In an op-ed for the New York Times published on Friday, Edward Snowden said he was happy about recent blows against the national security apparatus and that America is entering the “post-terror generation.”
“We are witnessing the emergence of a post-terror generation, one that rejects a worldview defined by a singular tragedy,” wrote Snowden, a former contractor who received asylum in Russia after giving a major trove of National Security Agency documents to news outlets.
“For the first time since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, we see the outline of a politics that turns away from reaction and fear in favor of resilience and reason,” he added.
He praised Congress and the Supreme Court for recently moving against the NSA’s call-tracking program, as well as a White House investigation that found that found “the program had not stopped a single terrorist attack.”
“This is the power of an informed public,” he wrote. He went on to cite victories against mass-surveillance in the Europe, Latin America, and the United Nations.
Still, he wrote, the spymasters are still a threat to the rights of American citizens and those in other countries.
“We have learned that our government intentionally weakens the fundamental security of the Internet with ‘back doors’ that transform private lives into open books,” Snowden wrote.
“As you read this online,” he wrote, “the United States government makes a note.”