We should never allow computers to make inherently governmental decisions in terms of the application of military force, even if that's happening on the internet.

Lawyers from the NSA, as well as the UK's GCHQ, work very hard to search for loopholes in laws and constitutional protections that they can use to justify indiscriminate, dragnet surveillance operations that were at best unwittingly authorized by lawmakers.

What defines patriotism, for me, is the idea that one rises to act on behalf of one's country.

The New York Times and The Guardian came out and said, "Hey, clemency for Snowden." But for me, the key - and I've said this from the beginning: it's not about me. I don't care if I get clemency. I don't care what happens to me.

I'm not a spy for Russia or China or any other country for that matter.

There were no whistleblower protections that would've protected me - and that's known to everybody in the intelligence community. There are no proper channels for making this information available when the system fails comprehensively.

The question that we, as a society, have to ask is, are our collective rights worth a small relative advantage in our ability to spy on other countries and foreign citizens? I have my opinion about that, but we all collectively have to come to our opinion about it.