Western democracies have a moral duty to aid the liberation of oppressed people where it can effectively do so  Western democracies make frequent declarations about the universality of certain rights, such as freedom of speech, or from arbitrary arrest, and that their system of government is the one that broadly speaking offers the most freedom for human development and respect for individuals. They make avowals in the United Nations and other organizations toward the improvement of rights in other countries and the need for reforms. Take for example Obama addressing the UN General assembly in 2012 where he said “we believe that freedom and self-determination are not unique to one culture. These are not simply American values or Western values; they are universal values.” [1]  By subverting internet censorship in these countries, Western countries take an action that is by and large not hugely costly to them while providing a major platform for the securing of the basic human rights, particularly freedom of speech and expression, they claim are so important. Some potential actions might include banning Western companies from aiding in the construction of surveillance networks, or preventing Western-owned internet service providers from kowtowing to repressive regimes’ censorship demands. [2] Few of these regimes would be able to build and maintain their own ISPs and all the equipment for monitoring and tracking they use. [3] Other actions might include providing software to dissidents that would shield their identities such as Tor. [4] All of these are fairly low cost endeavours. The West has an absolute duty to see these and other projects through so that their inaction ceases to be the tacit condolence of repression it currently is.  [1] Barak Obama, ‘President Obama’s 2012 address to U.N. General Assembly (Full text)’, Washington Post, 25 September 2012,   [2] Gunther, Marc, ‘Tech execs get grilled over China business’, Fortune, 16 February 2006,   [3] Elgin, Ben, and Silver, Vernon, ‘The Surveillance Market and Its Victims’, Bloomberg, 20 December 2011,   [4] Tor, Anonymity Online,