The states which suppress Internet freedom and impose censorship are doomed to pay the economic and political price for that, Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State declared on Tuesday.

However, she stated the WikiLeaks whistleblower is completely unacceptable, since it "began with an act of theft."

"Government documents were stolen, just the same as if they had been smuggled out in a briefcase," Hillary Clinton said in her speech, entitled "Internet Rights And Wrongs: Choices & Challenges In A Networked World", on Tuesday, which she pronounced at George Washington University in Washington.

She did not see any controversy between freedom of speech and coming down on WikiLeaks. "Without security, liberty is fragile," she said. "Without liberty, security is oppressive."

During her speech, the US Secretary of State underlined the crucial role of the "connection" technology, as she dubbed it, in bringing about social and political change in Tunisia and Egypt, referring to the importance of social networks like Facebook and Twitter in the recent unrest, which lead to the ousting of the veteran political leaders in these countries .

During the last year, Clinton and her deputies have criticized the repression of online activists and journalists in Egypt, Tunisia, Azerbaijan, Syria and China, among other countries.