Cyberspace, Free Expression, and Who Monitors It

of our lives in ways that taken together could make us wonder: "Has 1984 actually happened?" Things such as convenience, national security, transnational investigations into drugs trafficking and child porn, and the increased need for instant communication often cause concerns about who is watching you while you are watching your computer monitor to be shoved to the back of the mind. "I don't care who reads my e-mail if it will help catch some terrorist", you may say. "I am not buying or downloading porn, so I don't care who tracks my credit card", you insist. But surely there are limits to what you will abide. Determining those limits will be one of the most important civil liberties issues during the next decade. Until then, point and click very carefully, lest you should soon hear: "Mr. Smith, this is the fourth time this week you hit the Sports Illustrated site. You know you logged on to download those IRS forms, not to print out the SI swimsuit issue..." or "Mrs. Smith, you know you are supposed to be on a diet, so why have you visited the Food TV site three times in the last two days to download and print out cake and pie recipes?".

So the answer to Pete Townshend's classic question: "Who are you?" may evolve into "ask my computer". Are we really ready for that stretch of the "Information Superhighway"?

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