A given order may at any given time fail to represent those values, even work against those values. I think that's the dynamic we're seeing today.

Before 2013, if you said the NSA was making records of everybody's phone calls and the [Government Communications Headquarters] was monitoring lawyers and journalists, people raised eyebrows and called you a conspiracy theorist. Those days are over.

Internet exchanges and internet service providers - international fiber optic landing points - these are the key tools that governments go after in order to enable their programs of mass surveillance. If they want to be able to watch the entire population of a country instead of a single individual, you have to go after those bulk interchanges.

I would say the first key concept is that, in terms of technological and communication progress in human history, the Internet is basically the equivalent of electronic telepathy. We can now communicate all the time through our little magic smartphones with people who are anywhere, all the time, constantly learning what they're thinking, talking about, exchanging messages. And this is a new capability even within the context of the Internet.

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.

Citizens with a conscience are not going to ignore wrong-doing simply because they'll be destroyed for it: the conscience forbids it.

People say that [i'm a celebrity], but I've only had to sign autographs for "civ-libs" types. And I autograph court orders.