There have been times throughout American history where what is right is not the same as what is legal. Sometimes to do the right thing you have to break the law.

My whole model, from the beginning, was not to personally publish a single document. I provided these documents to journalists because I didn't want my biases to decide what's in the public interest and what is not.

Anyway, it's not true that the authorities cannot access the content of the phone even if there is no back door. When I was at the NSA, we did this every single day, even on Sundays. I believe that encryption is a civic responsibility, a civic duty.

Even if you're not doing anything wrong, you are being watched and recorded.

By putting these sort of lines around what ideas are proper or improper, we lose things.

Technology provides us means outside of governments to begin enforcing our rights, enforcing protection of civil liberties, regardless of law, through the implementation of systems and standards.

We need to put the security back in the National Security Agency. We can't have the national surveillance agency.