The last time insiders faced this kind of a problem, they solved it by declaring electromagnetic radiation a scare resource, and only granting licenses to use it to companies willing to submit to governmental control.

Instantaneous communication amongst the governed is not only playing havoc here, its having disasterous consequences in our attempts to prop up friendly "democracies" where we have interests. Its a pretty tough challenge when you don't have their hearts and minds, and they can talk amongst themselves behind your back.

There's been a literally constant attack on free instantaneous communication, through everthing from the child-protection internet legislations, through McCain-Feingold, to Net Neutrality to try and gain some kind of control of this thing.

And then there's the NSA. Who knows what kind of Carnivore-style hardware they have astride the net. One of the most interesting facets of the deconstruction of the Bush43 administration will be just how much wholesale espionage was going on, and how much of it was purely political in nature. I have a feeling, Nixon will appear principled by comparison.