Let the
Internet be

Through much of history, those in political power have taken a reactionary view of new technological developments ... particularly those that threatened to grant to "commoners" the power to do things previously allowed only to their "betters," or (worst of all) to free the citizens from an accustomed measure of government oversight, taxation, and control.
In the middle ages, courts passed sumptuary laws which sought to forbid the newly wealthy merchant classes from dressing as well as the hereditary nobles. And disseminating information on how to make gunpowder was initially labeled treason ... after all, with a musket, a lowly commoner could kill an armed nobleman on horseback, upsetting an order of social

dominance believed to be decreed by God.
The Duke of Wellington famously questioned the wisdom of introducing widespread railroad lines in England, since they would only "encourage the common folk to move about needlessly." Totalitarian regimes have long made a habit of limiting and controlling what their publics are allowed to see and hear on radio or TV.
Only a few decades ago, the Soviet government tried desperately to stop or control the spread of inexpensive fax machines, which finally broke their monopoly over information distributed to their own people, allowing the common Russian citizen to learn what was going on in the world -- and how he was being held back and impoverished by his own government.
In the bright light of information freely distributed, the Soviet Union withered and died almost as quickly as a Hollywood vampire caught out-of-doors at dawn.
In this country, a few years back, the 

 
post office attempted to promulgate a regulation that facsimile transmission via telephone line fell under the post office's legal monopoly on first-class letters -- that anyone wishing to send a fax had to do so at the post office, for a fee.
All these attempts to limit technological breakthroughs -- development which improve the life of the average man and woman -- collapse eventually, though some not soon enough to avoid crippling the economies thus plagued.
Today, the technological development most threatening to established ways of doing business, collecting taxes, and -- yes -- controlling the citizenry, is the Internet.
Overwhelmingly, private users consider the Internet -- and the instant access to information and communication it provides -- vastly liberating. But few government regulators or taxmen seem as enthused.
If someone orders goods via the Internet, where has the transaction occurred? Who gets to tax it ... or might it (horror of horrors) escape taxation altogether?
What if funds are sent whizzing around the world via Internet transfer? How are taxmen to find and count them?
What about someone who lives in an area where gambling is illegal, logging onto the Internet and placing bets in a

jurisdiction where gaming is allowed? Does that constitute a crime? If so, where has the crime occurred; which police jurisdiction shall investigate?
These question aren't just theoretical. In what they are describing as the first case of its kind, federal prosecutors in New York announced late last month they may seek five-year prison sentences and fines of up to $250,000 against the owners and managers of five Caribbean-based sports betting companies for accepting U.S.-based Internet wagers ... even though those firms' activities appear to be legal in the countries where they're located.
What's the matter -- aren't there enough real crimes with real victims to keep our prosecutors busy?
The federal government should rethink these prosecutions. Without waiting to allow appropriate new rules to develop organically to match this new technology, they're shooting from the hip, making themselves look like benighted zealots and rubes.