In 2013, Edward Snowden warned us that the U.S. government’s surveillance capabilities had grown so powerful that, in the wrong hands, they could become an unprecedented mechanism for oppression.
In exposing a secret, global system of U.S. mass surveillance that was adopted without the public’s consent, Snowden empowered all of us to fight back. His actions set in motion the most important debate about surveillance in decades.
Thanks to Snowden, the U.S. Congress reined in the NSA for the first time in decades. The United Nations appointed a first-ever privacy watchdog. Tech companies took unprecedented steps to strengthen our communications infrastructure to protect us from snoops and data thieves.
Yet Snowden himself remains in exile.
We cannot say what the coming years might bring for civil liberties or for Snowden himself. But we do know that he stood up for us, and now we need to stand up for him. Join the movement on behalf of one of history’s most important whistleblowers.