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.

Acting Government officials, they said they wanted - they would be happy, they would love to put a bullet in my head, to poison me as I was returning from the grocery store, and have me die in the shower.

Allowing the U.S. government to intimidate its people with threats of retaliation for revealing wrongdoing is contrary to the public interest.

The rule of law doesn't mean the police are in charge, but that we all answer to the same laws.

Something we have to remember is that everything about the internet is interconnected. All of our systems are not just common to us because of the network links between them, but because of the software packages, because of the hardware devices that comprise it. The same router that's deployed in the United States is deployed in China.

People sometimes say I broke an oath of secrecy - one of the early charges leveled against me. But it's a fundamental misunderstanding, because there is no oath of secrecy for people who work in the intelligence community. You are asked to sign a civil agreement, called a Standard Form 312, which basically says if you disclose classified information, they can sue you; they can do this, that and the other. And you risk going to jail.

My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them.