The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is little known, but it wields a tremendous amount of power: It controls all of the Web’s top-level domains (those letters after the “dot,” like .com and .org). Currently, ICANN is in the midst of creating hundreds (and possibly thousands) of new, generic top-level domains (gTLDs) that span a host of different ideas, from .web to .cars to .anything_else_you_can_imagine. These new gTLDs have the potential to dramatically affect the future of Internet browsing, and they’re already stirring up some serious discussion.

On August 31, 1962, a sixty-three-year-old Cuban citizen named Pedro Víctor García boarded a Pan American Airways flight to Miami without a valid visa. After he landed, immigration police detained him. They could have deported Victor back to Havana immediately, but, for reasons that are unclear, they allowed him to stay, and to plead his case. Eventually, he became a legal resident of the United States.

The militarization of cyberspace has been under way for more than a decade, but only in the last few years have the telltale signs appeared suggesting that the United States is erecting a new digital wing of its permanent national-security state. Three years ago, for example, came the birth of the 24th Air Force, at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, and Robins Air Force Base, Georgia. The 24th claims to be “the newest numbered air force,” as well as “the first-ever unit designated for the sole purpose of cyberspace operations.” According to its fact sheet,

When Google announced impending changes to its privacy policy, users and the media alike were focused on one thing: the inability to opt-out, short of deleting your account. Though Congress keeps pushing Google for more clarification, many users have grumpily acknowledged the Gmail notifications and moved to new privacy concerns like an iPhone app that copied and uploaded users' contacts.