Jewish Journal  Internet Activism: Power, No Accountability   by
James D  April 20, 2000 | 8:00 pm  By now it's a cliché: the
Internet, a medium that gives anybody with a computer access to
a worldwide audience, is changing the way we share information.
And, because information is power, it also changes the way we do
politics.  The Internet is democracy with a vengeance, with
citizen-activists wielding unprecedented power, but also without
the checks and balances of an older, slower way of doing things.
Case in point: the recent flap over online mega-bookstores that
sell the notorious anti-Semitic slander, "The Protocols of the
Elders of Zion."  A handful of e-mails from angry Jews quickly
turned into a tidal wave; successive generations of mailings
became more threatening, less accurate.  The effort was swift
and potent; ultimately, it may have influenced the decision by
the errant booksellers to change the way they marketed the book.
But it also undercut a process for doing battle in such
situations that