Like me you’re probably still trying to get your arms around this whole big concept of “information” and everything it encompasses. This chapter offered a very brief overview of some of the leading theories about information and how it affects us. A very basic foundation has been laid so at least we can discuss information intelligently with a shared vocabulary. Information, and our relationship to it, carries a sometimes heavy burden of rights and responsibilities.
Chapter 2 investigates the basic information rights we enjoy as American citizens and provides a historical overview of information control in England and Colonial America. While Americans cannot to ignore the information policies—current or historical—of the rest of the world, I have, for the purposes of this book, necessarily limited the majority of my observations to American issues.
