For a man who has private as you are the conversations although i could interrogate a rock and get answers out of a rock you are much harder than that. Talk to me how intensely private person tackles this issue of writing a memoir and how you feel now about having revealed so much about yourself to the world. The answers carefully and with great difficulty. I have been writing for about six years since i came forward but not this story of me because it has been so difficult for me to talk about myself. And if youre not familiar with what happened or me, i came forward june 2013 and revealed evidence the government had been secretly constructed global mass surveillance without knowledge or consent even the majority members of congress did not realize what was happening and suddenly as the most famous and wanted man in the world for a brief period. For more than six months for the disclosure to journalists. Because like you said i have been actively trying to learn but why learn after that period of silence . If we dont tell our own stories somebody will tell them for us. They dont have the same care and concern that we do. Im a privacy advocate actually was harder to tell the story, my story then to come forward in risk my freedom and potentially my life to tell everything that was going on. However disclosure is a skill and is something that we practice it may get better with that over time. Previously i was with nsa and cia had never had to talk about myself but month after month and year after year i have been met to men like you that have taught me we can do more together than on our own and when i looked around the world in 2018 and today, i see how much we need to have this conversation and talk about the public and the government and surveilling surveillance and Data Collection in ways not just with that facebook is involved because facebook is not the problem it is a product of the problem that we have to correct the system more than a news story or clip on the internet. Amine structure thinking in the only way we can get them to take us seriously today with these mechanized and automated is to attach the Human Element who you are and where you came from. And in that moment of vulnerability for people who have not consented, and the irony is that we are not afraid i found a voice i have never been able to used to a message ive not been able to express and ultimately is not a change but a new way to express that gave me courage to face the world so many years ago. We all have something to say. Host you did a wonderful job to pay the narrative of how you came to be who you are. I remember when we had these conversations through your ted talk and you are having a discussion that i need a human being to show up with inspiration and love in the book is brilliant because you paid the picture of how you came to be where you are. So lets put you on the spot. I didnt know what a mediocre student you were. [laughter] you talk at one point about more you got into the computers and the internet how schoolwork felt extracurricular and you talk about the fact you developed your path of education and knowledge i was reminded of conversations of College University gets in the way of smart and innovative people like peter teal who provide scholarship to those who drop out of college to become entrepreneurs and leaders and thinkers. So the role of education or formal education and how you went to the life of learning in the knowledge that you built it is the unorthodox way that you got there. Listen i will not use peter as a role model. [laughter] [applause] but in reality we all have strengths and differences that we can learn and be taught and this is another part of your previous question. I think we all had those moments where he felt like we were the smartest person in the room where we see the teacher get something wrong and they are a little embarrassed and not admit it not that is just more capable but learning how to learn. Even discovery of strengths and weaknesses that means to join the army and find out something that is i was not signed for. But i broke my leg and i ended up being pushed out so in the process of this book something that is not in the book that during all this time i was expressed obsessed with computers sumac through the window of your fathers done as he was on a personal computer. I was always fascinated. But when i started to try to write the book and instead of trying to write my own thoughts or persuade or a speech i realized i was out of my element so this is where i learned to lean on people who have read more than i did and this book would not have been as good, i am proud but people like ben wiseman in the audience the whole team at holt and the editors jillian blake, they all help to make this book happen but then theres one person in the audience right now i thin think, almost none of you have no wit in this he announced himself joshua colon one of the greatest living authors in the country. He is a friend of them he also works at the aclu and made an introduction and the education that i did not finish in high school because i got sick and life got in the way he helped to complete. I remember arguing and debating with him we fought over, s and clauses and he develops my thinking i cannot thank him enough. I acknowledge him in the acknowledgments. He is the soul he made the book into a work of literature. [applause] i think he is blushing. It is a little dark. [laughter] so before we switch into how you evolved and developed but the relationship that i think most of the most poignant pieces were the diaries that you published of what she was dealing or thinking when you were in hong kong and then russia. Then you talk about how you fell in love she gave you a ten you gave her an eight on hot or not and she was your soulmate and you have thought that was the case that you had a chance to interact with her. For all those years that you kept so much to yourself, you talk about the evolution from an activist to a whistleblower you are conscious not to share everything with her to put her in perils way and there is a price we couldnt share a part of your heart and mind to the person you love the most. Then that incredible break in the reproach meant and then marriage. Talk about how your relationship evolved and changed as you did over the spotlight and now that its all on the table better happier days with you now . So reflect for me on that vulnerability around breaking your legs. And that section of your first epileptic seizure and how that rocked your world and your confidence so this man who could take on the Us Government is the most infallible. You pulled that out. And there is a fallibility with struggling with your legs in epilepsy and the role of sickness or fallibility in your personal life and then we will switch gears spirit thats a very small question. [laughter] so yes so let me start the fallibility. One of the things i really tried to express when i was writing this is how imperfect i am and how much ive always struggled in this is important because people write the memoirs look how great i am and look how much i did. So much of that conversation about me and public figures they divide people into human bad and good and bad. But people arent like that we try and we fail. We hurt and i have done my share of hurting but we also strive when i was failing constantly that we all have the ability to improve and we only have to get better because fortunately we live a long time and where we say they have done a great thing they are a hero or they are a villain we say they are not like us they are exceptional. But the reality is they are normal to. Is not something that diminishes them but empowers all the rest of us. The only thing that differentiates you for the we are never more than one decision away from doing something. But i have hurt and hurt others and this brings me to Lindsay Berger love her dearly we have been together a better part of a decade when i left. We fought and broke up and got back together and think about what it means. To have someone more that you trust that the reason you are about to destroy your own life because of course the fbi that she was part of the conspiracy. And they interrogate her. Yes they harassed her and tried to make her into a tool, informant. And through all of that, she stood strong. And not for me but for her. And after all the things i put her through because of that decision in addition to Everything Else probably the worst boyfriend in the history of the United States. She gives you a six today, not an eight. [laughter] that shows you how good of a person she is. She found out what i had done. And although completely justified and that we were drifting apart for some time because of the secrecy and the lies what she saw on tv was the reason she fell in love with me. And we are together again she has joined me in exile voluntarily and this comes back to that arc of selfimprovement. I may have been the worst boyfriend but i am doing everything i can to be the best husband. Thats great. Around pages 96 through 105 and how we evolve and we are in a library and really think about this for a minute. Was the most embarrassing thing you did when you were young . The stupidest thing that you ever said . And now take a minute and enjoy the fact that basically no one remembers that were closest to you because it wasnt recorded on the internet are trapped in a crystal that never changes but just hangs on the wall and then take it off the shelf remember that terrible thing you said . You are a terrible person no matter how much you changed. So now think of those that are younger than me and they are that young right now and the worst thing they have ever done is remembered forever not because they want to remember but they are not permitted to forget. So this is what is responsible for the division and partisanship that we see today. Nobody moves on, its always there and can always be pulled off the shelf. Always to be justified. You are attacked through all your own worst mistakes. I guess becoming what i am today taking these different positions i come to oppose the policies of the government that i said i would serve. I volunteered to fight when everybody else said the caa is torturing i said i will go work for the cia. I didnt have skepticism or doubt or think they would lie to us but why would they sacrifice these institutions of government. I was naive but stepbystep we find those contradictions and recognize her own mistake their experience and we can realize all the terrible things we said to harm others yes but also to harm you diminish ourselves. And through discovery with the work i had done that i was excited to do and i was proud with the work of the Intelligence Community when office aletter doesnt know what office b is doing and you are not supposed to ask. But then you realize your building cogs in a larger machine. What i set out to do was not burn down the nsa are trying to tell people how to change the laws but those reported values of the government and to tell the public under oath that was not the truth. That was a lie and while blowing the whistle i dont think that should be seen as a revolutionary act. It says to the government that somewhere along the path we have lost our way. I cannot change it. You cannot change it, but together maybe we can change it. But all the whistleblower does is say to you what you are not allowed to know. What i most appreciated was how the label attached privacy rights activist, Global Leader that you all of those revolutions even the very first call that you made that you could hack into the lost alamos website and you called the operator and waited for the phone call back and you are anxious, why would they call . When they did you told him there is a backdoor. Then years later you are raising concerns within the Intelligence Community and then you found people were not responsive to your criticisms. At one point a superior called you into his office. Im blanking on the details but then you said he cut you off and said were not here to talk about that were talking about insubordination and the chain of command the beginning of the omg moment that criticism from inside was not as welcomed. Talk about why you couldnt reform the Intelligence Community from within going up the chain of command because why . What was the turning point . Just some scene setting if you havent had a chance to read the book come after i come out of the army i have done some soul searching got my first topsecret clearance using my technical skills. This is where i became the insider. For those who just come in off the street they were desperate that the Intelligence Community was doubling and tripling in size after 9 11. And now i had moved from being a private worker contractor to an actual officer of the government. Cia communications officer. And the seeker facility in virginia that most that had never heard of. Its very outside of regulation in a crumbling hotel, families of people who are going to this Training Program and there are four People Living in one hotel room with two beds they are hiding the chihuahua in the dresser but it is basic stuff. It is more workers rights. But i knew how cia and bureaucracy worked because unlike everybody else in the program, i had previously did a stint and i write these things up because this is who is responsible for this to what is not well received and they said dont rock the boat. You will be out of your a couple months and let this be somebody elses problem so i take another crack at it and say thats not good enough so i go to my bosses boss and my bosses boss boss. Then the next day i come to the school and i hear everythings been fixed. Rainbows and unicorns but that im pulled out of class by the head of the school and dressed down by his boss and in the side room it is what you say precisely. Labor going to fix the problem but make consequences. Because we see this happening right now. And it is the funniest thing but human nature i think we can actually come out of this okay. But i think they will be protected because they are not indicting the system a man that is rightly deserved. That man who has been indicted by the complaint to say who is this person acting like a spider you know what we used to do to spies . I dont like that this person exposed me. But this is what we have to account for. Talking about growth, we have to help ourselves get over. Who the current whistleblower is and who i was, its the proof that matters, not where it came from. Is this a violation . Is that not . Would ever up our faces opposition to change the conversation into who are you or how dear you to get people talking about who brought this forward instead of what was brought forward and this was my first brush minor ironically it worked out quite well for me but inside of that darker human nature, we do not respond well to criticism and thats why we need a process to account for that. What you said the whistleblower is a person their experience has concluded it is incompatible with the principles developed and the loyalty owed to the greater society. They know that they can remain inside the institution to be dismantled. So they blow the whistle to disclose the information. Saw talking about those decisions without thinking process. So turn over all the cachet and documents and for somebody else to figure out what is in the public domain. Where we are struggling with right now what we have struggled with over 50 years , Daniel Ellsberg in the seventies with the secret history of the vietnam war was accused of all the things of all we are accused of today charged under precisely the same espionage act that i am charged under. He thought he would spend the rest of his life in prison and would have if nixon didnt bring up the investigation. But what you have to realize is what drives a person to abandon the safety of their office in the system. This is not how it works with the caa it is a Paramilitary Organization that if you follow orders then you dont question the lawfulness or proprietary of what you are doing. If you question then you do it. But what happens when the system fails and your organization cannot respond and you are required by the process to report the wrongdoings you have witnessed to those who are responsible for that wrongdoing . What if you are supposed to be going to congress or to the head of an agency and their director is the name on the order that is violating the law or the constitution . This is where we have seen time and time again that when you go through the pry on proper channels it doesnt resolve the problem where the whistleblowers going to and they are flushed from the system but the person who reported them have their likeness destroyed these are not hypotheticals so how do we ensure the publics interest is served . This is where the whistleblower takes a risk to step outside. Until the public what they need to know but i dont want to say i couldve put this on the internet or send it to wikileaks but i decided to do Something Different so that this will cause harm to National Security they said this about me. And then to recontextualize that conversation the concrete arms with the revelation with the theoretical risks of terrorism but thats why we have the first amendment. And then to secondguess. Does the public need to know this . I still do publish any documents that i provided evidence of what is unlawful or unconstitutional on the violation of rights for americans and people around the world. In the journalist those that were granted access because it is interesting in that is the extraordinary measure then given a warning the arbor serial chance but it every story i am aware of, this process was followed i dont believe the government ever spiked successfully there were a few details that were admitted from the story ideals do still think it was worth going through but six years after 2013 to never see any harm. They said the sky would fall with all of your revelations. They always say that that the atmosphere will catch fire the oceans will boil over if people know how the government is breaking the law. And they never will substantiate that why is that . So up to this point when you talk about is when you and i have that conversation to figure out if the organizational put his weight behind your cause that is the answer that convinced me to do so. You said i will not self publish but i will make sure media organizations are making the decision for the public. They will know what is in the Public Interest with newsrooms and editors and that is what convinced me to get behind you like a freight train. [applause] so you talk about the fact this