I was encouraged by the discussion of our working group at the Safe Democracy summit. Although we're still refining the statement, the group agreed relatively quickly that the open Internet was a tool of democracy, and that broad restrictions in the name of stopping terrorists from using the Net, such as restrictions on anonymity and privacy, would be counterproductive by reducing the Net's democratic uses. That response is both technical and policy: We cannot stop determined terrorists from being anonymous on the Internet, so we should not try in ways that stop the human rights activists from doing so.

We must not let policy be driven by fear of terrorism, or as FDR put it, "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." See also Joi Ito, David Weinberger, Rebecca MacKinnon, Ethan Zuckerman and others.