by Bill Woodcock
Analysis: Brazil's official response to NSA spying obscures
its massive Web growth challenging US dominance
U.S. National Security Agency documents from 2012 revealed
this month by Glenn Greenwald show that
the intelligence agency recorded email and telephone calls of Brazilian and
Mexican heads of state as well as the Brazilian state oil producer Petrobras
and other energy, financial and diplomatic targets. It is unsurprising that a
national intelligence agency would attempt to gather such information, and it
can be argued that it was, however overzealously, doing the job American
taxpayers are paying for. But it is also a disappointing, though illuminating,
commentary on the state of the Internet that it was successful.
In response to the revelations, on Tuesday Brazilian
President Dilma Rousseff announced measures to protect the privacy of Brazil's
citizens from NSA spying:
- Increase domestic Internet bandwidth production
- Increase international Internet connectivity
- Encourage domestic content production
- Encourage use of domestically produced network equipment
Rousseff could make these significant announcements not
because of any government resolution or investment but because they are, by and
large, successful existing Brazilian private-sector initiatives that have been
under way for many years. Only those who haven't been paying attention to Brazil's
phenomenal Internet development mistook the announcement for news; it was
opportunistic spin on what Brazil has already been successfully doing for most
of the past decade.
Nor is Brazil's plan a repudiation of the United States.
Brazil is following the path of Internet development that has been proven in
the U.S. and is advocated by the U.S. State Department. What's
interesting about Brazil is not that it's defying the United States'
under-the-table agenda but that it's doing so by executing moves from the
U.S.'s above-the-table playbook so masterfully.