It's hard to imagine a more potent sign of a weak, declining empire than having one's national 'credibility' depend upon periodically bombing other countries.

He's the President—it's the responsibility of every citizen to criticize aggressively when they think it's warranted.

The ultimate test of a society's freedom is not how it treats its good, obedient, compliant citizens; it's how it treats its dissidents.

History shows that the mere existence of a mass surveillance apparatus, regardless of how it is used, is in itself sufficient to stifle dissent. A citizenry that is aware of always being watched quickly becomes a compliant and fearful one.

The second term of the Bush administration and first five years of the Obama presidency have been devoted to codifying and institutionalizing the vast and unchecked powers that are typically vested in leaders in the name of war. Those powers of secrecy, indefinite detention, mass surveillance, and due-process-free assassination are not going anywhere. They are now permanent fixtures not only in the US political system but, worse, in American political culture.

I think that - not just as a journalist but as a human being - I have the ethical responsibility to avoid actions that can harm innocent people.

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.