You have misunderstood my meaning, which suggests I could have phrased my comment better. Of course I believe that Western countries are less repressive than th

You have misunderstood my meaning, which suggests I could have phrased my comment better. Of course I believe that Western countries are less repressive than the likes of North Korea, China, Saudi Arabia, etc. The internet offers people an unprecendented ability to communicate with each other. This is causing big social changes, and big social changes always create winners and losers, so that some people who are currently powerful, but who these changes will make less powerful. For example, repressive regimes, or the copyright industry. The attitude of the USA and other Western countries is inconsistent. They welcome the changes the internet is bringing when it hurts incumbents they don't like (e.g. repressive regimes except those ones allied to the West), and want to stop they changes when it hurts incumbents they like (e.g. major political donors such as the MAFIAA). So on the one hand they're trying to make the internet more locked-down, and on the other hand they're trying to make it more free. It's obvious that they won't succeed in doing both, and it's also obvious that they are going to be more successful at doing anything if they have a clear goal of what they want to achieve. My view is that the national interests of Western countries lie in making the internet as free as possible. Yes there will be costs -- e.g. Wikileaks will embarrass Western leaders from time to time, and file sharing will hurt political donors. But these are harms to the leaders of Western countries, not to their populations.