Internet

The Internet is a communications medium that grew to prominence in the mid-1990s and has come to be an important worldwide information resource and conduit for [Page 251]expression and commerce. Its use has dramatically advanced liberty and prosperity by empowering individuals to disseminate communication and ideas as never before, as well as by improving competition and market processes in several areas. The widespread use of the Internet also has borne with it many challenges, among them in the areas of copyright law, individual privacy, and data security. Although the Internet is often regarded as offering hope of a Utopian libertarian society, it is just as susceptible to use by governments to create extensive systems of surveillance and control.

Emerging from theoretical work on communications networks in ...