I think it's reasonable that the government, when it has a warrant from a court, when it's exposed to scrutiny by a legal process that would be upheld, not just nationally, but internationally as a reliable and robust standard rights protection, they can enjoy certain powers. This is no different from having the police able to get a warrant to go and search your house, to kick at your door because they think you're an arms dealer or something like that. There needs to be a process involved, it needs to be public, and it needs to be challengeable in court at all times.

Every time somebody on the internet sort of glances at us sideways, we launch an attack at them. That's not going to work out for us long term, and the U.S. have to get ahead of the problem if we're going to succeed.

It's OK if we wiretap Osama bin Laden. I want to know what he's planning - obviously not him nowadays, but that kind of thing. I don't care if it's a pope or a bin Laden. As long as investigators must go to a judge - an independent judge, a real judge, not a secret judge - and make a showing that there's probable cause to issue a warrant, then they can do that. And that's how it should be done.

Every time we walk on to the field of battle and the field of battle is the internet, it doesn't matter if we shoot our opponents a hundred times and hit every time. As long as they've hit us once, we've lost, because the U.S. is so much more reliant on those systems.

All I wanted was for the public to be able to have a say in how they are governed. That is a milestone we left a long time ago.

People say that [i'm a celebrity], but I've only had to sign autographs for "civ-libs" types. And I autograph court orders.

When it comes to political engagement, I'm not a politician - I'm an engineer.