=========== http://cgi.pathfinder.com/netly/opinion/0,1042,1602,00.html The Netly News (http://netlynews.com/) November 28, 1997 A Netly News Thanksgiving by Declan McCullagh (declan@well.com) Here at the Netly News, we have a feast of things for which we're thankful during this holiday season: Ricochet radio modems. MacOS 8. A Supreme Court that supports free speech online. DVD. Cable companies offering 400 Kbit/sec Net-connections. But we're also grateful to the personalities who made this year an unforgettable one: Heaven's Gate: A special Netly thanks to these suicide cultists for providing us with seemingly unlimited article fodder. From the blinking red alert headline of their celestial home page to the computer-generated painting of a resident of the kingdom of heaven, their web site was a treasure trove for journalists. Buried in the invisible space at the bottom of the home page were hundreds of hidden words: UFO, space alien, extraterrestrial, misinformation, second coming, end times, alien abductions, Yoda, Yoga. Wonderful stuff. Louis Freeh: The butt of a thousand jokes on the Net ("Freedom isn't Freeh"), the FBI director emerged this year as the arch-enemy of strong encryption. We had worried that Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick's departure might mean fewer good stories from the Justice Department. But Freeh came to the rescue, saying publicly that Americans should not be allowed to buy encryption products without a backdoor for law enforcement. [...]