Rebecca MacKinnon quotes:

The Egyptian Revolution makes it clear, if anybody was in doubt, that digital technologies are going to play a powerful role in the future of global politics.

After Secretary Clinton announced in January 2010 that Internet freedom would be a major pillar of U.S. foreign policy, the State Department decided to take what Clinton calls a 'venture capital' approach to the funding of tools, research, public information projects, and training.

While Google no longer has a search engine operation inside China, it has maintained a large presence in Beijing and Shanghai focused on research and development, advertising sales, and mobile platform development.

Like it or not, Google and the Chinese government are stuck in a tense, long-term relationship, and can look forward to more high-stakes shadow-boxing in the netherworld of the world's most elaborate system of censorship.

For centuries, the Yangtze River - the longest in Asia - has played an important role in China's history, culture, and economy. The Yangtze is as quintessentially Chinese as the Nile is Egyptian or the Rhine is German. Many businesses use its name.

Speech within the kingdom of Amazonia - run by its sovereign Jeff Bezos and his board of directors with help from the wise counsel and judgment of the company's executives - is not protected in the same way that speech is constitutionally protected in America's public spaces.

Thanks to the Internet in general and social media in particular, the Chinese people now have a mechanism to hold authorities accountable for wrongdoing - at least sometimes - without any actual political or legal reforms having taken place. Major political power struggles and scandals are no longer kept within elite circles.

A moral argument about whether censorship is good or bad deteriorates quickly into accusations about who is more or less patriotic, moral, pious, and so on.

As in Pakistan, Tunisian and Egyptian human rights activists are concerned that any censorship mechanisms, once put in place, will inevitably be abused for political purposes no matter what censorship proponents claim to the contrary.

On March 5, 2011, protesters stormed the Egyptian state security headquarters. In real time, activists shared their discoveries on Twitter as they moved through a building that had until recently been one of the Mubarak regime's largest torture facilities.

Despite the Obama administration's proclaimed commitment to global Internet freedom, the executive branch is not transparent about the types and capabilities of surveillance technologies it is sourcing and purchasing - or about what other governments are purchasing the same technology.

Like Syria, the government of Bahrain employs aggressive tactics to censor and monitor its people's online activity.

On Apple's special store for the Chinese market, apps related to the Dalai Lama are censored, as is one containing information about the exiled Uighur dissident leader Rebiya Kadeer. Apple similarly censors apps for iPads sold in China.

In Britain, a 'block list' of harmful Web sites, used by all the major Internet Service Providers, is maintained by a private foundation with little transparency and no judicial or government oversight of the list.

Yahoo! had a choice. It chose to provide an e-mail service hosted on servers based inside China, making itself subject to Chinese legal jurisdiction. It didn't have to do that. It could have provided a service hosted offshore only.

There is no country on Earth where Internet and telecommunications companies do not face at least some pressure from governments to do things that would potentially infringe on users' rights to free expression and privacy.

Intermediary liability' means that the intermediary, a service that acts as 'intermediate' conduit for the transmission or publication of information, is held liable or legally responsible for everything its users do.

The Tunisian blogger and activist Sami Ben Gharbia has written passionately about how U.S. government involvement in grassroots digital spaces can endanger those who are already vulnerable to accusations by nasty regimes of acting as foreign agents.

I think one of the problems I think with a lot of people in high school is that people don't think of the Internet as a real place or a place that has physical consequences in the physical world. This happens with adults who ought to know better, too.

I lived in China for 9 years straight. I saw how my Chinese friends benefited and gained much more freedom to determine the course of their lives, their jobs, their creative works, and their identities over the course of a decade. Much of this increased freedom is thanks to economic engagement by the West.

As a condition for entry into the Chinese market, Apple had to agree to the Chinese government's censorship criteria in vetting the content of all iPhone apps available for download on devices sold in mainland China.

Research In Motion, the owner of BlackBerry, has been asked by a range of governments to comply with surveillance requirements.

Most people who use the Internet seem take its nature and characteristics for granted, like we take air and water for granted.

It is time to stop debating whether the Internet is an effective tool for political expression and instead to address the much more urgent question of how digital technology can be structured, governed, and used to maximize the good and minimize the evil.

There is clearly a constituency that appreciates the message that Google is sending, that it finds the Chinese government's attitude to the Internet and censorship unacceptable.

Twitter is growing up, expanding into other countries, and recognizing that the Internet is contrary to what people hoped; the government does reach into the Internet.

Digital power is every bit as likely to be abused as physical power, but is often more insidious because it is often wielded in the background until its results manifest themselves in the offline world.

Facebook is not a physical country, but with 900 million users, its 'population' comes third after China and India. It may not be able to tax or jail its inhabitants, but its executives, programmers, and engineers do exercise a form of governance over people's online activities and identities.

It becomes dangerous for somebody who doesn't want their boss to know their sexual preference to use online networks to push for laws supporting gay marriage or same-sex partner rights if they can't do so with a pseudonym.

It took a generation for companies to recognise their responsibilities in terms of labour practices and another generation for them to recognise their environmental obligations.

While sanctions against Iran and Syria are intended to constrain those countries' governments, they have had the unfortunate side effect of constraining activists' access to free online software and services used widely across the Middle East, including browsers, online chat applications, and online storage services.

Even in democratic society, we don't have good answers how to balance the need for security on one hand and the protection of free speech on the other in our digital networks.

Anything illegal under Chinese law is, of course, not protected by copyright.

Laws and mechanisms originally meant to enforce copyright, protect children and fight online crime are abused to silence or intimidate political critics.

As it turns out, American-made technology had helped Mubarak and his security state collect, compile, and parse vast amounts of data about everyday citizens.

I am well aware of the facts presented by numerous security experts on the many ways in which the United States' digital networks have come under siege by cybercriminals and under daily assault by hackers in league with various foreign governments.

The sovereigns of the Internet are acting like they have a divine right to govern.

While American intellectual property deserves protection, that protection must be won and defended in a manner that does not stifle innovation, erode due process under the law, and weaken the protection of political and civil rights on the Internet.

Any new legal measures, or cooperative arrangements between government and companies meant to keep people from organizing violence or criminal actions, must not be carried out in ways that erode due process, rule of law and the protection of innocent citizens' political and civil rights.

Companies should have a due diligence process to determine the likelihood that their technologies will be used to carry out human rights abuses before doing business with a particular country or distributor.

What role did the Internet play in the Egyptian Revolution? People will be arguing about the answer to that question for decades if not centuries.

Human freedom increasingly depends on who controls what we know and, therefore, how we understand our world. It depends on what information we are able to create and disseminate: what we can share, how we can share it, and with whom we can share it.

For years, members of Congress have heard from constituents who want them to protect the nation from crime, terrorism and intellectual property violation. They have not faced equally robust demands that online rights and freedoms be preserved.

I don't think any foreign Internet company can effectively compete against Chinese companies in the Chinese market. The regulatory environment is so difficult that it's almost impossible for foreigners to have an advantage over locals who have better political connections and who can manipulate the regulatory system much more effectively.

There are a lot of people that think the Internet is going to bring information and democracy and pluralism in China just by existing.

Internet companies created the social-media tools that fueled the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street insurgencies, and that have helped political candidates rally grass-roots support.

Google's entire business model and its planning for the future are banking on an open and free Internet. And it will not succeed if the Internet becomes overly balkanized.

A number of countries, including Russia and China, have put forward proposals to regulate aspects of the Internet like 'crime' and 'security' that are currently unregulated at the global level due to lack of international consensus over what those terms actually mean or over how to balance enforcement with the protection of citizens' rights.

Compliance with the Stop Online Piracy Act would require huge overhead spending by Internet companies for staff and technologies dedicated to monitoring users and censoring any infringing material from being posted or transmitted.

The user in China wants the same thing that any Internet user wants - privacy in conversations, maximum access to information, and the ability to speak their minds online.

The relationship between citizens and government is increasingly mediated through the Internet.

We must all rise to the challenge to demonstrate that security and prosperity in the Internet age are not only compatible with liberty, they ultimately depend on it.

If I were a Chinese dissident, I'd be grateful that Cisco had helped bring the Internet to China, but I'd also be outraged that Cisco may have helped the cops keep me under surveillance and catch me trying to organize protest activities.

During the 1980s, when Japan's economy was roaring and people were writing books with titles like 'Japan is Number One,' most Japanese college students didn't make the effort to become fluent in English.

After the non-Japanese Carlos Ghosn was brought in by Nissan to turn around the struggling auto manufacturer, he made English the company's official working language.

If high-tech companies are serious about doing the right thing, they can join together and lobby for more transparency and accountability in the way in which Chinese officialdom deals with Internet services.

Democratic institutions are based on a reality of human nature: that those with power, however benign or even noble their intentions, will do what they can to keep it.

QQ is not secure. You might as well be sharing your information with the Public Security Bureau.

Nothing ever goes as planned in China.

It's much easier to force intermediary communications and Internet companies such as Google to police themselves and their users than the alternatives: sending cops after everybody who attempts a risque or politically sensitive search, getting parents and teachers to do their jobs, or chasing down the origin of every offending link.

Internet freedom is a bit of a Rorschach test: it means different things to different people.

We willingly share personal information with companies for the convenience of using their products.

I get the impression that most Chinese entrepreneurs are so focussed on doing what they need to do to succeed in the Chinese market - which is a big enough challenge even for the established players - that nobody is thinking much about the longer run or the bigger global picture.

Trade shows such as the wire tappers' ball are highly secretive and ban journalists from attending. None of the U.S. agencies that attended the wire tappers' ball - including the FBI, the Secret Service, and every branch of the military - were willing to comment when a reporter queried them about their attendance.

Ronald Reagan, when he was campaigning for President, said that he would break relations with Communist China and re-establish diplomatic relations with Taiwan. But when he got into office, he pursued a very different policy of engagement with China and of increasing trade and business ties with China.

It would be normal for anybody running a high-profile, politically controversial operation in China to anticipate worst-case scenario, and to do everything possible to guard against them.

As a citizen of a community, if you never vote or engage, don't be surprised when the outcome doesn't serve your interests; you've never done anything to push things in the right direction.

In China's big cities, American products - say, for instance, Proctor and Gamble shampoos or many other goods - are widely coveted by a lot of Chinese consumers.

Defending a free and open global Internet requires a broad-based global movement with the stamina to engage in endless - and often highly technical - national and international policy battles.

The erosion of privacy rights under the Fourth Amendment, written to protect us against unreasonable search and seizure, began in earnest under President George W. Bush.

In January 2012, Google Plus started to roll out support for nicknames and pseudonyms, but those registering with a name other than their real-life one must be able to prove that they have been using that alternative name elsewhere, either on the Web or in real life.

If China someday gains a more fair, just, and accountable system of government, it will be due to the hard work and efforts of the Chinese people, not due to the inexorable workings of any particular technology.

Negative views of Pakistan expressed by prominent members of the global business community are taken more seriously by government functionaries than are appeals by human rights groups.

Social networking platforms like Facebook and Twitter should be urged to adhere to business practices that maximize the safety of activists using their platforms.

When Tim Berners-Lee invented the computer code that led to the creation of the World Wide Web in 1990, he did not try to patent or charge fees for the use of his technology.

Intermediary liability enables the Chinese authorities to minimize the number of people they need to put in jail in order to stay in power and to maximize their control over what the Chinese people know and don't know.

People in China have a range of strong views about how children should be protected when they go online and whether the responsibility should be with the government, with parents, or somebody else.

Can companies just claim a total lack of political responsibility in how their technology is used in all instances? It's something that companies should be thinking about when they sell their technologies around the world.

Clear limits should be set on how power is exercised in cyberspace by companies as well as governments through the democratic political process and enforced through law.

I first came to China as a child on a visit with my family in 1978.

Freedom only remains healthy if we think about the implications of what we do on a day-to-day basis.

The Chinese government sometimes shuts down the Internet and mobile services in specific areas where unrest occurs.

Public trust in both government and corporations is low, and deservedly so.

The Internet is an empowering force for people who are protesting against the abuse of power.

Internet freedom is not possible without freedom from fear, and users will not be free from fear unless they are sufficiently protected from online theft and attack.

The U.S. relationship with Bahrain is obviously more complicated than with Syria and Iran.

In China, Vietnam, Russia and several former Soviet states, the dominant social networks are run by local companies whose relationship with the government actually constrains the empowering potential of social networks.

Seemingly small choices and small actions add up over time.

It's a tough problem that a company faces once they branch out beyond one set of offices in California into that big bad world out there.

Citizens continue to demand government help in fighting cybercrime, defending children from stalkers and bullies, and protecting consumers.

One day, people in China may be able to see the records of conversations between multinational tech companies and the Chinese authorities.

Normalization of U.S.-China relations in 1979, combined with economic reforms and opening, transformed the Chinese people's lives.

When controversial speech can be taken offline through pressures on private intermediaries without any kind of due process, that is something we need to be concerned about.

Amazon webhosting dropped Wikileaks as a customer after receiving a complaint from U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman, despite the fact that Wikileaks had not been charged, let alone convicted, of any crime.

While the Internet can't be controlled 100 percent, it's possible for governments to filter content and discourage people from organizing.

In China, the problem is that with the system of censorship that's now in place, the user doesn't know to what extent, why, and under what authority there's been censorship. There's no way of appealing. There's no due process.

In the future, 'the networked' will sometimes form alliances with the Silicon Valley companies against Congress, but sometimes we are going to want and need to target our campaigns for change at the companies themselves.

Governments clash with each other over who should control the co-ordination of the Internet's infrastructure and critical resources.

The Olympics brought a lot of development to Beijing, but I don't see that there have been any changes to human rights as a result of the Olympics.

The early idealists and companies and governments have all assumed that the Internet will bring freedom. Yet China proves that this is not the case.

One-way monologues through the Voice of America and Radio Free Asia don't have much street cred with China's Internet generation, to be honest.

In a pre-Internet world, sovereignty over our physical freedoms, or lack thereof, was controlled almost entirely by nation-states.

Only about 10 percent of India's population uses the web, making it unlikely that Internet freedom will be a decisive ballot-box issue anytime soon.

There is a widening gap between the middle-aged-to-older generation, who still read newspapers and watch CCTV news, and the Internet generation.

We like to think of the Internet as a border-busting technology.

Nobody is forcing anybody who is uncomfortable with the terms of service to use Facebook. Executives point out that Internet users have choices on the Web.

If multi-stakeholder Internet governance is to survive an endless series of challenges, its champions must commit to serving the interests and protecting the rights of all Internet users around the world, particularly those in developing countries where Internet use is growing fastest.

Radio was used powerfully by Josef Goebbels to disseminate Nazi propaganda, and just as powerfully by King George VI to inspire the British people to fight invasion.

Every news organization needs a social media strategy.

The Chinese government clearly sees Internet and mobile innovation as a major driver of its global economic competitiveness going forward.

So long as confusion reigns, there will be no successful global Internet agenda, only contradiction.

Political activists in Hong Kong and Taiwan use Facebook as their primary tool to mobilize support for their causes and activities.

In the United States, whatever you may think of Julian Assange, even people who are not necessarily big fans of his are very concerned about the way in which the United States government and some companies have handled Wikileaks.

In the wake of the Internet getting shut down in Egypt - something that also happened in Xinjiang - I know that there are groups working on ways to help people get online when domestic networks get shut down. This could also be of use to some people in China.

WikiLeaks published the Afghan War Logs and U.S. diplomatic cables stolen from a classified network by an Army private.

Google transformed the way most of us get our information with a search engine that enables us to find citizen-created media content alongside the work of professionals.

The only legitimate purpose of government is to serve citizens, and ... the only legitimate purpose of technology is to improve our lives, not to manipulate or enslave us.

Whether or not the U.S. government funds circumvention tools, or who exactly it funds and with what amount, it is clear that Internet users in China and elsewhere are seeking out and creating their own ad hoc solutions to access the uncensored global Internet.

The trend in China is toward tighter and tighter control. They are basically improving their censorship mechanisms.

Tactically, yelling at Google is unwise.