The [Barack] Obama administration almost appears as though it is afraid of the intelligence community. They're afraid of death by a thousand cuts - you know, leaks and things like that.

When we think in the context of the last decade's infringements upon personal liberty and the last year's revelations, it's not about surveillance. It's about liberty.

The reality is if we sit back and allow a few officials behind closed doors to launch offensive attacks without any oversight against foreign nations, against people we don't like, against political groups, radicals, and extremists whose ideas we may not agree with, and could be repulsive or even violent - if we let that happen without public buy-in, we won't have any seat at the table of government to decide whether or not it's appropriate for these officials to drag us into some kind of war activity that we don't want, but we weren't aware of at the time.

I saw things that reached a point that I could no longer conscientiously participate with them. And I simply do what I could to allow the public to make a better decision about whether or not these things should continue.

Imagine, if you will, you're sitting at my desk in Hawaii. You have access to the entire world, as far as you can see it. Last several days, content of internet communications. Every email that's sent. Every website that's visited by every individual. Every text message that somebody sends on their phone. Every phone call they make.

The only reason I do these interviews - I hate talking about myself, I hate doing this stuff - is because incredibly well-meaning people, whom I respect and trust, tell me that this will help bring about positive changes. It's not going to cause a sea change, but it will benefit the public.

Arguing that you don't care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say.