Celebrating June 6th as Edward Snowden Day

We recognize June 6th as Edward Snowden Day in commemoration of when the news he provided about the top-secret Prism was first revealed to the world. We hope this day will not focus on the negative aspects of surveilance states but will symbolize a day for digital human rights, privacy, and freedom.

We are both celebrating Edward Snowden as a person as well as the meaning of what he revealed and helped us protect, our digital freedom. We honor all of those, like Mr. Snowden, with the courage to speak the truth about a system that still exists today.

Thirteen years ago the world learned that the surveillance state is real.

On June 5, 2013, Edward Snowden first revealed evidence of global mass surveillance to journalists. The next day, on June 6, the story broke publicly with reports showing that the United States National Security Agency had access to data from major internet companies through the PRISM program. The Guardian’s original report helped bring this story to the world.

The revelations did not only show one government program. They showed us that modern surveillance had become deeply embedded in many governments´ infrastructures. States are monitoring citizens. They are looking at our private communications. Intelligence agencies are using global communication networks in ways we never imagined or thought were only dystopian science fiction. Democratic governments are treating transparency as a threat.

As Amnesty International later summarized, the Snowden documents changed public understanding of surveillance. People learned far more about what governments are doing. The public began questioning the legality of surveillance. Technology companies faced new pressure to improve encryption and privacy protections. Human rights organizations began to speak more clearly about mass surveillance as a direct threat to human rights. Here at PPI we began promoting digital rights at the UN and other forums as a form of fundamental human rights.

Digital rights advocacy took a great leap forward thanks to Edward Snowden.

Edward Snowden is still living in exile. The charges against him still stand. Surveillance programs did not disappear. The political culture that intimidates whistleblowers did not disappear. In many places, it has become even more advanced, more automated, and more difficult for citizens to see.

That is why this day matters. It is not about nostalgia for one moment in 2013. It is about our unfinished fight against the surveillance state. We live in a time when governments persecute those who defend digital rights. Snowden exposed a system of corrupt governance. It is a system that normalizes surveillance across party lines, treats transparency as a danger, and prefers to punish the messenger rather than confront the abuse itself.

Governments ask citizens to trust them, while building tools that make citizens increasingly enslaved. They demand openness from the public, while hiding their own actions behind secrecy. The digital world is no longer separate from the real world. Our digital communication all pass through technical systems, especially now with the advent of AI. When those systems are turned into tools of mass surveillance, the damage becomes oppressive beyond any reasonable measure. Freedom is lost.

Edward Snowden showed us that one person can still shake a global power structure. He showed that truth can be stronger than secrecy, and that courage can be contagious. He also reminded us that technology is never neutral when it is placed in the hands of power without accountability. He showed that the greatest danger is not only the surveillance state itself. The greatest danger is becoming accustomed to it.

We need laws that limit surveillance, not laws that legitimize it.We need to protect whistleblowers. We need tools that enable freedom, not control. We must not accept what is unacceptable simply because it has become normal. We hope that this tradition of celebrating Edward Snowden Day will help keep people aware of the movement and our need to continue to be aware and fight back against the surveillance state, because it is real and it is watching us.