[governance] FW: Amid NSA spying leaks, Brazil considers internet reform legislation

michael gurstein gurstein at gmail.com
Sun Jul 14 22:07:59 EDT 2013 

From: sid-l at googlegroups.com [mailto:sid-l at googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of
Sid Shniad
Sent: Monday, July 15, 2013 1:31 AM
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Subject: Amid NSA spying leaks, Brazil considers internet reform legislation

 

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/07/2013713172929909896.html

Aljazeera   14 July 2013 

Brazil eyes internet bill amid spying leaks

With reports of NSA internet spying, Congress reconsiders stalled bill that
some say would have prevented it.

Paula Daibert 

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - Reports alleging he US National Security Agency
(NSA) has been partnering with companies to spy on Brazilians has heated up
debate over a draft bill stuck in Congress since 2011 that might have helped
prevent the alleged online snooping.

In London's Guardian and Brazilian newspaper O Globo, American journalist
Glenn Greenwald recently disclosed the NSA has built a global espionage
system in partnership with private companies, with Brazil being its main
target in Latin America. The reports were based documents provided by former
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

"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,” Greenwald
wrote. 

The reports cite the NSA's "FAIRVIEW" programme, which partners with an
identified US telecom company, which in turn works with local telcoms in
foreign countries. Through such business relations, the US telecom gains
access to the communications of locals around the world, and then passes
those onto the NSA.

"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," said Greenwald. "It erodes, if not
eliminates, the ability to use the internet with any remnant of privacy or
personal security."

Brazil's leaders were not impressed after the stories broke. Foreign
Minister Antonio Patriota expressed “deep concern” and vowed to bring up the
allegations with the United States and United Nations.

"The Brazilian government is gravely concerned by the news that electronic
and telephone communications of Brazilian citizens are the objective of
espionage efforts by US intelligence agencies," a foreign ministry statement
said.

Problem solved?

The Brazilian Internet Bill of Civil Rights (Marco Civil da Internet in
Portuguese) was drafted with the intent to establish principles, guarantees,
rights and duties for internet use in Brazil, determining guidelines on
municipal, state and federal levels.

Communications Minister Paulo Bernardo has said the bill would have
prevented organisations such as the NSA from accessing the data of internet
users in Brazil.

Some critics have argued, however, the bill would be overly restrictive to
police in criminal investigations. Others have said it would be ineffective
in protecting the personal data of internet users.

Internet providers are partially free to decide which data they are willing
to store, how they treat such data, and with whom they might share it.

Joana Varon, Centre for Technology and Society of Getúlio Vargas Foundation

The Internet Bill of Civil Rights was introduced to the Chamber of Deputies
in 2011, after months of open online discussion of its articles, having
received thousands of contributions from different sectors.

Henrique Eduardo Alves, the Chamber of Deputies president, has announced the
bill could be voted on this week.

Joana Varon, a researcher at the Centre for Technology and Society of
Getúlio Vargas Foundation, said Brazil currently has a legal framework gap
concerning online data protection.
 
“Internet providers are partially free to decide which data they are willing
to store, how they treat such data, and with whom they might share it,"
Varon said.

"General guidelines are mentioned in their terms of services, but some
important details are not. This situation creates uncertainty for users and
potential violation of their rights.”

The draft bill before Congress would address such gaps, according to Varon.

Internet service providers must store connection logs - including the
connection duration and IP addresses - for one year if it becomes law. At
the same time, providers are forbidden from storing emails, video, or voice
communications, and the protection of people's private lives must be
ensured, according to the bill.

Matter of concern

Diego Canabarro, a visiting fellow at the National Center for Digital
Government of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, expressed concern
that telecom companies may not abide by the bill's privacy protections.

“Some of these companies provide the most used online services in the world,
and under the argument of national security, the US may request access to
different sorts of information,” he said.

Other critics said the law could also hamper law enforcement activities
attempting to fight online crime.
 
“If one kind of company may store data and the other may not, we have a
market reserve," said congressman and businessman Ricardo Izar. "If telecoms
could also store applications logs, it would make it easier for the police
to track them down on the web during investigations."

Alex Castro, a representative from SindiTeleBrasil telecoms union, also said
the bill goes too far in its restrictions.

“Investigation of crimes online will be more difficult or not viable at all,
because nobody will store application logs anymore. We don’t understand the
asymmetry this bill introduces,” Castro said.

However, Canabarro argued it is important to establish the online rights of
Brazilians before being able to set effective rules for fighting online
crime.

“In this unregulated scenario, the more data companies can store, the easier
it is to develop a lucrative business model. Violations, monitoring, spying
and commercial exploitation of data are more likely in a context in which
there is no minimal law regulating companies,” he said.

Paulo Rená, a law researcher at Brasília University, said he does not
consider the bill before Congress to favour one side or the other in the
debate.

“I can choose not to use Google or Facebook, for example, but I need
internet connection in any case. If connection providers could also store
the services I use, they would be able to track anything down. An
applications company cannot access connection logs, but a connection company
is able to know the applications I use," he said.

"This bill is important not to allow internet providers to monitor
communications more.”

Further complicating the issue is the conflict of interest behind the bill,
said congressman and lawyer Alessandro Molon.
 
“If this is regulated, it would represent profit falls for telecoms. We have
congressman who are afraid this bill will hurt this economic sector. You
either side with users’ privacy or with connection providers' interests to
profit from users' logs,” said Molon.

Rená said this issue also goes beyond Brazil's national borders.

“Brazil must take very serious steps in the multilateral level, because it
is more likely that regulation initiatives will be denied by the US and
allies. We also have countries that regulate the internet in a more
authoritarian way, like China and North Korea for example, and we don’t seek
that,” Rená said.
 
He said if the Internet Bill of Civil Rights passes, Brazil could promote it
as an example for other countries to follow.

“Brazilian internet law would be a world leader, in content and the way it
was democratically formulated.”

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