<div dir="ltr"><div><div>FYI: <a href="http://policyreview.info/articles/news/brazil-lead-governance-internet/198">http://policyreview.info/articles/news/brazil-lead-governance-internet/198</a><br><br></div>Best,<br></div>
Uta Meier-Hahn<br><br><h1>Brazil to lead the governance of the internet</h1><div class="">
27 Sep 2013 by <a href="http://policyreview.info/users/monika-ermert">Monika Ermert</a> on <a href="http://policyreview.info/tags/internet-governance">Internet Governance</a>
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<p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-0cab3f98-5ea9-8c9a-143b-52775b938ab7">Brazil
President Dilma Rousseff's questioning of US mass surveillance at the
68th United Nations general assembly on September 24 brought her a lot
of attention. Will her speech result in concrete changes
internationally, as well as in Brazil? Civil society groups hope they
can still influence the draft bill “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Civil_da_Internet">Marco Civil</a>”
to make it the progressive internet legislation envisaged in Brazil
since 2009. Internationally, the next steps of Latin American countries
with regard to internet governance and to their national infrastructure
are expected to be decisive.</p>
<p dir="ltr">At the last UN general assembly, Brazilian President called
the US mass surveillance programmes “a breach of international law” and
warned the “argument that the illegal interception of information and
data aims at protecting nations against terrorism cannot be sustained."
According to reports by the Brazilian paper Globo based on information
leaked by former NSA-subcontractor Edward Snowden, Brazil was/is a high
interest surveillance target.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Support for Rousseff's strong statements - which contrast
with the silent reaction of European Union governments, came in from the
European parliament, where Hannes Swoboda, leader of the Socialist
& Democrats group tweeted that the parliament should side with the
Brazilian President. Brazil’s president had said: “The time is ripe to
create the conditions to prevent cyberspace from being used as a weapon
of war, through espionage, sabotage, and attacks against systems and
infrastructure of other countries." Rousseff announced next steps,
including a hint at efforts to secure the networks in Brazil.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Meanwhile, during a conference on internet governance last
week, the Council of Europe criticised European governments who took
shots at the media reporting on the fall-out of the mass surveillance
revelations.</p>
<h2 dir="ltr">Infrastructure independence?</h2>
<p dir="ltr">Latin American governments now are pondering over their potential defense. Ecuador's Foreign Minister Ricardo <span class="">Patiño</span>
told Reuters during the UN session: "We have decided to begin to work
on new internet communication systems of our countries, of our
societies, to avoid continuing being the object and prey of illegal
spying that U.S. spying entities have developed against us." According
to Reuters, the defense council of the regional Union of South American
Nations (UNASUR) – made up of the region's defense ministers – is in
charge of examining how to implement the idea.</p>
<p dir="ltr">One project with regard to an alternative international
infrastructure for Latin American countries has been going on for some
years already: the so-called BRICS cable (Brazil, India, China, South
Africa). The large optic fibre sea cable project is expected to link-up
African, Asian and Latin American countries. Existing fibre optic cables
including the large sea cables were heavily tapped, according to
Guardian reports: 200 fibre taps were attributed to the British
Government Communications Headquarter (GCHQ) alone.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Another likely fall-out of the Snowden revelations are
re-newed discussions about the special role the US has with regard to
core components of the internet infrastructure. Brazil had belonged to
the group of countries challenging the US oversight over the Domain Name
System since the preparations for the first World Summit of the
Information Society.</p>
<h2 dir="ltr">Multi-Stakeholder vs. Multi-lateral – and the <i>Marco Civil</i></h2>
<p dir="ltr">Rousseff in her speech already requested that the United
Nations "play a leading role in the effort to regulate the conduct of
States with regard to these technologies." Brazil would present
proposals for the establishment of a civilian multi-lateral framework
for the governance and use of the internet. These muli-lateral framework
mechanisms should ensure the principles of cultural diversity, net
neutrality, freedom of expression and privacy, multi-lateral and
democratic governance and universality.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Brazil's civil society certainly recognises these
principle, which stem from work on Brazil's own internet legislation,
the Marco Civil, which has been under way since 2009. Snowden's
revelations were needed to bring about another push for the much debated
legislation. Marco Civil was initially developed by the Fundação
Getúlio Vargas and the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee and
promoted as a forward looking legislation developed in a
multi-stakeholder way.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Yet, Rousseff's choice of the word multi-lateral instead of
"multi-stakehoder,“ which seems to focus on inter-governmental
governance only, has triggered some discussion between civil society
groups – and certainly attracted some old mantra-like warnings about the
UN (or the International Telecommunication Union) "taking over“.</p>
<p>The Marco Civil model got a lot of scratches, especially when a
provision for intermediary liability was introduced unilaterally by the
government at a later stage. Rousseff now calls the Marco Civil an
“emergency measure” and intends to include a provision that may oblige
intermediaries to keep data of local users local, instead of
transferring them out of the country.</p>
<p>The discussion over the legislation is on again and international
civil society groups came together to support their Brazilian colleagues
in getting the right balance for the final text – a <a href="http://bestbits.net/brazil-66-unga/">letter of support</a>
went out to the president on September 26. Avri Doria, a US-Swedish
academic and expert in internet governance had some reservations about
not making a much stronger point in it on the need to include all
stakeholders down the road. A weakening of the multi-stakeholder model
would be a great setback, she warns.</p>
<p>Will Snowden's revelations help the strengthening of
multi-stakeholderism? Beyond Brazil's leadership on internet governance,
this question still remains very much open.<br></p></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br>-- <br><table align="bottom" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td rowspan="2"><a href="http://www.hiig.de" target="_blank"> <img src="http://www.hiig.de/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/hiig-logo-200.png" alt="HIIG-Logo" height="50" width="50" border="none"></a></td>
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</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;color:rgb(128,128,128);font-size:x-small">Alexander von Humboldt Institut für Internet und Gesellschaft gGmbH<br></span></td>
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