Here comes the stealthy web page master, eager to reclaim the gold and jewels in the treasure hoard of data. How many web pages will perish to free that data. How many bureaucrats will be lost defending their rules limiting access. Not necessarily, and certainly not automatically. To defend that possibly outrageous position, one needs to confront other dragons.
Democracy is an old dragon.
What it is and what its features should be are hidden in a thick cloud of scholarly debate and political conflict. To the uninvolved, but not uninterested, all that is visible is a continual tumult punctuated by flashes of lightning and claps of thunder. On the fringe of the melee over definitions, democracy's weakened state and how to strengthen it are argued over in a raucous debate further confusing the observer. Communications technology is a young dragon. It seems bent on swallowing up everything in sight.