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

If even one country, an Iceland for example, defects from this global legislative bargain and says no, we're not going to enforcement mass surveillance here. We're not going to do that. That's where all of the data centres, all the service providers in the world will relocate to. And I think that gives us a real chance to see a more liberal than authoritarian future.

From the very beginning, I said there are two tracks of reform: there's the political and the technical. I don't believe the political will be successful, for exactly the reasons you underlined. The issue is too abstract for average people, who have too many things going on in their lives.

We have to decide why terrorism is a new threat. There has always been terrorism.

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 the right of revolution. Revolution does not always have to be weapons and warfare; it's also about revolutionary ideas.

The chairs [in Congress] are part of the "Gang of Eight." They get briefed on every covert-action program and everything like that. They know where all the bodies are buried. At the same time, they get far more campaign donations than anybody else from defense contractors, from intelligence corporations, from private military companies.