Alan Dershowitz Quotes

The federal government seeks to control and regulate the Internet, but the last thing this Congress should be doing is trying to stifle public debate online.

I know that fundamentally, changes to the fabric of the internet, and sort of our methods of communication, can enforce our rights.

Unfortunately, opponents of online speech have decided to punish our changing technological world.

Congress will pass a law restricting public comment on the Internet to individuals who have spent a minimum of one hour actually accomplishing a specific task while on line.

Reclassification is the best way to for us to preserve the Internet as an unfettered tool for communication and the sharing of ideas.

It is not inevitable that the Internet will evolve in a manner compatible with democracy.

network neutrality

Cyberspace never sits still; it evolves as fast as society itself. Only if we fight to preserve our freedom of speech on the Net will we ensure our ability to keep up with both the Net and society.

Washington faces a simple choice: allow the Internet to remain as an engine of innovation, a platform for speech in even the harshest tyrannies, and a unified connection for people across the globe—or cede control of the Internet to service providers motivated by their parochial interests.

Contemporary digital technologies offer Governments, corporations, criminals and pranksters unprecedented capacity to interfere with the rights to freedom of opinion and expression.

Information is the oxygen of the modern age. It seeps through the walls topped by barbed wire, it wafts across the electrified borders.

Censorship is a really big deal, but online you don't have anything. You have slightly more freedom.

Information technology is a formidable enabler of freedoms. For example, it lowers barriers to freedom of expression and allows people to get a better grasp of their lives. It should not be used to reduce the freedom of people.

The Internet is a blessing and a curse. I mean, it's a place where lots of people can express themselves, which is amazing, but it's a place where a lot of people can express themselves that probably should keep those expressions to themselves.

We're muddying the waters when we are having a discussion about what's going on on YouTube and Twitter and whether that's a matter of free speech. These are private platforms and they're allowed to decide what should and should not be on its platforms. It's not an issue of free speech.

I should say here, because some in Washington like to dream up ways to control the Internet, that we don't need to 'control' free speech, we need to control ourselves.

If I am unhappy, I can write "damn it" in my personal diary, but I can't do that on a microblog so I might as well not start one.

You have to be careful about what you do, about what you say, and that is more dangerous than what was happening with [John] McCarthy, but the technology the government now possesses is so much more insidious.

We make tools for people. Tools to create, tools to communicate. The age we're living in, these tools surprise you. ... That's why I love what we do. Because we make these tools, and we're constantly surprised with what people do with them.

I probably not as likely to say what's on my mind, and I think most people aren't. It's not something I would want to always be doing. So that's why I'm not a politician.

The internet is fracturing into a series of huge country-based intranets, in which governments define, in the name of security, what is legitimate personal and intellectual communication, and what is not.

Every human being has a right to hear what other wise human beings have spoken to him. It is one of the Rights of Men; a very cruel injustice if you deny it to a man!

All forms of government ultimately are not going to succeed in trying to control or censor the Internet.

As more and more people awaken to the threats against our basic rights online, we must start a debate - everywhere - about the web we want.