Edward Snowden on "Turnkey Tyranny"

Edward Snowden: The greatest fear I have regarding the outcome for America of these disclosures is that nothing will change. People will see in the media all of these disclosures—they’ll know the length that the government is going to grant themselves powers, unilaterally, to create greater control over American society and global society. But they won’t be willing to take the risks necessary to stand up and fight to change things — to force their Representatives to actually take a stand in their interests. And in the months ahead, the years ahead, it’s only going to get worse, until eventually, there will be a time where policies will change because the ONLY thing that restricts the activities of the surveillance state are policies. Even our agreements with other sovereign governments, we consider that to be a stipulation of policy, rather than a stipulation of law. And because of that, a new leader will be elected, they will flip the switch, say that because of the crisis, because of the dangers that we face in the world, you know, some new and unpredicted threat, we need more authority — we need more power — and there will be nothing the people can do at that point to oppose it. And it will be turnkey tyranny.