[governance] NSA penetrates Brazilian telecom
Carlos A. Afonso
ca at cafonso.ca
Sun Jul 7 12:59:07 EDT 2013
As if which one sells data to which is really relevant... :) All of them
are participating in this, as all major operators in BR are
transnationals with strong ties with European and US govs.
Vivo = Telefónica -> Spain
Claro -> Mexico-based with strong US ties
TIM -> Telecom Italia
Oi -> Portugal Telecom
GVT = Vivendi -> France
This "gang of five" owns nearly all cell phone services and nearly all
main fiber backbones. Due to the privatization process of late 90s
conducted by a lousy neoliberal government, Brazil even sold all its
satellites, including the ones used for national security and the military.
So whatever decision is made by telcos on how to supply NSA (or any
other gov agency) with data, is not made here in Brazil.
--c.a.
On 07/07/2013 01:21 PM, Diego Rafael Canabarro wrote:
> Vivo, Claro, TIM and Oi have agreements with Verizon. : )
>
>
> On Sun, Jul 7, 2013 at 11:21 AM, Suresh Ramasubramanian
> <suresh at hserus.net <mailto:suresh at hserus.net>> wrote:
>
> It depends on which carrier you use in brazil, who they have roaming
> agreements with and which of the carriers they have roaming
> agreements with has a stronger signal in the area you happen to be
> in. Could well be AT&T, t mobile or whatever else
>
> --srs (iPad)
>
> On 07-Jul-2013, at 18:55, Diego Rafael Canabarro
> <diegocanabarro at gmail.com <mailto:diegocanabarro at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>> When you use a mobile line in Brazil and come to the US, your
>> roaming displays VERIZON.
>>
>> On Jul 7, 2013 8:09 AM, "parminder" <parminder at itforchange.net
>> <mailto:parminder at itforchange.net>> wrote:
>>
>> From the below news item;
>>
>>
>> "As those two articles detail, all of this bulk,
>> indiscriminate surveillance aimed at populations of
>> friendly foreign nations is part of the NSA's "FAIRVIEW"
>> program. Under that program, the /*NSA partners with a
>> large US telecommunications company, the identity of which
>> is currently unknown, and that US company then partners
>> with telecoms in the foreign countries (emphasis added).
>> */Those partnerships allow the US company access to those
>> countries' telecommunications systems, and that access is
>> then exploited to direct traffic to the NSA's repositories."
>>
>> There are basically two large US telecoms AT&T and Verizon...
>> Any such public private partnership for global snooping is
>> very worrisome.
>>
>> parminder
>>
>>
>> On Sunday 07 July 2013 10:10 AM, michael gurstein wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> The NSA's mass and indiscriminate spying on Brazilians____
>>>
>>> As it does in many non-adversarial countries, the
>>> surveillance agency is bulk collecting the communications of
>>> millions of citizens of Brazil____
>>>
>>> ____
>>>
>>> The National Security Administration headquarters in Fort
>>> Meade, Maryland. Whistleblower Edward Snowden worked as a
>>> data miner for the NSA in Hawaii. Photograph: Jim Lo
>>> Scalzo/EPA____
>>>
>>> I've written an article on NSA surveillance for the front
>>> page of the Sunday edition of O Globo
>>> <http://oglobo.globo.com/mundo/eua-espionaram-milhoes-de-mails-ligacoes-de-brasileiros-8940934>,
>>> the large Brazilian newspaper based in Rio de Janeiro. The
>>> article is headlined (translated) "US spied on millions of
>>> emails and calls of Brazilians", and I co-wrote it with Globo
>>> reporters Roberto Kaz and Jose Casado. The rough translation
>>> of the article into English is here
>>> <http://translate.google.com.br/translate?sl=pt&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Foglobo.globo.com%2Fmundo%2Feua-espionaram-milhoes-de-mails-ligacoes-de-brasileiros-8940934&act=url>.
>>> The main page of Globo's website lists related NSA
>>> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/nsa> stories: here
>>> <http://oglobo.globo.com/>.____
>>>
>>> As the headline suggests, the crux of the main article
>>> details how the NSA has, for years, systematically tapped
>>> into the Brazilian telecommunication network and
>>> indiscriminately intercepted, collected and stored the email
>>> and telephone records of millions of Brazilians. The story
>>> follows an article in Der Spiegel last week
>>> <http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/nsa-spies-on-500-million-german-data-connections-a-908648.html>,
>>> written by Laura Poitras and reporters from that paper,
>>> detailing the NSA's mass and indiscriminate collection of the
>>> electronic communications of millions of Germans. There are
>>> many more populations of non-adversarial countries which have
>>> been subjected to the same type of mass surveillance net by
>>> the NSA: indeed, the list of those which haven't been are
>>> shorter than those which have. The claim that any other
>>> nation is engaging in anything remotely approaching
>>> indiscriminate worldwide surveillance of this sort is
>>> baseless.____
>>>
>>> As those two articles detail, all of this bulk,
>>> indiscriminate surveillance aimed at populations of friendly
>>> foreign nations is part of the NSA's "FAIRVIEW" program.
>>> Under that program, the NSA partners with a large US
>>> telecommunications company, the identity of which is
>>> currently unknown, and that US company then partners with
>>> telecoms in the foreign countries. Those partnerships allow
>>> the US company access to those countries' telecommunications
>>> systems, and that access is then exploited to direct traffic
>>> to the NSA's repositories. Both articles are based on top
>>> secret documents provided by Edward Snowden; O Globo
>>> published several of them.____
>>>
>>> The vast majority of the GuardianUS's revelations thus far
>>> have concerned NSA domestic spying: the bulk collection of
>>> telephone records
>>> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order>,
>>> the PRISM program
>>> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data>,
>>> Obama's presidential directive
>>> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/07/obama-china-targets-cyber-overseas>
>>> that authorizes domestic use of cyber-operations, the
>>> Boundless Informant data
>>> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/08/nsa-boundless-informant-global-datamining>
>>> detailing billions of records collected from US systems, the
>>> serial falsehoods publicly voiced
>>> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/19/fisa-court-oversight-process-secrecy>
>>> by top Obama officials about the NSA's surveillance schemes,
>>> and most recently, the bulk collection of email and internet
>>> metadata
>>> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/27/nsa-data-mining-authorised-obama>
>>> records for Americans. Future stories in the GuardianUS will
>>> largely continue to focus on the NSA's domestic spying.____
>>>
>>> But contrary to what some want to suggest, the privacy rights
>>> of Americans aren't the only ones that matter. That the US
>>> government - in complete secrecy - is constructing a
>>> ubiquitous spying apparatus aimed not only at its own
>>> citizens, but /all of the world's citizens/, has profound
>>> consequences. It erodes, if not eliminates, the ability to
>>> use the internet with any remnant of privacy or personal
>>> security. It vests the US government with boundless power
>>> over those to whom it has no accountability. It permits
>>> allies of the US - including aggressively oppressive ones -
>>> to benefit from indiscriminate spying on their citizens'
>>> communications. It radically alters the balance of power
>>> between the US and ordinary citizens of the world. And it
>>> sends an unmistakable signal to the world that while the US
>>> /very minimally /values the privacy rights of Americans, it
>>> assigns zero value to the privacy of everyone else on the
>>> planet.____
>>>
>>> This development - the construction of a worldwide,
>>> ubiquitous electronic surveillance apparatus - is
>>> self-evidently newsworthy, extreme, and dangerous. It
>>> deserves transparency. People around the world have no idea
>>> that all of their telephonic and internet communications are
>>> being collected, stored and analyzed by a distant government.
>>> But that's exactly what is happening, in secrecy and with
>>> virtually no accountability. And it is inexorably growing,
>>> all in the dark. At the very least, it merits public
>>> understanding and debate. That is now possible thanks solely
>>> to these disclosures.____
>>>
>>>
>>> The Guardian's reporting____
>>>
>>> One brief note on the Guardian is merited here: I've been
>>> continuously amazed by how intrepid, fearless and committed
>>> the Guardian's editors have been in reporting these NSA
>>> stories as effectively and aggressively as possible. They
>>> have never flinched in reporting these stories, have spared
>>> no expense in pursuing them, have refused to allow vague and
>>> baseless government assertions to suppress any of the
>>> newsworthy revelations, have devoted extraordinary resources
>>> to ensure accuracy and potency, and have generally been
>>> animated by exactly the kind of adversarial journalistic
>>> ethos that has been all too lacking over the last decade or
>>> so (see this Atlantic article
>>> <http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/07/the-british-are-coming-and-theyve-brought-newspapers/277486/>
>>> from yesterday highlighting the role played by the Guardian
>>> US's editor-in-chief, Janine Gibson).____
>>>
>>> I don't need to say any of this, but do so only because it's
>>> so true and impressive: they deserve a lot of credit for the
>>> impact these stories have had. To underscore that: because
>>> we're currently working on so many articles involving NSA
>>> domestic spying, it would have been weeks, at least, before
>>> we would have been able to publish this story about
>>> indiscriminate NSA surveillance of Brazilians. Rather than
>>> sit on such a newsworthy story - especially at a time when
>>> Latin America, for several
>>> <http://news.yahoo.com/bolivia-plane-incident-infuriates-latin-america-211051576.html>
>>> reasons
>>> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/06/venezuela-nicaragua-offer-asylum-edward-snowden>,
>>> is so focused on these revelations - they were enthused about
>>> my partnering with O Globo, where it could produce the most
>>> impact. In other words, they sacrificed short-term
>>> competitive advantage for the sake of the story by
>>> encouraging me to write this story with O Globo. I don't
>>> think many media outlets would have made that choice, but
>>> that's the kind of journalistic virtue that has driven the
>>> paper's editors from the start of this story. ____
>>>
>>> This has been a Guardian story from the start and will
>>> continue to be. Snowden came to us before coming to any other
>>> media outlet, and I'll continue to write virtually all NSA
>>> stories right in this very space. But the O Globo story will
>>> resonate greatly in Brazil and more broadly in Latin America,
>>> where most people had no idea that their electronic
>>> communications were being collected in bulk by this highly
>>> secretive US agency. For more on how the Guardian's editors
>>> have overseen the reporting of the NSA stories, see this
>>> informative interview on the Charlie Rose Show from last week
>>> with Gibson and Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger: ____
>>>
>>> __ __
>>>
>>
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> Diego R. Canabarro
> http://lattes.cnpq.br/4980585945314597
>
> --
> diego.canabarro [at] ufrgs.br <http://ufrgs.br>
> diego [at] pubpol.umass.edu <http://pubpol.umass.edu>
> MSN: diegocanabarro [at] gmail.com <http://gmail.com>
> Skype: diegocanabarro
> Cell # +55-51-9244-3425 (Brasil) / +1-413-362-0133 (USA)
> --
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