Even _PC Magazine_, one of my favorites, at times can be all wet about the Internet and related topics. A columnist suggested that most people on the Net be forced to pay for each letter sent out; supposedly, Netfolks were too quick to e-mail each other. Excuse me. Such an approach could kill off many of the mailing lists through which academics and nonacademics swap ideas and research notes en masse. A very small fee based on actual costs and Net congestion? Maybe. But not one designed to minimize use. To the columnist, however, the Net’s role as a petri dish may count less than its promise as a corporate mailman. He misses a major point. The Internet is one of the planet’s cheapest ways to transmit knowledge, including the kind that might cure cancer or give us a 150-mpg automobile. While commerce on the Net is laudable, we need those mailing lists as well—and not just for professors but public schools, libraries, charities, psychological support groups, and activists of all ideologies, to name just a few of the better examples. The economics of the Net will make this possible, especially as bandwidths increase to accommodate greater use of audio and video—text just won’t cost that much. Alas, the columnist in this instance failed to understand the Internet and its possibilities. I myself won’t claim omniscience about the Net. Once I saw a message on a mailing list from someone pushing for a huge National Knowledge Foundation to benefit educators, librarians, journalists, and investigators. The post mentioned international topics, among others, and flares went off in my head. I posted some sharply critical, journalistic questions, wondering if the post had come from a CIA type. Some people on the list cheered me on while I pressed for public answers. It turned out that the post _was_ from a former Company man, and as I persisted in querying Robert David Steele about his funding and motives, he sent me a colorfully worded note that might have made a Paris Island drill instructor envious. I quoted his e-mail, as I would have done if writing this up for a magazine. What a way to justify my fears of the intelligence establishment playing too powerful a role in determining the content of material online. I remembered the valuable exposés that the press had done of the CIA years ago; we need to separate U.S. journalists from spies, lest impartiality of the news media suffer. This debate I would win.