You can't come up against the world's most powerful intelligence agencies and not accept the risk. If they want to get you, over time they will.

A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all. They'll never know what it means to have a private moment to themselves an unrecorded, unanalysed thought. And that's a problem because privacy matters, privacy is what allows us to determine who we are and who we want to be.

In America, we collect more digital communications from America than we do from the Russians.

It is interesting that so many people who become disenchanted, who protest against their own organizations, are people who contributed something to them and then saw how it was misused.

There have been so many individuals who have really put a lot on the line. That they've sacrificed so much to try to protect the principle of source protection in the journalism world. And I think Julian Assange, and WikiLeaks, and Sarah Harrison have really been extraordinary in standing up for that.

My case clearly demonstrates the need for comprehensive whistleblower protection act reform. If we had had a real process in place, and reports of wrongdoing could be taken to real, independent arbiters rather than captured officials, I might not have had to sacrifice so much to do what at this point even the President seems to agree needed to be done.

We should know at least the broad strokes of the powers that the government's claiming in our name, and using allegedly, on our behalf. And also against us as well.