Too often we forget that social and political movements don't happen overnight. They don't bring change immediately - you have to build a critical mass of understanding of the issues.

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.

From the very beginning, I said there are two tracks of reform: there's the political and the technical. I don't believe the political will be successful, for exactly the reasons you underlined. The issue is too abstract for average people, who have too many things going on in their lives.

The public don't want to authorize the internet to become a battleground. We need to do everything we can as a society to keep that a neutral zone, to keep that an economic zone that can reflect our values, both politically, socially, and economically.

It's interesting that you mention [Andrei] Sakharov's creative axis - he had produced something for the government that he then realized was something other than he intended. That's something [NSA whistleblower] Bill Binney and I share.

Citizens have to fight suppression of information on matters of vital public importance. To tell the truth is not a crime.

It's much more important for U.S. to be able to defend against foreign attacks than it is to be able to launch successful attacks against foreign adversaries.