If I defected at all, I defected from the government to the public

What we need to do is we need to create new international standards of behavior - not just national laws, because this is a global problem. We can't just fix it in the United States, because there are other countries that don't follow U.S. laws. We have to create international standards that say that cyber attacks should only ever occur when it is absolutely necessary.

We have got a CIA station just up the road – the consulate here in Hong Kong – and I am sure they are going to be busy for the next week. And that is a concern I will live with for the rest of my life, however long that happens to be.

Terrorism kills far fewer people than cigarettes, or alcohol, or car accidents. But we don't see ourselves restructuring society and lives in order to make those threats go away.

When it comes to the internet, when it comes to the United States' technical economy, we have more to lose than any other nation on earth.

We don't have a great clash of civilizations, a clash of ideologies, a clash of alternative models, where governments thought to themselves, if we go too far, if we sort of trample unreasonably on rights, we'll give birth to a political movement which will cost us our credibility, and will possibly cost us our offices, because people will vote for the other team, the other guys.

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.