The National Security Agency’s top lawyer for a rocky three years during which massive government surveillance programs were exposed is returning to private practice, where he will put his experience to use on privacy and cybersecurity issues.

But Rajesh De, the now-former NSA general counsel, says he’s not going to become a go-to person for clients interested in securing their networks from feared government surveillance.

“I certainly would not be using information that I gleaned in government to benefit clients, that is for sure,” he says. “At the same time, I’m not going to erase my mind to the experience I’ve had.”

After six years in the Obama administration – before the NSA at the Justice Department and White House – De is rejoining the international law firm Mayer Brown, where beginning in June he will lead a team of more than 30 attorneys.

De says he can’t speak for other former NSA leaders who take jobs in the private sector, but that “for me it’s not about any particular special knowledge I have about some secret the government has, it’s really more about bringing the experience and perspective I have from dealing with cyber issues on a day-to-day basis in government to bear on different sorts of problems.”

Other former NSA leaders, such as former director Keith Alexander, have faced scrutiny for working in fields seemingly related to agency work. Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla, last year wrote to Alexander’s prospective employers demanding records of correspondence with him to ensure he’s not paid handsomely for classified information.

Since whistleblower Edward Snowden’s first leaks to the media in June 2013 exposed mass collection of phone and Internet records by the electronic spy agency, De has taken an active role defending those programs – and one week off the job he maintains much of what the agency does is misunderstood.

Without providing specifics, De says he often read press accounts based on Snowden documents and found "a mix of truth, not truth, things out of context, and it’s all jumbled together and very difficult to untangle.”

How much did the NSA tell its lawyers about secret surveillance operations? Declining to “speak in absolutes,” De says he can’t recall a time he learned of a program from Snowden leaks about which he hadn’t first been briefed. “That wasn’t like a phenomenon,” he says.

More often, he says, “I would see something and not understand what was written about because it actually might have borne little or no resemblance to what, in fact, is being conducted.”

De, repeating what other authorities have said, insists the NSA has seen specific sources of information from specific targets dry up, including intercepts that could have been helpful to U.S. troops in the field. He chuckled when asked if drug dealers in the Bahamas have changed their MO. The NSA reportedly records all phone calls in two countries: the Bahamas and Afghanistan.

Speaking at a public hearing of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board in November 2013, De said that, although he disapproved of the unlawful disclosures to the press, he believed the public conversation they started could turn out to be a good thing.

De says the public conversation has been largely positive and that the government should do more to communicate with the public about its methods.

At the same time, he pushes back on what he sees as a misimpression that nothing has changed, pointing to greater declassification of records by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which pre-Snowden conducted oversight of the NSA almost entirely secret, and to President Barack Obama’s 2014 statement of principles to govern collection.

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“The government is trying to take it upon itself to be more transparent,” he says. “We’re certainly heading in the right direction … but for sure there is more to be done in that regard.”

De declined to offer opinions on some hot-button subcontroversies stemming from Snowden’s disclosures. He won’t say if he believes Director of National Intelligence James Clapper committed perjury when he told senators in March 2013 the government was not intentionally collecting data on millions of Americans. He also declined to say if he believes journalists working closely with Snowden committed crimes.

De declined to speculate on how three appeals courts considering lawsuits against the phone record program will rule. He says he doesn’t know where courts will go in the future on the issue, though he points out surveillance court judges routinely have allowed the program.

In addition to working on privacy and cybersecurity, De anticipates working on crisis management and on “complex government controversies” at Mayer Brown, including work for clients on government contracts, investigations and congressional relations.