"Heres the problem with the web — this is so cool, its worth it. The internet is decentralized in the sense that you can kind of nuke any part of it and it still works. That was its original design. The World Wide Web isnt that way. You go and knock out any particular piece of hardware, it goes away. Can we make a reliable web thats served from many different places, kind of like how the Amazon cloud works, but for everybody? The answer is yes, you can. You can make kind of a pure to pure distribution structure, such that the web becomes reliable. Another is that we can make it private so that theres reader privacy. Edward Snowden has brought to light some really difficult architectural problems of the current World Wide Web. The GCHQ, the secret service of the British, watched everybody using WikiLeaks, and then offered all of those IP addresses, which are personally identifiable in the large part, to the NSA. The NSA had conversations about using that as a means to go and... monitor people at an enhanced level that those are now suspects. Libraries have long had history with people being rounded up for what theyve read and bad things happening to them. We have an interest in trying to make it so that there’s reader privacy."
Brewster Lurton Kahle is an American digital librarian, computer engineer, and Internet entrepreneur. He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1982 with a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science and engineering. Kahle founded the Internet Archive and co-founded Alexa Internet in 1996. He was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame in 2012.
"He [Kahle] noted that libraries historically tend to grow in societies that prioritize education and decline in societies where power is being concentrated, and he’s worried about where the US is headed. That makes it hard to predict if IA—or any library project—will be supported in the long term."
"The United States, as you point out, has been actually freer than most in terms of offering access to information. It doesnt have to be this way. Openness is not the default in terms of how if you look back in time, or even around the world. We need to show how openness works better. That you end up with companies that thrive better. That you have, with standards, you have more competition that builds more jobs. That openness is a win."