This whole pre-criminal investigation, where we watch everybody, all the time, just in case, is really an extraordinary departure from the Western liberal tradition.

When it comes to the internet, when it comes to the United States' technical economy, we have more to lose than any other nation on earth.

You have to remember the way the internet works, when you communicate with the server, it's very likely not in your country. It's somewhere else in the world.

The work of a generation is beginning here, with your hearings, and you have the full measure of my gratitude and support.

We're now more than a year since my NSA revelations, and despite numerous hours of testimony before Congress, despite tons of off-the-record quotes from anonymous officials who have an ax to grind, not a single US official, not a single representative of the United States government, has ever pointed to a single case of individualized harm caused by these revelations. This, despite the fact that former NSA director Keith Alexander said this would cause grave and irrevocable harm to the nation.

The Iraq war that I signed up for was launched on false premises. The American people were misled. Now, whether that was due to bad faith or simply mistakes in intelligence, I can't say for sure. But I can say it shows the problem of putting too much faith in intelligence systems without debating them in public.

We don't have to ask for our privacy, we can take it back.