Realizing that better communications tools would probably help spread important ideas and efforts against totalitarian regimes, the US has finally eased sanctions against providing communications software in Cuba, Iran and Sudan. In the past, economic sanctions against those countries were supposed to create pressure for the regimes to change — but in practice that’s been a pretty big failure. Now, it appears, folks in the administration are finally realizing that more open communication allows for much greater efforts and organization, as well as more information from elsewhere. This is a good move — just many years too late.

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