Edward Snowden: The World Says No to Surveillance - NYTimes.com

Excerpt from an Edward Snowden NYT op-ed piece; for additional context-setting, see Edward Snowden celebrates victory on surveillance in NYT op-ed (The Washington Post)

"Beyond the frontiers of law, progress has come even more quickly. Technologists have worked tirelessly to re-engineer the security of the devices that surround us, along with the language of the Internet itself. Secret flaws in critical infrastructure that had been exploited by governments to facilitate mass surveillance have been detected and corrected. Basic technical safeguards such as encryption — once considered esoteric and unnecessary — are now enabled by default in the products of pioneering companies like Apple, ensuring that even if your phone is stolen, your private life remains private. Such structural technological changes can ensure access to basic privacies beyond borders, insulating ordinary citizens from the arbitrary passage of anti-privacy laws, such as those now descending upon Russia."

Edward Snowden: The World Says No to Surveillance - NYTimes.com