In the United States, there hasn't been much legislative change on the surveillance issue, although there are some tepid proposals.

When I talk about the polling, I'm talking about the principles. It shows these officials are knowingly attempting to shift public opinion, even though they know what they say is not factual.

I'm not a politician, and I do not think I am as effective in this way as people who actually prepare for it - is to focus on technical reform, because I speak the language of technology. I spoke with Tim Berners-Lee, the guy who invented the World Wide Web. We agree on the necessity for this generation to create what he calls the Magna Carta for the Internet. We want to say what "digital rights" should be. What values should we be protecting, and how do we assert them.

On the other hand, the Internet is there to fill needs that people have for information and socialization. We get this sort of identification thing going on nowadays because it's a very fractious time. We live in a time of troubles.

Using the language of heroism, calling Daniel Ellsberg a hero, and calling the other people who made great sacrifices heroes - even though what they have done is heroic - is to distinguish them from the civic duty they performed, and excuses the rest of us from the same civic duty to speak out when we see something wrong, when we witness our government engaging in serious crimes, abusing power, engaging in massive historic violations of the Constitution of the United States. We have to speak out or we are party to that bad action.

The issue is we're losing leverage. Governments are increasingly getting more power and we are increasingly losing our ability to control that power, and even to be aware of that power.

We have to be able to ask questions in order to answer them.