In April, a unique group of over 600 Internet founders, geeks, civil society advocates, government officials, corporate lobbyists, and academics gathered in São Paulo to debate the future of the Internet. Out of the discussion came the NetMundial Multistakeholder Agreement of Sao Paulo, a set of principles and road map for the future of Internet governance. Ostensibly catalyzed by Edward Snowden’s revelations of U.S.

Earlier this month, the US Commerce Department announced a plan to back away from its last direct involvement in running the Internet. The man who made that decision, Lawrence Strickling, sees the government's role today as merely "clerical," but letting go of even that sends an important symbolic message: The Internet is all grown up now.

Eli Lake at the Daily Beast has a new article arguing that Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has tried to balance increased sharing of information within the intelligence community with increased punishment of those who leak information outside it.

At least the birthplace of the First Amendment managed to come in one spot ahead of Haiti. Every year, Reporters Without Borders ranks 180 countries in order of how well they safeguard press freedom. This year, the United States suffered a precipitous drop. The latest Press Freedom Index ranked the U.S. 46th.

If you have a paper thin skin (as I do) and are paid to comment on the news (this, for some mysterious reason, also applies to me), it’s advisable to fully disengage from writing about the Edward Snowden saga. After the initial leaks, I offered a cautious piece, urging against the instant beatification of the former NSA contractor.

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Tex.) said Sunday that he thinks Edward Snowden was "cultivated by a foreign power" to leak sensitive information about the U.S. intelligence community's surveillance efforts. "I don't think Mr. Snowden woke up one day and had the wherewithal to do this all by himself," McCaul said on ABC's "This Week." "I think he was helped by others."

When historians look back at the first few decades of the 21st century, 2013 will almost certainly be seen as a game-changing year. That judgement can in the main be attributed to a series of disclosures made by American fugitive Ed Snowden, formerly a low level CIA employee and National Security Agency sub-contractor whose flight and subsequent revelations have given rise to sensational reverberations across the globe.