[governance] Important moment for Internet regulation in Brazil

[Marilia Maciel]

Dear members of the list,

As you may have heard, Brazil is going through a very special (and unique)
phase of the regulation of Internet in the country. In the end of 2009, a
process of public consultation to collaboratively elaborate a *civil**-*rights
based regulatory *framework* for *internet* in Brazil has been put forth by
the Ministry of Justice (MJ), with the support of the Center for Technology
and Society (CTS) of the Getulio Vargas Foundation.

This collaborative process substitutes very dangerous attempts to regulate
the Internet from a criminal standpoint . The more widely known bill was
called law Azeredo, which disregarded privacy concerns and criminalized
socially accepted behaviors. The result would be massive criminalization of
the population and a draconian protection of copyright.

A platform has been created specially for people to comment of the proposal
of civil framework. On the first phase of the consultation people had to
comment on a text about general principles and issues. Those comments were
read and systematized by MJ and CTS and have based the creation of a draft
bill. This bill has been made available online yesterday. It is under a
second phase of public consultation, which will last for 45 days. The
suggestions will be again systematized and incorporated to the bill, which
will then be present to our Congress for discussion.

Some points of this process need to be highlighted:

1-      This is a unique process of public consultation. There has never
been such a wide and open possibility for society to be heard about a new
regulation. Participation on the first phase came from civil society,
business sector and governments organizations.

2-       This is a pilot-experiment, that can be used in the future to
discuss other law proposals. In this sense, Brazil is making a huge step
towards the improvement of e-participation and e-democracy.

3-      The battle is just beginning. There is a long way until the bill is
approved. But we would not have come this far without a vibrant civil
society movement who has said “no” to laws like “Azeredo law” and has made
protests and campaigns throughout the country, both online and offline.

I would like to share with you the link to the platform. Although the text
of the bill is only in Portuguese, we are already working on its translation
in order to give it publicity outside Brazil.

http://culturadigital.br/marcocivil/

This is a very important moment for the Brazilian Internet users and I would
like to share the good news with you.

Best wishes,

Marília
-- 
Centro de Tecnologia e Sociedade
FGV Direito Rio

Center of Technology and Society
Getulio Vargas Foundation
Rio de Janeiro - Brazil
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