[governance] Re: [bestbits] Our statement gets to the Br media!

[Uta Meier-Hahn]

FYI:
http://policyreview.info/articles/news/brazil-lead-governance-internet/198

Best,
Uta Meier-Hahn

Brazil to lead the governance of the internet
27 Sep 2013 by Monika Ermert
<http://policyreview.info/users/monika-ermert>on Internet
Governance <http://policyreview.info/tags/internet-governance>

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 “Marco
Civil<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Civil_da_Internet>”
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.

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.

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.

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.
Infrastructure independence?

Latin American governments now are pondering over their potential defense.
Ecuador's Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño 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.

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.

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.
Multi-Stakeholder vs. Multi-lateral – and the *Marco Civil*

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.

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.

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“.

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.

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 letter of
support<http://bestbits.net/brazil-66-unga/>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.

Will Snowden's revelations help the strengthening of multi-stakeholderism?
Beyond Brazil's leadership on internet governance, this question still
remains very much open.

-- 
[image: HIIG-Logo] <http://www.hiig.de> Uta Meier-Hahn | Wissenschaftliche
Mitarbeiterin | Doktorandenprogramm
Alexander von Humboldt Institut für Internet und Gesellschaft gGmbH
  Bebelplatz 1 · 10099 Berlin
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