Every time we walk on to the field of battle and the field of battle is the internet, it doesn't matter if we shoot our opponents a hundred times and hit every time. As long as they've hit us once, we've lost, because the U.S. is so much more reliant on those systems.

Citizens have to fight suppression of information on matters of vital public importance. To tell the truth is not a crime.

I believe strongly that Occupy Wall Street had such limits because the local authorities were able to enforce, basically in our imaginations, an image of what proper civil disobedience is - one that is simply ineffective.

I'm not a communist, a socialist or a radical. But these issues have to be addressed.

If I defected at all, I defected from the government to the public

The greatest fear that I have regarding the outcome for America of these disclosures is that nothing will change.

If even one country, an Iceland for example, defects from this global legislative bargain and says no, we're not going to enforcement mass surveillance here. We're not going to do that. That's where all of the data centres, all the service providers in the world will relocate to. And I think that gives us a real chance to see a more liberal than authoritarian future.