I don't think there's anything, any threat out there today that anyone can point to, that justifies placing an entire population under mass surveillance.

When I was working in Japan, I created a system for ensuring that intelligence data was globally recoverable in the event of a disaster. I was not aware of the scope of mass surveillance. I came across some legal questions when I was creating it. My superiors pushed back and were like, "Well, how are we going to deal with this data?" And I was like, "I didn't even know it existed."

We don't like to use the phrase "state security" in the United States because it reminds us of all the bad regimes. But it's a key concept, because when these officials are out on TV, they're not talking about what's good for you. They're not talking about what's good for business. They're not talking about what's good for society. They're talking about the protection and perpetuation of a national state system.

The question for us is not what new story will come out next. The question is, what are we going to do about it?

[Sovereignty] would break the American monopoly, but it would also break Internet business, because you'd have to have a data center in every country. And data centers are tremendously expensive, a big capital investment.

We have to be able to ask questions in order to answer them.

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.