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In the U.S., public figures have to prove that statements about them are false and made with malice -- but in Britain a statement that harms one's reputation is enough to justify a libel action. Defendants must prove that statements are true or "fair comment." This has a chilling effect on the reporting of damaging facts.

"If information cannot be freely exchanged, if journalists must fear being sued over information reported in good faith on matters crucial to our defense, matters such as the financial networks supporting jihadist terror, then we cannot make sound security policy," former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy said at a recent conference on "libel lawfare." This is a useful term to describe lawsuits to suppress facts about radical Islam and terrorism.

The Web means that publishing anywhere means publishing everywhere, thus subjecting authors and publishers to litigation in pro-plaintiff jurisdictions

But the most difficult challenge — both to grasp and to solve — of the cloud is its effect on our freedom to innovate.

This freedom is at risk in the cloud, where the vendor of a platform has much more control over whether and how to let others write new software.

And many software developers who once would have been writing whatever they wanted for PCs are simply developing less adventurous, less subversive, less game-changing code under the watchful eyes of Facebook and Apple.