One concern I had while I was working actively in the intelligence community - being someone who had broad access, who was exposed to more reports than average individuals, who had a better understanding of the bigger picture - was that the post - World War II, post - Cold War directions of societies were either broadly authoritarian or [broadly] liberal or libertarian.

When we think in the context of the last decade's infringements upon personal liberty and the last year's revelations, it's not about surveillance. It's about liberty.

The question for us is not what new story will come out next. The question is, what are we going to do about it?

There is more action in some other countries. In Germany, they've called for a very serious inquiry that's discovering more and more. They've just discovered a significant violation of the German Constitution that had been concealed from the Parliament.

What the NSA really wants is the capability of retrospective investigation. They want to have a perfect record of the last five years of your life, so when you come to their attention, they can know everything about you. I'm not down with that, but [Bill] Binney was trying to create something like that.

As for my personal politics, some people seem to think I'm some kind of archlibertarian, a hyper-conservative.

If you ask anybody at Cyber Command or look at any of the job listings for openings for their positions, you'll see that the one thing they don't prioritize is computer network defense. It's all about computer network attack and computer network exploitation at Cyber Command.