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.

Now terrorism is not the greatest threat facing our societies.

My case clearly demonstrates the need for comprehensive whistleblower protection act reform. If we had had a real process in place, and reports of wrongdoing could be taken to real, independent arbiters rather than captured officials, I might not have had to sacrifice so much to do what at this point even the President seems to agree needed to be done.

The charges [government] brought against me, for example, explicitly denied my ability to make a public-interest defense.

I've been recognized every now and then. It's always in computer stores. It's something like brain associations, because I'll be in the grocery store and nobody will recognize me. Even in my glasses, looking exactly like my picture, nobody will recognize me. But I could be totally clean-shaven, hat on, looking nothing like myself in a computer store, and they're like, "Snowden?!"

We have these traditional political parties that are less and less responsive to the needs of ordinary people, so people are in search of their own values.

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.