Americans love to mock the idea of monarchy, and yet we have our own de facto monarchy. I think what these leaks did is, they demonstrated that there really is this government that just is the kind of permanent government that doesn’t get affected by election choices and that isn’t in any way accountable to any sort of democratic transparency and just creates its own world off on its own.

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.

It's so much easier to debate people when you can pretend that they hold moronic position that they don't actually believe.

It's common to go from 'crashing the gate' to guarding it.

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

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