As inequality grows, the basic bonds of social fraternity are fraying - as we discussed in regard to Occupy Wall Street. As tensions increase, people will become more willing to engage in protest. But that moment is not now.

You have ceded the concept of your own rights. You've converted them into something you get as a revocable privilege from the government, something that can be abrogated at its convenience. And that has diminished the measure of liberty within a society.

The courts were afraid to challenge executive declarations of what would happen. Now, over the last year, we have seen - in almost every single court that has had this sort of national-security case - that they have become markedly more skeptical.

The power of the presidency is important, but it is not determinative.

The US government still has no idea what documents I have because encryption works

There are even a few [people] who still honestly believe I sold information to [Vladimir] Putin - like personally, in exchange for asylum. And this is after the Senate Intelligence Committee chair, who gets to read the NSA's reporting on my activities every morning, said all of these conspiracies are delusional.

We watch our own people more closely than anyone else in the world.