I'm saying we need to be aware of it, and we need to be able to distinguish when political developments are occurring that are contrary to the public interest.

It's fascinating to see how things have changed. Basically, every time the US government gets off the soapbox of the Sunday-morning talk shows, the average American's support for the surveillance revelations grows.

US spend more on research and development than the other countries, so we shouldn't be making the internet a more hostile, a more aggressive territory.

Anyway, it's not true that the authorities cannot access the content of the phone even if there is no back door. When I was at the NSA, we did this every single day, even on Sundays. I believe that encryption is a civic responsibility, a civic duty.

I acted on my belief that the NSA's mass surveillance programs would not withstand a constitutional challenge, and that the American public deserved a chance to see these issues determined by open courts. Today, a secret program authorized by a secret court was, when exposed to the light of day, found to violate Americans' rights. It is the first of many.

Look at the reactions of liberal governments to the surveillance revelations during the last years. In the United States, we've got this big debate, but we've got official paralysis - because they're the ones who had their hand caught most deeply in the cookie jar.

I considered bringing forward information about these surveillance programs prior to the election, but I held off because I believed that [Barack] Obama was genuine when he said he was going to change things. I wanted to give the democratic process time to work.