As for my personal politics, some people seem to think I'm some kind of archlibertarian, a hyper-conservative.

When you say, ‘I have nothing to hide,’ you’re saying, ‘I don’t care about this right.’ You’re saying, ‘I don’t have this right, because I’ve got to the point where I have to justify it.’ The way rights work is, the government has to justify its intrusion into your rights.

The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything.

When governments go too far to punish people for actions that are dissent rather than a real threat to the nation, they risk delegitimizing not just their systems of justice, but the legitimacy of the government itself. Because when they bring political charges against people for acts that were clearly at least intended to work in the public interest, they deny them the opportunity to mount a public-interest defense.

We can't simply scare people into giving up their rights, on the basis, oh, this protects us from terrorism.

Going all the way back to Daniel Ellsberg, it is clear that the government is not concerned with damage to national security, because in none of these cases was there damage.

The New York Times and The Guardian came out and said, "Hey, clemency for Snowden." But for me, the key - and I've said this from the beginning: it's not about me. I don't care if I get clemency. I don't care what happens to me.