James Comey:

The Internet is the most dangerous parking lot imaginable.

Mark Painter:

The means to perpetrate wide scale damage are in place. All that's lacking is intent.

Chris Meenan:

Threats are pervasive. The Internet communication vector means they will always have an attack surface, so we must, at a minimum, record everything.

Threat Assessment:

Lisa: Uh, are you sure that's safe?
Kearny: Well it ain't gettin' any safer.

Peter Beinart:

As in past years, Obama boasted about having withdrawn troops from Afghanistan and about no longer "sending large ground forces overseas." But in a marked shift from previous years, he stopped claiming that all this had made America safer from terrorism.

And now, in his final year in office, he's not only stopped telling Americans they are safer. He's declaring war.

Leon Wieseltier:

There are worse things than being wrong.

Adam Gopnik:

Even doing the right thing rarely works out. What history generally "teaches" is how hard it is for anyone to control it, including the people who think they're making it.