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.

So when they say I'm a low-level systems administrator, that I don't know what I'm talking about, I'd say it's somewhat misleading.

All the governments just want to have more power when it comes to economic espionage, diplomatic manipulation and political influence.

There are even a few [people] who still honestly believe I sold information to [Vladimir] Putin - like personally, in exchange for asylum. And this is after the Senate Intelligence Committee chair, who gets to read the NSA's reporting on my activities every morning, said all of these conspiracies are delusional.

Something we have to remember is that everything about the internet is interconnected. All of our systems are not just common to us because of the network links between them, but because of the software packages, because of the hardware devices that comprise it. The same router that's deployed in the United States is deployed in China.

If we can't have an open and honest debate about the value of ideas in a university in Glasgow, or Boston, or anywhere else in the world, then where are they going to go?

I have been to the darkest corners of government, and what they fear is light.