People do not like being lied to, and they do not like having their rights violated. So as soon as [officials] stop making arguments, you see support for me starts to rise.

There was a real choice when [Barack Obama] became president. It was a very difficult choice - to say, "We're not going to hold senior officials to account with the same laws that every other citizen in the country is held to," or "This is a nation that believes in the rule of law."

I saw things that reached a point that I could no longer conscientiously participate with them. And I simply do what I could to allow the public to make a better decision about whether or not these things should continue.

If you’re not acting on your beliefs, then they probably aren’t real.

I think it's reasonable that the government, when it has a warrant from a court, when it's exposed to scrutiny by a legal process that would be upheld, not just nationally, but internationally as a reliable and robust standard rights protection, they can enjoy certain powers. This is no different from having the police able to get a warrant to go and search your house, to kick at your door because they think you're an arms dealer or something like that. There needs to be a process involved, it needs to be public, and it needs to be challengeable in court at all times.

I have been a systems engineer, systems administrator, a senior adviser for the Central Intelligence Agency, a solutions consultant and a telecommunications information systems officer.

The New York Times and The Guardian came out and said, "Hey, clemency for Snowden." But for me, the key - and I've said this from the beginning: it's not about me. I don't care if I get clemency. I don't care what happens to me.