When we have some horrible terrorist attacks happen in some country we see in the recording that follows, that the intelligence community already knew about these people in advance. We know that these countries were involved in intelligence sharing premiums, that they benefited from mass surveillance, and yet they didn't stop the attacks. Yet at the same time we immediately see intelligence officials running to the newspapers and claiming that we need more surveillance, that we need more intrusion, that we need more expense of powers because it could have stopped an attack.

People do not like being lied to, and they do not like having their rights violated. So as soon as [officials] stop making arguments, you see support for me starts to rise.

I have been to the darkest corners of government, and what they fear is light.

Some months after [Keith Alexander] made that statement [Edward Snowden cause grave and irrevocable harm to the nation], the new director of the NSA, Michael Rogers, said that, in fact, he doesn't see the sky falling. It's not so serious after all.

I don't want to live in a world where there's no privacy, and therefore no room for intellectual exploration and creativity.

I've been a spy for almost all of my adult life - I don't like being in the spotlight.

You can't come up against the world's most powerful intelligence agencies and not accept the risk.