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.

We've seen a departure from the traditional work of the National Security Agency. They've become sort of the national hacking agency, the national surveillance agency. And they've lost sight of the fact that everything they do is supposed to make us more secure as a nation and a society.

Are our competitors - for example, China, which is a deeply authoritarian nation - becoming more authoritarian or more liberal over time?

In liberal societies we don't typically require citizens to rearrange their activities, their lives, the way they go about their business, to make it easy for the police to do their work.

If we don't do anything, if we go along with the status quo, we are going to have a mass surveillance world.

We have to recognise that rights are being violated. The United Nations actually filed a report that found that that was the case, that mass surveillance is a violation of rights.

I told the government I'd volunteer for prison, as long as it served the right purpose.