But the fact is whistleblowers cannot be threatened into silence because in many cases, in almost all cases, the individuals who are engaged in this know it is more likely than not to be an act of self-immolation. You are lighting yourself on fire for the betterment of your country, of your community, of your planet. But it doesn’t have to be this way, and we should not accept that it must be this way. And if we want to see a better world, if we want to have access to the truth we must create mechanisms whereby those who have the truth can tell us the truth without us throwing them into the volcano. Because if we don’t, we will find ourselves with no one who is willing to tell us the truth when we need it the most.

–Edward Snowden (March 12, 2018)