I must say I'm surprised by how skeptical of the [Barack] Obama administration The Nation has been.

We have the means and we have the technology to end mass surveillance without any legislative action at all, without any policy changes.

I don't go out and play football and stuff - that's not me. I want to think, I want to build, I want to talk, I want to create.

When you're attacking a router on the internet, and you're doing it remotely, it's like trying to shoot the moon with a rifle. Everything has to happen exactly right. Every single variable has to be controlled and precisely accounted for. And that's not possible to do when you have limited knowledge of the target you're attacking.

Congress hasn't declared war on the countries - the majority of them are our allies - but without asking for public permission, NSA is running network operations against them that affect millions of innocent people. And for what? So we can have secret access to a computer in a country we're not even fighting?

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

It's much more important for U.S. to be able to defend against foreign attacks than it is to be able to launch successful attacks against foreign adversaries.