An Australian freelance journalist recently escaped beheading by Iraqui insurgents when his captors conducted a search on Google to confirm his claim that he was a journalist and not a CIA agent. ________(1) . We have seen terrorists making use of the Internet to spread the horror of their beheading hostages, but we had never imagined they would use the same medium to pare the life of one._________(2). Just as it can carry the power of one voice around the world, it can bring a world of information to a single room. In the passt, anyone in Martinkus’s position would have been unable to prove that he was something other than what his captors believed.________ (3). During the US presidential election, bloggers were accredited for the first time to the conventions of both the Democratic and the Republican parties, in recognition of the fact that these lone voices are able to influence large numbers of people over the Internet. ________ (4). This was evident on election night when some bloggers reported early that exit polls had put Democratic candidate John Kerry ahead. Kerry lost, but Wall Street dropped 60 points in a few minutes before recovering. In other words, a few individuals, accountable to no one, take on such power on the Internet that they can sway the largest stock exchange. Of course, the big US television networks made the same mistake four years earlier, confirming the similar nature of all media that disseminate information. ________(5). The Internet can do that. Like fire, the foundation of technology, it can light up the darkness and it can destroy.