The hidden dimensions of global information networks: What price privacy?

This paper relies heavily upon a report to the European Parliament's Scient ific and Technological Options Assessment Programme (STOA)(1) for the Europ ean Parliament, on the chapter by Dr. S. Wright, "Political Control and the Internet" (2000) which appears in Human Rights on the Internet, and on the work of many colleagues who have researched this subject over the last 20 years, particularly Duncan Campbell and Simon Davies. The work has been slo w and painstaking, with doubters ever present and ready to dismiss-they wil l undoubtedly continue to do so; however, the evidence is now in the public domain and the less obvious sectors of the state are beginning to be held accountable for their actions.