When Laura Poitras asked me if she could film our encounters, I was extremely reluctant. I’m grateful that I allowed her to persuade me. The result is a brave and brilliant film that deserves the honor and recognition it has received. My hope is that this award will encourage more people to see the film and be inspired by its message that ordinary citizens, working together, can change the world.

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

You can't come up against the world's most powerful intelligence agencies and not accept the risk.

The sad truth is that societies that demand whistleblowers be martyrs often find themselves without either, and always when it matters the most.

I don't want to directly confront great powers, which we cannot defeat on their terms. They have more money, more clout, more airtime. We cannot be effective without a mass movement, and the American people today are too comfortable to adapt to a mass movement.

If I defected at all, I defected from the government to the public

If we allow the United States to set the precedent that national borders don't matter when it comes to the protection of people's information, other countries are watching. They're paying attention to our examples and what is normative behavior in terms of dealing with digital information.