Hong Kong has a reputation for freedom in spite of the People's Republic of China. It has a strong tradition of free speech.

My perspective is if you're not willing to be called a few names to help out your country, you don't care enough.

I'm familiar with Andrei Sakharov reputation, but I don't know his personal history at all.

The people at the NSA aren't trying to ruin your life. They're not trying to put you in authoritarian dystopia. These are normal people trying to do good work in hard circumstances.

How do we preserve our civil rights, our traditions as a liberal democracy, in a time when government power is expanding and is more and more difficult to check?

The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything.

I grew up with the understanding that the world I lived in was one where people enjoyed a sort of freedom to communicate with each other in privacy, without it being monitored, without it being measured or analyzed or sort of judged by these shadowy figures or systems, any time they mention anything that travels across public lines.