"Forgoing privacy in a quest for absolute safety is as harmful to a healthy psyche and life of an individual as it is to a healthy political culture. For the individual, safety first means a life of paralysis and fear, never entering a car or airplane, never engaging in an activity that entails risk, never weighing quality of life over quantity, and paying any price to avoid danger. [...] A population, a country that venerates physical safety above all other values will ultimately give up its liberty and sanction any power seized by authority in exchange for the promise, no matter how illusory, of total security. However, absolute safety is itself chimeric, pursued but never obtained. The pursuit degrades those who engage in it as well as any nation that comes to be defined by it."
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Lawyers from New York (state)Non-fiction authors from the United StatesColumnists from the United StatesBloggers from the United StatesJournalists from New York City
Original Language: English
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Sources
Penguin Books 2015 edition, page 208.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Glenn_Greenwald
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Glenn Greenwald
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