After NSA Scandal, Brazil Seeks Reduced U.S. Control Over Worldwide Web (Epoca, Brazil)
"From the moment you carry out this type of surveillance, you can look for any type of data ... for industrial warfare and commercial espionage. ... Our view is that there is an excessive concentration of the Internet on American soil. The truth is that, of the 13 Internet root servers, ten are in the United States, two in Europe and one in Japan - none are in the southern hemisphere. This concentration must be changed."
Brazil Communications Minister Paulo Bernardo: With cell phones powered down, he sat for an interview with the newspaper Epoca to discuss the ramifications of America's mass surveillance.
During
an hour-long conversation, in a conference room on the eighth floor of the
Ministry of Communications building, no cell phones were turned on. That fact
slightly reduced the chance that the interview, granted to Época by Communications Minister Paulo
Bernardo, was being spied upon. Bernardo finds it "discouraging" for
international diplomacy that spy agencies are an auxiliary front in
negotiations. According to him, keeping some data secret is part of the
diplomatic game. "By spying on a partner's camp, a camp with whom you're
negotiating, one could manipulate talks into a fraud," Paulo Bernardo said.
ÉPOCA:Época has revealed that the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA in English) spied on eight members of the U.N. Security
Council during talks about sanctions against Iran in 2010. Is Brazil capable of
defending itself from invasions like this?
PAULO BERNARDO: We are facing
a scandal of global proportions. This episode you revealed is discouraging for
international diplomacy. I realize that in a diplomatic negotiation, no one is
obliged to say everything they know. That's part of the game. By spying on a
partner's camp, a camp with whom you're negotiating, one could manipulate talks
into a fraud. If one carries out surveillance for such purposes, you probably
do so in all forums, like the WTO (World Trade Organization) or any other
gathering. We are trying to understand all the dimensions of the problem. And,
more than that, I think global public opinion, in Europe and even the United
States, questions these methods, because their scope goes far beyond what any
citizen thinks is a reasonable mandate on the part of their government.
ÉPOCA: The American government claims that it
only collects general information, know as metadata. But in a document obtained
by Época,
the then-U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice refers to the thinking of America's
Security Council partners. Do you think they got all that just from metadata?
PAULO BERNARDO: I think the
case reported by Época
has little or to do with metadata. If you want to watch a delegation, will you be
monitoring if one official phones another? One need not monitor this. All the
evidence indicates that they listened to conversations.
ÉPOCA: Recently, U.S. Ambassador Thomas
Shannon said that the NSA only has access to Internet
and telephone metadata in Brazil. Do you believe that?
PAULO BERNARDO: The ambassador
was here, and brought along a small report on what the U.S. position is. To be
fair, he reported that he carried the position after consulting with the State
Department. After this, several other things came to light. It is possible that
today, they have more things to disclose. That is absolutely to be expected in
a situation like this. We are dealing here with national security, defense.
Americans are very jealous about the concept of defense. But our view is that data
collection, surveillance, refers to more than metadata. Today, newspapers bring
news about how they have software that permits them to access information,
including the content of e-mails, around the world.
ÉPOCA: The American government has been
accused of monitoring Internet and telephone communications in Brazil. Did the
government know about the technical feasibility of doing so?
PAULO BERNARDO: Apparently,
the model most commonly used to collect large amounts of information is
accessing datacenters from companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo,
and several others. You collect this data and put search mechanisms in place to
identify items of interest to security activity. But from the moment you carry
out this type of surveillance, you can look for any other type of data ... for
industrial warfare and commercial espionage. Within the United States, there is
a legal basis for this.
Posted By
Worldmeets.US
ÉPOCA: Former NSA
consultant Edward Snowden said that the agency has access to telephone calls
and e-mails in Brazil through an American communications company. Has the
government taken any additional measures?
PAULO BERNARDO: Anatel [Brazil
Agency of Telecommunications] has opened an investigation into this. The
information is that no Brazilian company has an agreement to provide
information to anyone. The government has secured networks. Now, if President Dilma calls me on my cell phone, the mechanisms of
protection are the same as for any citizen. The government doesn't use
encrypted cell phones. If we are making a bid and need to send information to
the presidential chief of staff, I send it through our network - I repeat: this is a secure network. But that doesn't
address matters that are communicated by means other than telephone.
ÉPOCA: You have already said that the Internet
should not be centralized in the United States, but rather by a multilateral
agency yet to be created. Does this have a chance of coming about?
PAULO BERNARDO: This will
require persistence, patience and political will to resolve. Our view is that
there is an excessive concentration of the Internet on American soil. The truth
is that, of the 13 Internet root servers, ten are in the United States, two in
Europe and one in Japan - none are in the southern hemisphere. This
concentration must be changed. Another of these things is Internet
governance. The Internet today is governed by an entity called ICANN,
which is based in California and is under American jurisdiction. Since the Internet
emerged there, this may have initially made sense. But today it [the Internet]
is a global tool. The curious thing is that in December, we had a meeting of
the International Telecommunication Union in Dubai. One resolution Brazil
proposed is expanding multilateral governance of the Internet. In opposition to
this, the United States and other countries said that if there were
interference from other governments, the Internet would be subject to censorship,
muzzling, and surveillance. We see today, six months later, that this was
already happening.
