We have to call mass surveillance mass surveillance. We can't let governments around the world redefine, and sort of weasel their way out of it by saying this is bulk collection.

The [Barack] Obama administration almost appears as though it is afraid of the intelligence community. They're afraid of death by a thousand cuts - you know, leaks and things like that.

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.

I read these polls because civil-liberties organizations tell me I need to be aware of public opinion.

We do not live in a revolutionary time. People are not prepared to contest power.

We are no longer citizens, we no longer have leaders. We're subjects, and we have rulers.

Being confronted with the realization that work you intended to benefit people is being used against them has a radicalizing effect.