The War on Terror has been and continues to be, above all, a war on the most basic liberties and political safeguards that we're all taught are what distinguishes the US and keeps it free.

Transparency is for those who carry out public duties and exercise public power. Privacy is for everyone else.

The many pro-surveillance advocates I have debated since Snowden blew the whistle have been quick to echo [Google CEO] Eric Schmidt's view that privacy is for people who have something to hide. But none of them would willingly give me the passwords to their email accounts, or allow video cameras in their homes.

The War on Terror has been and continues to be, above all, a war on the most basic liberties and political safeguards that we're all taught are what distinguishes the US and keeps it free.

The fact that war is the word we use for almost everything—on terrorism, drugs, even poverty—has certainly helped to desensitize us to its invocation; if we wage wars on everything, how bad can they be?

As always with any discussion of elite immunity, it's crucial to note that what makes this development such a particularly warped travesty is that the very same elites who enjoy this immunity have created the world's largest, and the Western world's most oppressive and merciless, penal state for ordinary citizens.

Beyond all the other reasons not to do it, free speech assaults always backfire: they transform bigots into martyrs.