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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.

Through a blog, an ordinary citizen such as myself can use the Internet, this thing invented by Albert Gore, to talk from my house to the U.S. capital and to make use of my right to point out to government officials and to the media when they are wrong.

In cyberspace, it is becoming increasingly difficult to uphold security for one's own country by sacrificing that of others.

News and images move so easily across borders that attitudes and aspirations are no longer especially national. Cyber-weapons, no longer the exclusive province of national governments, can originate in a hacker's garage.

The fact of the matter is that the United States faces real threats from criminals, terrorists, spies, and malicious cyber actors.

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.

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.

The benefits of our increasingly digital lives have been accompanied by new dangers, and we have been forced to consider how criminals and terrorists might use advances in technology to their advantage.

I study how governments seek to stifle and control online dissent.

The digital revolution has deepened the crisis within representative democracy. But as it forces its demise, it might also dictate its future. Traditional representative democracy within nations is no longer enough. People want more participation and collaboration with their government.