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advent of the Communist party in China, Buddhism had been the dominant religion for almost 2000 years. Serving as social, religious and scientific counsel and record keeper to the Chinese and as a sort of University, the library must have contained some extra ordinary books. Books, no doubt, threatening to the Communist Party and their particular telling of history.

The function of the Priesthood as a sort of intellectual nobility is very common throughout history. While we often marvel at riches of Egyptian Pharaohs, little could have been done politically or architecturally without the activities of the Egyptian the priesthood. Indeed, the Pharaoh Akhenaten http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A khenaten was deposed for trying to reform Egyptian religion.

The Roman Catholic Church's actions demonstrate one of the greatest uses of power through access to information. Towards and after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the church was building monasteries throughout Western Europe. The monasteries where in fact enormous fortresses containing books. The often illiterate monks served to preserve and sort the texts, but rarely allowed to study them. For peasants or nobility, though usually illiterate, to be caught with a book would likely be tried for heresy. The priesthood was the only path to literacy and the Church kept careful watch over who read what.

(A quick note from modern history, was it really a mistake that the National History Museum in Iraq was ransacked after the 2003 invasion? Not only where the contents of the museum valued by collectors the world over, but collectively provided Iraq with a proud National identity dating back thousands of years.)

BACK TO "BIG BROTHER"

As the Information Age comes to fruition, individuals can access more "heretical" material in an afternoon than the Pope Gregory V could have in a lifetime. Politically, we have access not only to the doctrines and writings of Marx and Adam Smith, but also Pol Pot, Sum Young Moon, Adolf Hitler, Charles Manson and now even video rants of the Virginia Tech Murderer Cho Seung-hui. While the vast majority of people disregard fringe ideologies, statistically some percentage of people will find even the most outlandish cult leader appealing. Combine this potential with the ability to easily acquire the plans for building your own nuclear reactor and the broader consequences of a vital free willed society without "Big Brother" becomes evident.

THE BALANCE OF POWER (or lack there of)

Describing the

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