Whether a country is actually free is determined not by how well-rewarded its convention-affirming media elites are and how ignored its passive citizens are but by how it treats its dissidents, those posing authentic challenges to what the government does.

The key question: will the NSA continue to monitor hundreds of millions of people without any suspicion? Under Obama's proposals: Yes.

Significant and seemingly impossible social and political change happens more often than we think, and it happens more rapidly than we realize. Even the most momentous change is always possible if one finds the right way to make it happen.

The promise of the Internet has always been that it was gonna be this unprecedentedly potent instrument of liberation and democratization. It would let you explore things and meet people who you wouldn't otherwise get to know, in completely free and unconstrained ways.

It’s just simply the fact that the NSA does not think anybody should be able to communicate anywhere on the Earth without them being able to invade it.

Even as considering African-Americans, immigrants and other groups who may be marginalized in different ways, American Muslims are still one of the most marginalized groups. Overt prejudice is probably more acceptable toward American Muslims than any other single group in the U.S. There is still a lot of policies in place that are incredibly effective that don't show any signs of eroding. So, I don't want to overstate the optimism but I think things are headed gradually in the right direction. Just because of the distance between us and 9/11.

I'd like to vote for the candidate similar to the one the Right absurdly claims Obama is.