When we look at the full-on mass surveillance watching everyone in the country, in the United States, it doesn't work. It didn't stop the attacks in Boston. The marathon bombings. Where again, we knew who these individuals were. It didn't stop the Underwear Bomber, whose father walked into an embassy and warned us about this individual before he walked onto an airplane. And it's not going to stop the next attacks either. Because again, they're not public safety programmes. They're spying programmes. They are valuable for spying.

They are intent on making every conversation and every form of behaviour in the world known to them.

I went to a website the other day and right at the top of the page it showed me my ip address. It was the most disturbing moment I have ever experienced. This website even told me what internet browser I was using, and what day it was. Computers can do anything.

If we can't have an open and honest debate about the value of ideas in a university in Glasgow, or Boston, or anywhere else in the world, then where are they going to go?

I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong.

We have got a CIA station just up the road – the consulate here in Hong Kong – and I am sure they are going to be busy for the next week. And that is a concern I will live with for the rest of my life, however long that happens to be.

So when they say I'm a low-level systems administrator, that I don't know what I'm talking about, I'd say it's somewhat misleading.