It also comes down to parenting. It is important to know what your beliefs are, and that you have to stand up for them or you don't really believe in them. You know, my father and mother - in fact, every member of my immediate family - have worked for the federal government. Sometimes misunderstood is that I didn't stand up to overthrow the system.

I don't think political reform is likely to succeed. [Senators Tom] Udall and [Ron] Wyden, on the intelligence committee, have been sounding the alarm, but they are a minority.

When it comes to cyber conflicts between, say, America and China or even a Middle Eastern nation, an African nation, a Latin American nation, a European nation, we have more to lose.

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.

In the United States and some of the other countries involved it's sort of a "five eyes" global spying alliance. That's the US, UK, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. They've had a little bit of a more muscular public response. Now, they haven't been satisfying or really meaningful in any country yet. But they have been engaging.

I know the media likes to personalize political debates, and I know the government will demonize me.

That's one of the biggest issues that we see in the question of governments right now, I think, in the Western world. Is that increasingly all of our elected officials are pulled from the same class. These aren't normal people. I don't want to say they're all terrible people, but at the same time, they're not like you and me. These are people who have sort of a nine to five working history.