A Manifesto for the Truth
"In a very short time, the world has learned much about unaccountable secret agencies and about sometimes illegal surveillance programs. Sometimes the agencies even deliberately try to hide their surveillance of high officials or the public. While the NSA and GCHQ seem to be the worst offenders – this is what the currently available documents suggest – we must not forget that mass surveillance is a global problem in need of global solutions.
Such programs are not only a threat to privacy, they also threaten freedom of speech and open societies. The existence of spy technology should not determine policy. We have a moral duty to ensure that our laws and values limit monitoring programs and protect human rights.
Society can only understand and control these problems through an open, respectful and informed debate. At first, some governments feeling embarrassed by the revelations of mass surveillance initiated an unprecedented campaign of persecution to suppress this debate. They intimidated journalists and criminalized publishing the truth. At this point, the public was not yet able to evaluate the benefits of the revelations. They relied on their governments to decide correctly.
Today we know that this was a mistake and that such action does not serve the public interest. The debate which they wanted to prevent will now take place in countries around the world. And instead of doing harm, the societal benefits of this new public knowledge is now clear, since reforms are now proposed in the form of increased oversight and new legislation.
Citizens have to fight suppression of information on matters of vital public importance. To tell the truth is not a crime." (Snowden, 2013)
This Manifesto was written by Edward Snowden on November 1, 2013, in Moscow Russia; only five months after he had revealed that he was the whistleblower. This text was send to Der Spiegel which is a German weekly news magazine.
Reading this manifesto, I believe it is clear to see that the reason why Edward Snowden leaked those documents and did what he did was to simply protect the American people and make sure that they are fully aware of exactly how their privacy is being taken advantage of. He simply summarizes that his sole motivation for doing what he did was to inform the public. This is an incredible example of a manifesto, as it is aimed to inform the public in the most self-less way possible. In a short manifesto, he pin points the most crucial facts that he believes everyone needed to know as soon as possible, while risking his life in doing so.
