Within weeks after the incident I read a note from a hacker telling how encrypted messages could wend their ways through chains of anonymous e-mailers in several countries, with the names of the senders remaining hidden unless most or all of the e-mailers broke under pressure. Yes, abuses are possible, such as the release of trade secrets, outright libels, forgeries, or the most vile and violent of pornography. But how much better to live out this future than one of the Orwellian variety. Tyrant-bashers in the Thirteen Colonies used the wizardry of their day, the printing press, to agitate against the Tories; now let’s hope that if Exonian politicians try to stifle the Net, enough hackers will have their most dangerous presses ready to go, the servers I’ve just described. Obsolete or not, the censors aren’t going to stop. Other Big Brotherish urges have surfaced. While some Power People hope to be able to learn more about us by fighting PGP-style programs, they are stymieing our efforts to learn more about _them_. At the same time the Feds put online thousands of public documents and even the visage of Bill Clinton’s cat, some politicians on the Hill sought to _weaken_ the Freedom of Information Act, which makes it easier to dig up dirt on public officials. Just as important, Clinton people in early 1995 were proposing new copyright laws that in effect would discourage the intelligent discussion of public issues on the Internet. It would be harder to share electronic newspaper clips. Even more disturbingly, Clinton’s copyright policy could menace our public library system in the future. Bruce Lehman, his czar of intellectual property, was coming across as Andrew Carnegie in reverse. Carnegie is remembered as a Scot who grew rich off steel in the States and who encouraged people throughout the world to start libraries for all. He gave millions toward library buildings, with the understanding that the local taxpayers would finance their support. Carnegie wanted public libraries to be universities for the common man, and the metaphor holds up. Today, without paying for college or even for books, Americans can educate themselves on subjects ranging from microcomputer chips to medieval history, to Alexis de Tocqueville’s writings on democracy, to the case for or against feminism or abortion or public broadcasting or capital punishment. That is life in the era of paper books. If Lehman had his wishes, however, Americans would not be able to dial up copyrighted electronic library books from home by way of the Internet Instead they would have to tote around CD-ROMs and floppy disks.