I have only ever followed my conscience.
Because I'm not ambitious it's not paramount for me to find myself in a high-paid job.
I never aligned myself specifically with the anti-war movement.
Cheering crowds have never been my sort of thing.
Truth and accountability were drilled into me as a child.
After the initial flurry of media interest, I was left to figure out how to move on with my life - and that proved hard. I was glad to get back to what I hoped would be normality, but the effect on me had been traumatising.
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?
The world is moving in a completely fascist, corporate direction. It worries me, it should worry us all.
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?'
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.
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.'
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.
I'm not a politician; I don't have a well-organised PR machine to craft my every word.
I did not make my disclosure about the deceitful manipulation of the U.N. before the invasion of Iraq began in order to garner fame or fortune.
I was arrested on suspicion of breach of Official Secrets Act in March 2003, but they didn't charge me until November. Now, the in-between months, I was bailed and re-bailed, and my life was on standstill. I was in limbo. It was a difficult time for me and my family, because we just did not know what the future held for us.
All I can say is that you have to live with your conscience at the end of your life, and it's the only thing that you have that belongs to yourself and nobody else.
Ironically, becoming known publicly was my biggest fear. And it was partly because I'm on the whole a fairly shy person.
You just have to get on with life, there's no alternative. You could curl up in a ball on your bed, but that's not going to achieve anything.
I wouldn't describe myself as an activist.
We are living in an age where it's difficult to know what the truth is and we have got politicians in charge who actually appear to not really care what the truth is.
