Bob Barr Quotes

As long as a government can come and shoot you, you can't jump on the Internet to freedom.

Even with censorship, the Internet is a force for change.

Google has withdrawn from China, arguing that it is no longer willing to design its search engine to block information that the Chinese government does not wish its citizens to have. In liberal democracies around the world, this decision has generally been greeted with enthusiasm.

Governments can no longer control 100 percent of the story. Time and geographical boundaries disappear. In places like China and all over the Middle East, social-media outlets are being used to expose and hold accountable public officials that don't want to be held accountable for corruption and human rights abuses.

During the past few decades, modern technology, with radio, TV, air travel, and satellites, has woven a network of communication which puts each part of the world in to almost instant contact with all the other parts.

My point is, no one can stop the Internet. No one can stop that march. It doesn't mean that it's going to be smooth, though.

Activists and geeks, standing together, are demonstrating powers beyond the reach of government control.

We have been talking with leaders: Change is coming; you can no longer have a closed regime with an open society - satellites, social media, the Internet - you have this kind, this kind of society moving forward, and you are running this closed regime; this is not sustainable. This cannot continue.

Google, Microsoft and Yahoo should be developing new technologies to bypass government sensors and barriers to the Internet; but instead, they agreed to guard the gates themselves.

Freedom of speech means freedom for those who you despise, and freedom to express the most despicable views. It also means that the government cannot pick and choose which expressions to authorize and which to prevent.

The internet, Facebook and Twitter have created mass communications and social spaces that regimes cannot control.

When the Internet first came, I thought it was just the beacon of freedom. People could communicate with anyone, anywhere, and nobody could stop it.

Like the invention of the printing press before it, the Internet has been the greatest instrumentality of free speech and the exchange of ideas in the history of mankind.

The Internet is a clear example of how our lives have changed in ways we couldn't have imagined: a distributed information source, which is invisible to everyone, where you can access anything, and it's distributed throughout the whole world. Basically, communication is instantaneous.

In this era, we have more choice than any group of people ever. When you are out at night, anyone in the universe can contact you instantly. Think about how crazy that is compared to even a few decades ago.

The big change, the really radical change in communication, was in the late 19th century. The shift from sailing ships to telegraph is astronomical. Everything since then has been small increments, including the internet. So you don't have to wait for a letter to get to England in six weeks, you have almost instant communication. That was an enormous shift.

The quintessential exercise of free speech in a culture supposedly built on that concept and dedicated to it, the Internet's development is as historically important to humanity perhaps even more so as Gutenberg 's invention of the printing press.

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

The penetration of society by the Internet and the penetration of the Internet by society is the best thing that has ever happened to global human civilisation.

I find it very offensive when the government tells me what I can and cannot watch. Censor yourself.

The Internet is probably the most important technological advancement of my lifetime. Its strength lies in its open architecture and its ability to allow a framework where all voices can be heard.

Both the American people and nations that censor the internet should understand that our government is committed to helping promote internet freedom.

We have collapsed distances, taken down walls, and spread information.

The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village.

It doesn’t keep us safe and it doesn’t keep us free if we give up our liberties to the government.