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.

I do not expect to see home again.

Do we want to emulate China in the way that China emulates the West? I think, for most Americans, the answer to that question would be no.

People would publish their websites; other people would read them. But there was no real back and forth other than through e-mail. Web 2.0 was what they called the collaborative web - Facebook, Twitter, the social media.

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

The NSA routinely lies in response to congressional inquiries about the scope of surveillance in America.

For me, in terms of personal satisfaction, the mission's already accomplished. I already won. As soon as the journalists were able to work, everything that I had been trying to do was validated. Because, remember, I didn't want to change society. I wanted to give society a chance to determine if it should change itself.