Rebecca MacKinnon Work Quotations

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.

The basic technical protocols that have enabled the Internet to work in such a globally interconnected way are developed and shared openly by a community of engineers.

You don't have to be a nerd or a programmer or a network engineer to make a difference.

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.

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.

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

There isn't much question that the person who obtained the WikiLeaks cables from a classified U.S. government network broke U.S. law and should expect to face the consequences. The legal rights of a website that publishes material acquired from that person, however, are much more controversial.

The potential for the abuse of power through digital networks - upon which we the people now depend for nearly everything, including our politics - is one of the most insidious threats to democracy in the Internet age.

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.

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.

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.

Pretty much anybody who does creative work in China navigates the gray zone. People aren't clear about where the line is any more, beyond which life gets really nasty and you become a dissident without having intended ever to be one.