This essay is one of a great many written on or around the 24 hours of Democracy protest of the USA's 1996 Telecommunications Reform Bill.

Look. The main point here is that the Net *could* be a fantastic tool for human evolution.

The system needs to be as open as possible for this to be possible (please don't censor it).

And it needs to be accessible by *every*one at a reasonable price (please don't let monopolies take it over).

Privacy should be respected (no Clipper, let us have the strongest cryptography we can find).

Then, maybe we can all work together to help build the Net in such a way that it helps us to grow as a species.

Thanks. Peace,
__John
P.S. For my latest thoughts on this and other media issues.
P.P.S. And of course, many links.

"It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them."
--Mark Twain

"Listen to your wife, your husband, your father, your mother, your children, your friends; to those who love you and those who don't, to those who bore you, to your enemies. It will work a small miracle. And perhaps a great one."
--Brenda Ueland

"What you do speaks so loudly to me that I cannot hear what you say."
--An old Quaker saying