Because of a legal dispute, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has frozen the .iq address, making it impossible for Iraqi organizations, businesses and people to establish their unique identities online. This should be changed, now.

It seems that InfoCom Corp., the Richardson, Texas-based company that runs the .iq domain name, was indicted in 2002 for allegedly exporting computer equipment to Libya and Syria. In addition, the company is charged with sending money to terrorist groups in the Middle East. Until the conclusion of the trial, which began in Dallas last month, .iq stays locked up. This doesn't make sense. The Iraqi people need and deserve the opportunity to have an electronic identity. They should be able to build Web pages, establish businesses and create electronic communities without having to borrow domain names from other countries in the region.

One way to facilitate the use of the .iq domain would be to put it in an escrow account until the trial is completed, so it could be made available now to Iraqis on a nonprofit basis.

Getting Iraq on the Internet could give it a technological boost and perhaps even encourage a broadband build-out of the country's infrastructure. In the past, less-developed countries have been able to move from no phone service to mobile phone service, completely bypassing the time and costs of fixed-line development. But perhaps the most important reason to release the .iq domain is the one least likely to come with dollar signs. It has to do with this strange notion: It's intrinsically a good thing when people have a say about their lives and are able to communicate their feelings, opinions and ideas to others through e-mail, online postings, Web sites and blogs. It can build pride and respect. And, if you can for only a moment cut through the cynicism so prevalent in what we call a technologically advanced culture, it can give people a chance to dream. If ever there was a country that needs to dream, it's Iraq. Freeing the .iq domain address is a start.

Loudoun County has been recognized as one of most technologically advanced county governments in the United States. The Center for Digital Government conducted a national survey of how county governments are evolving in their use of information technology to deliver services to their citizens. The 2004 Digital Counties Survey placed Loudoun among the top ten counties in its population category.

Detroit has followed the lead of two other large cities -- Los Angeles and Chicago -- in enacting legislation that requires companies seeking contracts with the city to disclose any profits they received from slavery.

The ordinance passed last week by the Detroit City Council came after one was approved in May 2003 by the Los Angeles City Council, and another in October 2002 in Chicago.

Under these measures, companies with ties to slavery would not be barred from receiving municipal contracts. But any firm found to have falsified its slave history would have its contracts voided.

"The purpose of this ordinance is to set the groundwork for [slavery] reparations. First, you have to get the information and show the companies that benefited from the slave trade," Detroit City Councilwoman Barbara-Rose Collins, a former Democratic congresswoman from Michigan and sponsor of the Detroit ordinance, said Tuesday.

The black lawmaker put it this way last week in an interview with the Detroit News: "It has been quite a long time since African Americans were promised 40 acres and a mule. This ordinance only provides for the beginning of the process by requiring full disclosure."