Here are my answers to some questions asked by Michael Brooks, who is writing an article on the global brain for New Scientist magazine. This may be used for an eventual FAQ for our mailing list. The obvious analogy is that people play the role of cells within a multicellular organism. However, this analogy is to some degree misleading, for example, because cells specialize very early into liver cells, red blood cells, neurons, etc., and cannot change to a different role, whereas people continuously get re-educated and learn new things.
People can also easily move from one position or function within society to another one.
I haven't heard of specific limitations that would be imposed, although it is plausible that some organizations would want to impose such limitations. Until now, the only issue I have heard about is that the US government would want to make it impossible for information to be encrypted in such a way that it would become unreadable to the authorities, because that would make it easier for terrorists, drug traffickers, etc. to collaborate on a global scale. Another rumor is that US intelligence agencies have been scanning all email traffic for keywords that may indicate terrorist activities, such as Marx, Lenin, bomb, attack, and the names of weapon systems. Again, although I don't like the idea of a Big Brother listening in on my conversations, I think that with some minimal democratic control, this danger should be relatively easy to contain. This should also apply to managing web protocols.