Katharine Gun

“I worked for GCHQ, which stands for Government Communications Headquarters, and is the equivalent of the NSA here in the U.S.”

“Now everybody is questioning everything, so it's up to journalists who really care about the truth to fight for their corner of the truth and journalistic freedom.”

“I know my own flaws only too well.”

“The Official Secrets Act 1989 may need reforming for the digital era, but I would argue that at its heart there should be protection for whistleblowers.”

“What has to be understood is that most whistle-blowers are not natural activists - this one certainly wasn't. We usually work in anonymous jobs, far from the spotlight. We are not campaigners, or journalists, or wannabe celebrities, craving a platform. Our conscience tells us we have to reveal what we know.”

“First of all, I never set out to be a whistleblower. Secondly, I never expected that my story would be interesting to anybody. Third of all, you know, I was actually terrified of being named, of being identified.”

“Why did the British authorities wait eight months before charging me - and then drop the charges, claiming there was insufficient evidence for prosecution when I had confessed to the leak from the start?”

“After the invasion of Afghanistan, when the focus suddenly turned toward Iraq, I suddenly thought, 'What on earth had Iraq got to do with the war on terror?'”

“I grew up in Taiwan, which was a military dictatorship.”

“Because I'm not ambitious it's not paramount for me to find myself in a high-paid job.”

“The whole Big Brother vision of the world is looming large.”

“I think of journalists as being bullet-proof in a way.”

“I mean, Ed Snowden was basically saying the same things that Bill Binney and Thomas Drake and other U.S. whistleblowers had said before him. But he came out more publicly, and maybe revealed more. He showed that when the U.S. government said, 'We are not surveilling U.S. citizens,' that was a lie.”

“When you have the initial GCHQ induction course for new arrivals, they tell you... not to trust journalists, to be careful to keep everything confidential.”

“If my own country is subverting the rule of law and sending its own citizens, its military, into harm's way on the basis of lies and propaganda, I would argue that being a patriot is calling out those lies and saying, 'No, you don't send our military into harm's way with no legal justification.'”

“Most people don't know what goes on in the intelligence services. Certainly I had very little idea what went on in GCHQ. For me it was a job, a chance to use my languages.”

“I wouldn't describe myself as an activist.”

“The world is moving in a completely fascist, corporate direction. It worries me, it should worry us all.”

“It is vital to speak up in a democracy. Otherwise we are living in dictatorships.”

“Obviously I'm not prone to leak secrets left, right and centre.”