The work of a generation is beginning here, with your hearings, and you have the full measure of my gratitude and support.

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.

What I wanted to do was give society the information it needed to decide if it wanted to change the system.

[Sovereignty] would break the American monopoly, but it would also break Internet business, because you'd have to have a data center in every country. And data centers are tremendously expensive, a big capital investment.

You simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody even by a wrong call. And then they can use this system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you've ever made, every friend you've ever discussed something with. And attack you on that basis to sort to derive suspicion from an innocent life and paint anyone in the context of a wrongdoer.

We've already seen, in practically every country around the world where these issues have been covered, that the general public has recoiled at the ideology behind these programs.

Under observation, we act less free, which means we effectively are less free.