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As we enter the 21st century, much focus is given to the power of governments and organizations to collect information about their citizens. We also pay much lip-service across the political spectrum to the perceived apathy of our population. While the potential for Orwellian scenarios and breakdowns of human rights are of great concern to freedom loving people, the full meaning of the predicament is not understood without recognizing the broader consequences of a vital free willed society without "Big Brother".

The U.S. banned a book in the late 60's and caused a stir by having it removed from libraries.

-"But don't we have Freedom of the Press?"

Not when the information is considered dangerous.

-"Why was this book considered dangerous?"

The Golden Chemistry Book is nothing more sinister than a well written educational tool, the problem it created was that it was a little too well written. It actually taught chemistry to its readers. Who then could use that information to access the full capacity of this knowledge to do some extra-ordinary things. The Golden Chemistry Book is most famously associated with a young boy who built a nuclear breeder reactor out of tinfoil and smoke detectors in a shed in his back yard...

THE POWER OF INFORMATION

Those of us even vaguely familiar with the veracity of the internet community to provide access to information, particularly restricted information, know that almost all attempts to censor information are under constant assault. For example, here is the link to the .pdf of
"The Golden Book of Chemistry" http://www.foundontheweb.org/w p-content/uploads/2006/09/The- Golden-Book-Of-Chemistry-Exper iments.pdf
Which can also be found
here http://www.mininova.org/tor/32 8380
or
here http://www.torrentz.com/576a2e 1a870cd1ae584f8dab92984486e746 1b32.

Now if "The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments" is but one example of many potentially dangerous books (say for instance,The Anarchists Cookbook http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T he_Anarchist_Cookbook), then an aspect of the Information Age is access to power.

A LITTLE HISTORY

When I visited China in 1998, my father and I went on a tour of Buddhist temples. Though the Chinese government stated a policy of religious tolerance, the massive temples where empty besides one or two token monks. I was very struck when our guide showed us "the library". In the roped off room, there was a space for study, a space for discussion and many shelves for books. However, there where no books, not a single one... At the

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