You are also asked to take an oath, and that's the oath of service. The oath of service is not to secrecy, but to the Constitution - to protect it against all enemies, foreign and domestic. That's the oath that I kept, that James Clapper and former NSA director Keith Alexander did not. You raise your hand and you take the oath in your class when you are on board. All government officials are made to do it who work for the intelligence agencies - at least, that's where I took the oath.

I'm not an anarchist. I'm not saying, "Burn it to the ground."

There have been times throughout American history where what is right is not the same as what is legal. Sometimes to do the right thing you have to break the law.

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

The government doesn't want us to know what they're doing, how they're interpreting the law, how they're interpreting and redefining their powers, and increasingly, how they're redefining the boundaries of our rights and our liberties, broadly, socially, and categorically without our involvement.

I hate these questions - I don't like talking about this stuff [popular culture], because it's so... to me, it's so ordinary.

I talk to people in the ACLU office in New York all the time. I'm able to participate in the debate and to campaign for reform. I'm just the first to come forward in the manner that I did and succeed.