His argument in favor of their unfettered "free speech" is really just the usual one propounded by the assorted zealots of our day who use their right of protest to interrupt and prevent the exercise of other citizen's legal rights.

Harry Schwartz, an expert on Eastern Europe, wrote in a 1969 book that Mr. Pelikan had been a victim "of Moscow's fury at the media's gigantic contribution to the nation's short period of unfettered free speech."

"But to the American Civil Liberties Union, I'm Luke Skywalker," he adds, smiling mischievously at having assembled a most motley political cadre to lead next month in the name of protecting unfettered political speech.

Just as the strength of the Internet is chaos, so the strength of our liberty depends upon the chaos and cacophony of the unfettered speech the First Amendment protects.

Such trade in information is legal, and regulation of it difficult, perhaps even more so since a Federal appeals court ruling last week struck down restrictions and defended the "chaos and cacophony of the unfettered speech" on the new medium.

Is that a matter of unfettered free speech or a campaign contribution to be regulated?

The case, which dates from 1986, pitted the Federal Election Commission against the Colorado Republican Party, which argued that its right to unfettered political speech was hampered by any limit on coordinated spending.

It affords all Americans the right to unfettered speech.

But even among digital libertarians, there is a growing fear that technology that can block huge portions of what the Court called "the most mass participatory medium yet invented" may pose a more potent threat to unfettered speech than the Government ever did.

However, some legal scholars believe that members of Congress and their aides are exempt from this statute under the Constitution's guarantee of unfettered Congressional "speech and debate."