Computers, the Internet, and other information technologies are extraordinarily powerful tools. As such they have great potential both to benefit and to harm societies that embrace them. For example, the Internet has been used to make businesses more efficient, improve education, and create online meeting places for people separated by great distances; it has also produced a new avenue for fraud, theft, invasion of privacy, and the distribution of pornography and hate speech.

The September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were an example of the Internet’s power as a tool for both good and evil. A few weeks after September 11, Yahoo! Internet Life reported that although the terrorists used only knives and boxcutters to execute the attacks, “The World Trade Center attack, a morbid masterpiece whose perfect execution required both intricate and...