But while there is plenty of reason for monopoly-busters to be concerned about Ashcroft's well-known antipathy to government intervention in the economy, antitrust is hardly the only technology issue Ashcroft has a position on that's worth examining. In fact, as far as hardcore Internet citizens are concerned, Ashcroft -- currently considered the left's Public Enemy No. 1 -- scores pretty positive marks. According to high-tech policy experts, Ashcroft is pro-privacy and pro-encryption. Compared to the Clinton administration, suggest some civil liberties watchdogs, Ashcroft could be a geek's best friend.

There's little doubt that, given his druthers, Ashcroft would rather not continue the federal assault against Microsoft. Shortly after he was nominated for attorney general, a letter from Ashcroft began to flit across the Net. It focused on Microsoft, and contained passages such as "the best thing Washington can do to promote competition in high technology and on the Internet is to let these innovative and exciting companies do what they do best." As attorney John Noble noted when he posted the letter to an American Bar Association mailing list, "This is not a guy who's going to be comfortable presiding over a breakup of Microsoft."

But is Microsoft the measure of the man? Not quite, says Marc Rotenberg, executive director of EPIC, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, an online civil liberties group. Ashcroft should be judged, says Rotenberg, by how well he protects privacy from government and corporate intrusion, and by how he handles pornography, copyright infringement and other forms of cyber-crime that collide with the right to free speech.

"That's where the action is really going to be in the next four years," says Rotenberg. And while it's impossible to know yet exactly how Ashcroft -- a pro-life son of a preacher -- will handle online kiddie porn and the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, some Net lovers may end up pleasantly surprised.

There are plenty of reasons to be hopeful, says Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, another civil liberties watchdog that focuses on online issues. Unlike many of his colleagues in Congress, says Cohn, "Ashcroft has repeatedly shown a breadth of interest in important Internet issues."

The key issue is privacy -- one of the Net's most volatile hot buttons. Ashcroft "was one of the guys that got it," says Alan Davidson, who has worked with Ashcroft as staff counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology, an online civil liberties nonprofit. "He realized that it wasn't worth sacrificing the privacy of everyone online just to catch a few bad guys."

The Free Software Project
Read Andrew Leonard's book-in-progress on Linux and open source -- and post your comments.