This article is a total must-read – really made me think. Best nuggets are below.

The original vision of the Internet, where information and media is freely shared, without one’s computer strokes and searches being metered, tracked, traced, archived, dissected, marketed and warehoused in government data banks, is dead. And that’s what’s being lost by mainstream media in the ongoing Edward Snowden coverage.

A lot of people have responded to Snowden’s revelations with a shrug, saying, “I have nothing to hide.” But that misses the point. It’s bad enough that private companies track our movements, tastes, habits, health and networks, all to sell us more stuff. But when governments do the same thing, creating a domestic spying industry with hundreds of thousands of contractors, the potential for abuse is frightening. That digital dragnet is what Snowden has been trying to bring into the open and reform: the Internet, once one of our greatest tools, can be turned against us.