An old friend, almost forgotten, teaches a new lesson.

We had dinner in the restaurant portion of Ray's on Prince St.?me, Seth and his girlfriend who would (I think) eventually become his wife, and maybe even my girlfriend who would (I'm certain) become my wife. I'd known Seth for some time, first as a fellow zine editor, then as a columnist for his magazine, Factsheet 5, which for several years in the mid-90s served as the town square for independent publishers. Though I considered him a good and trusted friend, we'd never met in person.

It's in my head that he and his girlfriend have since married?but maybe not?and are raising a child together?but again, maybe not. At the time, I thought they were just passing through New York as tourists or visitors. Over dinner, I learned that Seth was actually raised on Long Island, but had gone to the West Coast years before.

I've been using some form of the internet for 20 years, starting with local BBS networks and continuing to the present-day convergence of all things. Since logging on to my first bulletin board system when I was 13, I've had friends who exist only on my computer screen. Not just penpals or email buddies or chatroom acquaintances, but an actual crew of friends whom I've trusted and admired and enjoyed spending time with?if only via text on the screen.

When I was a teenager, I swapped software with a kid named Gene who lived a few towns over in Livingston, NJ. We met just once for a massive warez exchange that was impractical to execute via modem. My mother drove me to his house and then picked me up several hours later, my bookbag filled with floppy discs containing thousands of dollars of stolen software. (My best real-life friend, also named Jeff, had a similar buddy with whom he'd swap programs every once in a while, and I recall sitting in his living room, flipping through the case of 5.25-inch floppies, salivating over cracked copies of the latest Infocom and Electronic Arts games.) Gene remained a friend for a couple years. Our interactions were based mostly, if not entirely, on public postings on various local bulletin boards; we had very few "real" conversations.

When it was time to send out wedding invitations several years ago, I didn't think twice about inviting Seth from San Francisco, Roy from San Jose and Dan from Chicago, even though I'd only met one of them in person and had spoken to Roy and Dan only a few times.

Dan Kelly was a zine guy. He published Vox Canis, then Evil, then Danger! And then he edited Chum, the greatest zine to not survive for more than a handful of issues. When I was living in the Czech Republic, I crossed paths with him, sorta, through a painter whose patron was the publisher of the newspaper I co-edited. His friend is Dan's brother-in-law. It was nice to hear about my old friend and to imagine that he's still the indignant mad genius whom I remember.

When I met Seth, I found him to be unassuming, soft-spoken, but intelligent and passionate. He was a Jewish kid from Long Island who'd dedicated himself to publishing a zine about zines, and had a surprisingly strong distrust for the government and major media. His was an anarchist bent, only without the pose; he espoused anti-authoritarian convictions, without the hysteria. He and Jerod Poore, who assisted him during his editorship of Factsheet 5, were regular contributors to the WELL, one of the first and most prominent technarchist collectives.

One thing I remember clearly: Seth really hated the police. I could never get a handle on exactly why.

Earlier this year, everything came together at a Sunday afternoon movie showing of Capturing the Friedmans, the documentary about a Long Island family torn apart by accusations of child molestation. My old friend Seth is the middle brother who declined to participate in the film, the second child caught between elder David, who moved to New York City to earn a living as a professional clown, and younger Jesse, who served 13 years in prison.

No wonder Seth was wary of authority and the media. His family was torn apart during one of the most bizarre, underreported and underestimated periods of American history: the satanic ritual abuse (SRA) panic. Starting in the early 1980s, the cultural wasteland of subdivisions and strip malls entered a sarcopeniac state of paranoia and self-loathing. Having burned through the fat of suburban largesse, the middle-classers began to feed on their own muscle. The most visible manifestations were accusations of child abuse by satanic cults said to be operating among us.

Without question, the SRA centerpiece is the McMartin preschool case of California. It began with an accusation of boy-touching against one of the owner's sons, but quickly escalated into one of the first court cases of its kind: 208 counts of molestation, conspiracy and most everything else in the book were leveled against seven adults. The proceedings lasted more than seven years and cost the state almost $16 million. Ultimately, there were no convictions, and the accusations have since been rigorously debunked by both legal and medical experts.

The toddlers of McMartin became the children of Columbine, saplings planted in toxic ground grown into teenagers arming themselves for homeroom. When their parents look at one another with nothing but suspicion, fear and disgust?and not just a little schadenfreude?is it any wonder that the kids have no empathy? How can anyone be surprised by the slaughter of innocents at the hands of innocents?

The typical defense against paranoia says that there's no reason for anyone to bother paying attention to us, so who cares about the accelerating accumulation of personal information? Or, as an article in Vice joked, monitoring 250 million Americans would require 250 million Americans, so don't flatter yourself. Both statements are true?in an ideal world?but why did I feel queasy learning the MTA now offers refunds for lost MetroCards purchased by credit card? Some applaud this move of bang-up customer service; to others, it's a reminder that the MTA can track our movements.

In June 2002, Christopher Stewart was convicted of murder after his alibi fell apart; his movements were pinned down by analyzing his MetroCard usage. Three years before, Marco Valencia was charged with assault and robbery when investigators punched holes in his alibi by examining his MetroCard transactions. Again, proponents of increased surveillance in the name of security ask: Why worry if you're not doing anything wrong?

Skeptics draw parallels to the proposed national DNA database being touted alongside recent stories of innocent people avoiding false conviction (or seeing their convictions overturned in light of new DNA evidence). Are we asking to be tracked? How else to explain the Jacobs family of Florida? Last year, they voluntarily installed VeriChip microchips under their skin so that medical information might be more readily available in an emergency situation.

No one who has been falsely accused of a crime or seen someone they love falsely accused would ever agree to such controls, just as no one who's ever toiled in a large corporate environment would trust any private enterprise to safeguard them. As we veer further afield from the town square, as we suspect more and trust less, we will look back on Columbine as a quaint cultural artifact and the plight of the Friedmans as absurdist preludes.

And it's just beginning.