Whatever else can be said about it, the Internet is certainly a godsend to politicians looking for new ways to spend the public’s money. It offers everything: a seductively mystifying technology, the vague promise of unlimited “educational” benefits, and the potential for creating dozens of new regulations, permits, certification requirements, and training programs—along with, of course, a vast new government bureaucracy to oversee it all.

A recent Associated Press story brought this home to us. Reporting on President Clinton’s promise to link “every American classroom and library to the computer Internet” by the year 2000, the story noted that the Department of Education had released the first $200 million—note the ominous word “first”—in grants for computer equipment and training. In his weekly radio address, the story continued, President Clinton lamented the fact ...

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