One of the things that amazes me about the U.S. is how often pro-industry legislation (more often than not at the expense of the common person) is justified using xenophobia and patriotism. Take for instance, then Commissioner for Patents and Trademarks Bruce Lehman's statement at a 1997 hearing regarding H.R. 2281 a.k.a. the WIPO Copyright Treaties Implementation Act.

"To the extent that we wait in implementing the [1996 World Intellectual Property Organisation] treaties; to the extent that we fall behind other countries in implementing them, we will be abrogating that leadership role that appropriately belongs to us. And so I encourage you to move expeditiously on these matters; they are very important to our national economy [...] We have to keep in mind that in other countries people will be looking to us for a signal. Many developing countries around the world -- and we do not want to give them a loophole to be able to steal our intellectual property."

H.R. 2281 is, of course, better known by the title that the Senate gave it: the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.