tarians were rapidly gathering strength.

An early and potent supporter was Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat from
Vermont, who had been a Senate sponsor of the Electronic Communications
Privacy Act. Even before the Neidorf trial, Leahy had spoken out in
defense of hacker-power and freedom of the keyboard: "We cannot unduly
inhibit the inquisitive 13-year-old who, if left to experiment today,
may tomorrow develop the telecommunications or computer technology to
lead the United States into the 21st century. He represents our future
and our best hope to remain a technologically competitive nation."

It was a handsome statement, rendered perhaps rather more effective by
the fact that the crackdown raiders DID NOT HAVE any Senators speaking
out for THEM. On the contrary, their highly secretive actions and
tactics, all "sealed search warrants" here and "confidential ongoing
investigations" there, might have won them a burst of glamorous
publicity at first, but were crippling them in the on-going propaganda
war. Gail Thackeray was reduced to unsupported bluster: "Some of
these people who are loudest on the bandwagon may just slink into the
background," she predicted in Newsweek--when all the facts came out,
and the cops were vindicated.

But all the facts did not come out. Those facts that did, were not
very flattering. And the cops were not vindicated. And Gail Thackeray
lost her job. By the end of 1991, William Cook had also left public
employment.

1990 had belonged to the crackdown, but by '91 its agents were in
severe disarray, and the libertarians were on a roll. People were
flocking to the cause.

A particularly interesting ally had been Mike Godwin of Austin, Texas.
Godwin was an individual almost as difficult to describe as Barlow; he
had been editor of the student newspaper of the University of Texas,
and a computer salesman, and a programmer, and in 1990 was back in law
school, looking for a law degree.

Godwin was also a bulletin board maven. He was very well-known in the
Austin board community under his handle "Johnny Mnemonic," which he
adopted from a cyberpunk science fiction story by William Gibson.
Godwin was an ardent cyberpunk science fiction fan. As a fellow
Austinite of similar age and similar interests, I myself had known
Godwin socially for many years. When William Gibson and myself had
been writing our collaborative SF novel, The Difference Engine, Godwin
had been our technical advis