We've got crazy little sites going up against established media behemoths.

I'm not a spy for Russia or China or any other country for that matter.

The work of a generation is beginning here, with your hearings, and you have the full measure of my gratitude and support.

When the US government got word that I was planning to leave Russia to go to Latin America, they brought down the plane of the - the presidential plane, which had diplomatic protection, that had the Bolivian president on board. They closed the airspace in four different countries in Europe, I believe, which was extraordinary, unprecedented.

The chairs [in Congress] are part of the "Gang of Eight." They get briefed on every covert-action program and everything like that. They know where all the bodies are buried. At the same time, they get far more campaign donations than anybody else from defense contractors, from intelligence corporations, from private military companies.

To do that they, the NSA specifically, targets the communications of everyone. It ingests them by default. It collects them in its system and it filters them and it analyses them and it measures them and it stores them for periods of time simply because that's the easiest, most efficient, and most valuable way to achieve these ends. So while they may be intending to target someone associated with a foreign government or someone they suspect of terrorism, they're collecting you're communications to do so.

I think the public still isn't aware of the frequency with which the cyber-attacks, as they're being called in the press, are being used by governments around the world, not just the US.