Democracy...

… and un-democracy.

“Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” - Winston S. Churchill.

“No right of private conversation was enumerated in the Constitution. I suppose it never occurred to anyone at the time that it could be prevented.” - Whitfield Diffie.

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” - Isaac Asimov.

“If you are designing cryptosystems, you’ve got to think about long-term applications. You’ve got to try to figure out how to build something that is secure against technology in the next century that you cannot even imagine.” - Whitfield Diffie.

“Liberty has never come from Government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it.” - Woodrow Wilson.

“In digital era, privacy must be a priority. Is it just me, or is secret blanket surveillance obscenely outrageous?” - Al Gore.

“No system of mass surveillance has existed in any society that we know of to this point that has not been abused.” - Edward Snowden.

“It is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday facilitate a police state.” - Bruce Schneier.

“Love your country, but never trust its government.” - Robert A. Heinlein.

“Everybody’s in favour of free speech as long as it’s theirs.” - Ira Glasser, American Civil Liberties Union.

“A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what’s going on.” - William S. Burroughs.

“If strong crypto is outlawed, only outlaws will have strong crypto.” - Riana Pfefferkorn, Stanford Internet Observatory.