Someone responding to the story said 'real spies do not speak like that'. Well, I am a spy and that is how they talk. Whenever we had a debate in the office on how to handle crimes, they do not defend due process - they defend decisive action. They say it is better to kick someone out of a plane than let these people have a day in court. It is an authoritarian mindset in general.

While the US Constitution marks these programs as illegal, my government argues that secret court rulings, which the world is not permitted to see, somehow legitimize an illegal affair. These rulings simply corrupt the most basic notion of justice - that it must be seen to be done. The immoral cannot be made moral through the use of secret law.

Ending mass surveillance of private phone calls under the Patriot Act is a historic victory for the rights of every citizen. Yet while we have reformed this one program, many others remain.

The public needs to know the kinds of things a government does in its name, or the 'consent of the governed' is meaningless... The consent of the governed is not consent if it is not informed.

We need the security standards to apply to the internet. We need to be able to trust that when we send our emails through Verizon, that Verizon isn't sharing with the NSA, that Verizon isn't sharing them with the FBI or German intelligence or French intelligence or Russian intelligence or Chinese intelligence.

These [NSA] programs were never about terrorism: they're about economic spying, social control, and diplomatic manipulation. They're about power.

If I wanted to see your emails or your wife's phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get your emails, passwords, phone records, credit cards.

The greatest fear that I have regarding the outcome for America of these disclosures is that nothing will change.