Most of the secrets the CIA has are about people, not machines and systems, so I didn't feel comfortable with disclosures that I thought could endanger anyone.

We decentralise the ability to decide the level of publicity that's attached to any of our communications.

The issue I brought forward most clearly was that of mass surveillance, not of surveillance in general.

Our founders did not write that 'We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all US Persons are created equal.'

We do not live in a revolutionary time. People are not prepared to contest power.

When you say, ‘I have nothing to hide,’ you’re saying, ‘I don’t care about this right.’ You’re saying, ‘I don’t have this right, because I’ve got to the point where I have to justify it.’ The way rights work is, the government has to justify its intrusion into your rights.

The internet has to be protected from intrusive monitoring or else the medium upon which we all rely for the basis of our economy and our normal life, we'll lose that, and it's going to have broad effects as a consequence that we cannot predict.