Amidst great fanfare, media set-pieces, fine food and excellent, the great and the good of states International Organisations and NGOs will discuss technology, 'information' and development. Fine words will be uttered about the digital divide, the importance of technology in the development process. Wireless telephony will be hailed as having brought connectivity to areas historically neglected by an expensive physical infrastructure. Satellite operators will push for their technology to be adopted as a means for providing broadband access. But the meeting will be troubled, deja vu will strike some of the particpants cause cognitive dissonance. Because there is a specter haunting the WSIS, the specter of the New International Information Order, product of the last great assault on free market communications power, and motivation behind the United States departure from UNESCO in 1984, followed by the United Kingdom and Singapore shortly thereafter.