I saw things that reached a point that I could no longer conscientiously participate with them. And I simply do what I could to allow the public to make a better decision about whether or not these things should continue.

If I had to guess what the future's going to look like for me - assuming it's not an orange jumpsuit in a hole - I think I'm going to alternate between tech and policy.

I've been watching The Wire recently.

If I wanted to see your emails or your wife's phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get your emails, passwords, phone records, credit cards.

The surveillance revelations are critically important because they revealed that our rights are being redefined in secret, by secret courts that were never intended to have that role - without the consent of the public, without even the awareness of the majority of our political representatives.

We need to make sure that whenever we're engaging in a cyber-warfare campaign, a cyber-espionage campaign in the United States, that we understand the word cyber is used as a euphemism for the internet, because the American public would not be excited to hear that we're doing internet warfare campaigns, internet espionage campaigns, because we realize that we ourselves are impacted by it.

The sad truth is that societies that demand whistleblowers be martyrs often find themselves without either, and always when it matters the most.