot. i appreciate how she highlights the music of the series by focusing on the work of specific composers, though i think she lingers on those samples for a bit too long. regardless, this is a well put together essay made with readily apparent enthusiasm, and sometimes that's all you need.

"Why The Ring Didn't Use Color Grading" by WatchingtheAerial.

an astonishingly thorough deep-dive into the very specific in-camera techniques used to give Gore Verbinski's American remake of The Ring its signature blue look. like a lot of people i always assumed this was accomplished with digital color grading, though unlike many detractors i adore The Ring's visual identity and think it's at least as worthwhile a film as its Japanese counterpoint. this is the kind of video essay i adore-- a technician with extensive domain knowledge utilizing resources laypeople wouldn't know about to answer a seemingly simple question at exhaustive and surprising depth. the real kicker here though is that the creator also wants to recreate this technique for themself, all the way up to tracking down the kind of film stock The Ring was shot on and using it in a 35mm stills camera. i immediately went from this video to watch everything else on his (?) channel, and i wasn't disappointed. here's someone who cares a lot about the labor of shaping and lensing light, and the emotional properties these processes bring to a film. "Collateral & the Death of Neon" is SUCH a satisfying watch if you care even a little bit about the visual identity of city streets across history. great stuff all around

[tristan-47]

Project Topic : The Notion of Private Data Protection

For the Project I will be making, I will be talking about the Protection of Data Protection and the Underlying questions of a Data Surveillance plan by the prism of Jean Michel JARRE's and Edward SNOWDEN's collaboration song "Exit" from JARRE's 2015 Album "Electronica 1 : The Time Machine".

They are not just one Question I want to ask but rather two perspectives on this Topic...

The first one, in SNOWDEN's words is, can the Current Technological Developments be used to protect Private Protection in the future ?

The second one, from JARRE's perspective is, can there be, currently, a Resistance against any Data Ownership Abuse that Society generated ?

For this Project, I will be answering this Question with the Press Articles from "Slate" as well as the Daily Newspaper where SNOWDEN actually came from "The Guardian".

Due to the presence of references that SNOWDEN and JARRE quoted that are outside of this particular Track and Album, I will be also be using SNOWDEN's Biography on Wikipedia as well as the Genealogy of the JARRE Family concerning the motherhood side of it, being the French Resistant Fighter France PEJOT.

SOURCES :

[castlesprincess]

He deleted this from TikTok but the amount of times I’ve quoted “I just got off the phone with Edward Snowden” and “good thing I have all these chainsaws” is concerning

[back-and-totheleft]

Ten quotes

Filmmaker Oliver Stone visited the Alamo Drafthouse in Littleton on Sunday to introduce perhaps his best- and least-known films: Natural Born Killers (1994) and the largely forgotten U-Turn (1997), the latter starring Sean Penn, Jennifer Lopez, Nick Nolte, Jon Voight, Powers Boothe, Julie Hagerty (!), Claire Danes and Joaquin Phoenix. Based on a book and screenplay by John Ridley (Twelve Years a Slave), it’s about a man who is heading to Las Vegas to pay off a gambling debt until forced to stop at the broken-down desert town of Superior, Ariz.

Here are our 10 favorite things that came out of Stone’s mouth after the U-Turn screening, ranging from his thoughts on Will Ferrell as the epitome of all evil; to the shouting from Jennifer Lopez’s motel room while filming U-Turn; to the influence of the animated cat-and-mouse Tom and Jerry on his score; to the letter of recommendation he wrote for Claire Danes; to working with an insecure young actor named Donald Trump on Wall Street (“He doesn’t entertain failure”); to how our modern world has been driven to the brink of madness:

On Sean Penn: "Poor Sean. He put up with a lot. He was a replacement for Bill Paxton, who dropped out at the last second because he was freaked out by the role. Strange fellow. But Sean stepped in, and he helped us make the film – because it was really close to falling apart."

On Jennifer Lopez: "She was married at the time to a young Cuban, and the walls of that Arizona motel … man, talk about Latin temperament. There was a lot of banging and screaming. People would say, ‘I need sleep, so I can’t stay in the room next to Jennifer Lopez.’ Meanwhile, Sean Penn has got his eye on her, too, so there was this whole crazy jealousy thing going on. But Jennifer came to see me years later, after she had become J.Lo. She was another person completely now. It was after her third marriage or something. She said to me, ‘I want to go back. I want to make that kind of movie again. I just want to get real like that.’ Because she had been doing all that glittery stuff."

On whistle-blower Edward Snowden, the subject of his upcoming film, Snowden: "I am really not at liberty to say too much. Put it this way: He’s smart, he’s articulate, he cares very much, and it doesn’t matter that he’s in Russia. He could be anywhere in the world. He’s still connected by the Internet. This is a man who spends possibly 70 percent of his time on a computer. He keeps his contacts up. He participates in forums and discussions and lectures. And he is working very seriously on a constitution for the Internet, which we really need. Many, many people admire him. I find him in good spirits. I didn’t see any sign of depression. He has broadened his sense of humor. I showed him the film a couple of weeks ago (Snowden), and he responded very well."

On the current presidential race: "I am scared. But I don’t think the Republicans are the issue. Everyone wants to be stronger and stronger in terms of dealing with the world, but that’s not the right way to go about it. I believe in an international balance of power. I am concerned that Hillary Clinton is embraced by the neo-conservatives, or the liberal interventionists as I call them, because her policies, and Obama’s policies, and Bush’s policies have driven us to the edge of madness. We have created a mess in the Middle East with four interventions. Also Afghanistan and Libya. We are not effective as a military force abroad. We don’t need 800 military bases. We have to change our way of thinking. Sanders gets it, to some degree. And Trump, in his own way, actually gets it, too. He’s the only Republican who has come out and said outright: ‘Hey, that Iraq war was a stupid (bleeping) thing to do.’ And all these Republicans are shocked. The establishment is shocked. ‘How can you say that Mr. Bush screwed up?’ I mean, come on. It’s about time we wake up in this country. Let’s get real."

Working with Donald Trump in Wall Street: "He’s a smart dude. He’s funny. And yet, he’s an egomaniac and a narcissist, as you can see. I’ll never forget this: He jumped up after Take 1 of his scene with Michael Douglas and said, ‘How was I? I was great, wasn’t I?’ I said, ‘Donald, it was good, but I think you can do better.’ I got him to do nine or 10 takes, and he would jump up after every one and say the same thing. ‘How was I?’ He doesn’t entertain failure."

On U-Turn actors Joaquin Phoenix and Claire Danes: "They really did a turn in this film. This was before they became really famous. They were both such fun. It was a delight. Sean Penn’s character says, “Is everybody in this town on drugs?” And that’s the overall feeling of the movie. You have to be free and you can’t care. Claire was not hot at that point. She had done Romeo and Juliet with Leonardo DiCaprio, and he took off from that movie. She … less so. So by the time U-Turn came along, she was happy to grab it. She was going back to Yale at that point, and she wanted me to write her a letter of recommendation. I had flunked out of Yale, but I wrote it anyway. She always thanked me for that. She is a wonderful actress."

On who he looks up to: "It would be easier for you to give me a list with everyone on it and I could tell you who to take off. Most of the people would stay on it. Stanley Kubrick was a big deal for me when I was young. So was Federico Fellini. So was Jean-Luc Godard and Luis Buñuel. In my generation: Francis Ford Coppola, of course. Martin Scorsese. William Friedkin. In this generation: Alejandro Iñárritu has done a tremendous job. Birdman is an interesting philosophical story. So is The Revenant. He’s got talent. A lot of other people do, too. I think this Adam McKay, who did The Big Short, is very smart. He’s very good with dialogue, too."

On the Foley cartoon sounds in U-Turn: "The music was by Ennio Morricone, and he has a beautiful history. He not only some wrote Sergio Leone classics but also 1900, which I think is one of the most beautiful scores ever written. He’s written for so many people. I wanted him to do two things for me: One was this love theme, which I thought was tremendous. But the rest of it – he didn’t do it right. And he is not the easiest guy to get along with, if you talk to most people. He knew the game: His contract said he would never come back to the United States. So there would be no rewrites. When he delivered the score, the love theme was there. But the rest was not what I wanted. So I had to bring him back, and he was really (bleeped) off. That was a rough three days. I was trying to make him understand what I wanted, because I can’t put it into musical terms. I can only express it. I wanted the music he had done for Leone, only modernized with those reverbs and those exaggerated sounds. I call it kind of a cartoon sound. That booinnnng sound. He just didn’t seem to get it. I was desperate, so I showed him a cartoon of Tom and Jerry. I said, ‘That’s sort of what I want.’ He was so upset. He said: “You want me to write cartoon music? You brought me back to America for this?” He gave me what I wanted on a second pass, thank God. He’s still a (bleep) but … I am glad to see he got an Oscar. Not for his best music (The Hateful Eight). Probably his worst score, in fact. But he I am glad to see he got an Oscar."

On Oliver Stone’s movie recommendations: "You might boo me for this, but I was laughing my head off when I saw Zoolander 2. The critics all turned on it, They said it was dreck. But it’s very witty. Very well-written. And Will Ferrell has never been better as the incarnation of all evil. I say this seriously: You see evil in my movies, but when you see this movie, you will see evil. The way evil has become in the modern world."

Advice to a first-time filmmaker: "Get a good night’s sleep. That’s very important. Stay healthy. Eat well. It’s exhausting. I find directing is like being the host of a giant party. You are trying to put through your vision of a film, if you have one, and you are going to find there are a lot of impediments to that. It takes inner grit."

-Oliver Stone in Denver: Ten awesome quotes, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, March 7 2026

[kntxt]

[perdvivly]

GCHQ is more invasive and is subject to fewer regulations/ departmental oversight than the NSA (which is impressive because it’s not like the NSA is particularly committed to being non-invasive). This is mostly due to members of parliament that did not understand the extent of the reach they were giving GCHQ because they did not understand communications technology (so claims Richard Aldrich wrt members of parliament, quoting Edward Snowden wrt NSA vs GCHQ). But is it true that American lawmakers understood the implications of communication technology on a deeper level than British lawmakers?

Neither agency can legally read the content of sent messages without a warrant. But the content of messages is less important in building profiles than the metadata anyway. It’s more important to know who is messaging whom, from where, and at what time, than to know exactly what is being messaged which is harder to quantise anyway.

In my mind there’s a link to the Glomar response’s relationship with lies (you cannot only give it when you want to lie without lying, or else it becomes obvious that that is what’s going on) and the map between data and metadata… But I need to think on it more before drawing that out

[subtlyeuphoric]

I really hate to be this person, but this quote did not originate from Joseph Goebbels.

Edward Snowden Godwin's Law'd himself.