I do not expect to see home again.

When we talk about computer network exploitation, computer network attack, we're not just talking about your home PC. We're talking about your cell phone, and we're also talking about internet routers themselves. The NSA is attacking the critical infrastructure of the internet to try to take ownership of it. They hack the routers that connect nations to the internet itself.

Terrorism kills far fewer people than cigarettes, or alcohol, or car accidents. But we don't see ourselves restructuring society and lives in order to make those threats go away.

Maybe boutique media, maybe people who are reading papers and talking to academics and whatnot, maybe they understand, because they're high-information. But a lot of people are still unaware that I never intended to end up in Russia. They're not aware that journalists were live-tweeting pictures of my seat on the flight to Latin America I wasn't able to board because the US government revoked my passport.

Much of what I saw in Geneva really disillusioned me about how my government functions and what its impact is in the world. I realised that I was part of something that was doing far more harm than good.

Anyway, it's not true that the authorities cannot access the content of the phone even if there is no back door. When I was at the NSA, we did this every single day, even on Sundays. I believe that encryption is a civic responsibility, a civic duty.

I was living a charmed life.