This book is dedicated to Thomas Jefferson for his commitment to pluralism, diversity and community. He would be happy to see readers of this book exercising freedom of the electronic press.

Civil liberty functions today in a changing technological context. For five hundred years a struggle was fought, and in a few countries won, for the right of people to speak and print freely, unlicensed, uncensored and uncontrolled. But new technologies of electronic communication may now relegate old and freed media such as pamphlets, platforms and periodicals to a corner of the public forum. Electronic modes of communication that enjoy lesser rights are moving to center stage.

Ithiel de Sola Pool
Technologies of Freedom
(Harvard University Press, 1983)