The question of whether I, as a whistleblower, should be pardoned, is not for me to answer.

I wasn't trying to change the laws or slow down the machine. Maybe I should have. My critics say that I was not revolutionary enough. But they forget that I am a product of the system. I worked those desks, I know those people and I still have some faith in them, that the services can be reformed.

How do we preserve our civil rights, our traditions as a liberal democracy, in a time when government power is expanding and is more and more difficult to check?

So when they say I'm a low-level systems administrator, that I don't know what I'm talking about, I'd say it's somewhat misleading.

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.

There were no whistleblower protections that would've protected me - and that's known to everybody in the intelligence community. There are no proper channels for making this information available when the system fails comprehensively.

The definition of a security state is one that prioritizes security over all other considerations.