I am hopeful for Americans that they have someone who will stand up for their rights, but not well versed as to who would fit the bill.
I am hopeful too. There are still a whole lot of regular people in this country. I think the only real sector that could stand up for our rights in a significant way is the techie people. They are a group that still has some persuasion because computer science skills are valuable. These people are smart. This is a good documentary on the history of Linux, it will show you the transition from the free software movement to the more practical open source software development.
Open source software still recognizes that software development is business centered. It is this group that makes up most of the movement to fighting for things like an uncensored internet and all that. I don't think most people are even paying attention to things like this right now or realize how this has contributed to the free internet that we presently are able to use to exchange the kind of information that we are sharing about things like the CIA involvement in WTC7 being blown up.
The FCC is thinking about changing rules regarding net neutrality recently. The tech community is the only ones that is really noticing this and are opposing it. Here was an article from CBS about this.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/net-neutrality-day-of-action-protest-fcc-plan-to-roll-back-rules/
I think what is crippling us the most is that our education system is behind in teaching computer science skills at an earlier level. I think everyone should be able to program with at least one language by the time they are 25 and that this would give us greater protection from the way technology is rapidly advancing. However, most people don't realize that learning computer science skills is such an important way to maintain our freedoms in a rapidly advancing age of technology and they are majoring in all sorts of things that is leaving our college grads with no job prospects when they graduate. I have heard of people taking classes on ridiculous things. Maybe it wouldn't be as ridiculous if people were learning these things in their spare time, but they are going to college for these things. They are taking student loans to take these classes that lead to no job prospects while they end up being further and further from understanding things like quantum computing.
Quantum computing is the only real viable option to progress technology wise in the long run and the end of Moore's law is fast approaching. Transitioning to something like quantum computing has the potential to create something similar to a dark age and most people don't even seem to realize that this could be coming. Computers are a luxury item they don't need to understand.