[governance] more on Brazil-US stand off

Tue Oct 1 04:56:04 EDT 2013

    The NSA snooping revelations have underlined the urgent need for
    multilateral governance of the world wide web

The Hindu

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/beyond-the-brazilus-spat/article5186893.ece

As per tradition, the opening address of the 68th United Nations General 
Assembly (UNGA) was given by Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. She was 
followed by President Barack Obama, who, as one wag put it, had read her 
speech the day before. Although the previous week’s cancellation of the 
Brazilian presidential visit to the United States, something unheard of 
in recent memory, had already sent a strong signal about Brazil’s 
displeasure with the NSA’s snooping revelations (including the 
President’s own e-mails and phone calls), Ms Rousseff didn’t mince words 
in her UNGA speech either, delivering a second rebuke to Mr. Obama and 
his administration.

*Latin American ties*

How significant is this spat between the two largest powers in the 
Western Hemisphere? Is it just another piece of diplomatic posturing, 
soon to be forgotten and swept under the rug, or is there more to it 
than meets the eye? What does it tell us about the state of U.S.-Latin 
American relations, on a downhill spiral since 2009? Brazil is often 
described as a swing state, in the South, but from the West, a democracy 
traditionally friendly to the U.S., that fought on the side of the 
Allies in World War Two, but with an independent foreign policy.

One standard response is that the spat only hurts Brazil. The U.S. 
President has enough on his plate these days to worry about Latin 
America. Moreover, Brazil’s recent economic slump would seem to indicate 
the South American country needs more U.S. trade and investment. Not 
taking part in this year’s only White House state dinner would thus 
represent a missed opportunity for Brazil. Yet, Washington can’t have it 
both ways. Either Brazil is considered a strategic partner or it is not, 
in which case one wonders about the criteria that inform such a 
category, which would exclude the world’s seventh largest economy. If 
the former, having these differences aired in public, let alone in such 
a high-visibility platform as the UNGA’s opening address, cannot be a 
good thing.

To be fair, Brasilia gave Washington plenty of time to come up with a 
satisfying response, including at a bilateral meeting between both 
Presidents at the G20 summit in St. Petersburg earlier last month, and a 
special visit by Foreign Minister Luiz Alberto Figueiredo to Washington 
to meet with U.S. National Security Advisor Susan Rice. Yet, both the 
White House and the State Department dithered and allowed the visit, the 
first by a Brazilian President since 1995, to unravel. Given what is at 
stake in the multilayered U.S.-Brazilian agenda, this is surprising.

*Oil stakes*

What takes the NSA’s Brazilian spying allegations beyond the tired and 
trite argument that “everybody does it” (to which the Brazilian response 
is, “well, we don’t”) is the targets involved. President Rousseff’s own 
e-mails and phone calls merited particular attention from Washington. 
Moreover, according to the revelations of the /O Globo /newspaper from 
the files provided by Edward Snowden, another top target was Petrobras, 
the Brazilian state oil company.

Petrobras, the fourth largest oil company in the world, with an annual 
turnover of $90 billion, can hardly be considered a security risk or 
potential funder of terrorism. What Petrobras does have, is some of the 
most sophisticated technology for deep-sea oil drilling, something U.S. 
oil companies are keen to get their hands on. Petrobras also plays a 
leading role in the bidding process for the Libra subsalt oilfields in 
the Santos Basin, off Brazil’s southern coast — coming up in October — 
in which U.S. oil giant Chevron takes part. These are rich pickings, 
totalling some 12 billion barrels of recoverable oil, out of 80 to 100 
billion of barrels of oil in that area. Petrobras says the security of 
the auction is not compromised, and that the bid will go on as planned. 
Yet, who can be absolutely sure about that? If Chevron walks off with 
some prize oil blocks, can anybody guarantee it was not because of 
privileged information, courtesy of the NSA?

*Defence contracts*

Another significant issue on the bilateral agenda is defence contracts. 
The Brazilian Air Force needs to upgrade its fleet of fighter jets, and 
U.S. company Boeing is competing with France’s Dassault and Sweden’s 
Saab for a lucrative contract valued at $4 to 5 billion. Brazil is 
undertaking a major upgrade of its military platforms, and the last 
thing the U.S. wants is to be excluded from some of the juiciest defence 
hardware purchases around.

Beyond these rather narrow U.S. concerns, there are larger issues at 
stake for two of the world’s largest democracies. Perhaps none is as 
salient as that of Internet governance.

*Controlling the net*

The United States has for long portrayed itself as the foremost champion 
of internet freedom. Efforts by a number of countries in the South to 
establish a multilateral framework for internet governance have been 
rejected by Washington and its allies as misguided efforts by government 
to interfere in a self-regulating system that has thrived because it is 
managed by (mostly U.S.) business.

Under this guise of internet freedom, however, Big Brother is watching 
all of us, and leading U.S. internet companies like Google, Microsoft 
and Facebook have provided whatever information the NSA and the U.S. 
government request. Suddenly, the cause of internet freedom has morphed 
into the cause of finding out what we are all writing and telling each 
other — all for our own good, of course.

With 80 per cent of global internet traffic going through U.S. servers, 
there is a problem. Brazil, with 44 per cent internet penetration and a 
population that includes some of the highest numbers of users on 
Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, would like to see this changed. Brazil 
would also like to upgrade its ineffectual cybersecurity systems. 
Fibre-optic submarine cables that link up Brazil directly with western 
Europe (thus bypassing the U.S.), bills that would mandate the storing 
of digital data on Brazilians in Brazil, and other such measures are on 
the table. Some of these measures may work, some may not. In turn, this 
might lead other countries to create their own “national Internet,” 
defeating the very purpose of the world wide web.

Thus, the danger of a Balkanisation of the Internet is real and rings 
especially for countries like India, whose IT and IT-enabled services 
sector depend so heavily on it. It is in everybody’s interest that the 
U.S.-Brazil spat be resolved amicably. For those who believe that the 
knowledge society is here to stay, and that worldwide connectivity is 
its handmaiden, this should include a step back from the abyss of 
breaking up the internet. One way forward is through multilateral 
governance of the web and stronger penalties for violating our privacy.

/(Jorge Heine is CIGI professor of global governance at the Balsillie 
School of International Affairs, Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, 
Ontario. He tweets at /@jorgeheinel/)/

Keywords: Brazil 
<http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/beyond-the-brazilus-spat/article5186893.ece?homepage=true&css=print#>, 
USA 
<http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/beyond-the-brazilus-spat/article5186893.ece?homepage=true&css=print#>, 
Brazil-US relations 
<http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/beyond-the-brazilus-spat/article5186893.ece?homepage=true&css=print#>, 
Brazil-US spat 
<http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/beyond-the-brazilus-spat/article5186893.ece?homepage=true&css=print#>, 
68th United Nations General Assembly 
<http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/beyond-the-brazilus-spat/article5186893.ece?homepage=true&css=print#>, 
Balkanisation 
<http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/beyond-the-brazilus-spat/article5186893.ece?homepage=true&css=print#>, 
cyber security measures 
<http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/beyond-the-brazilus-spat/article5186893.ece?homepage=true&css=print#>, 
Dilma Rousseff 
<http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/beyond-the-brazilus-spat/article5186893.ece?homepage=true&css=print#>, 
Barack Obama 
<http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/beyond-the-brazilus-spat/article5186893.ece?homepage=true&css=print#>

Printable version | Oct 1, 2013 11:00:50 AM | 
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/beyond-the-brazilus-spat/article5186893.ece

© The Hindu

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