Brazilian Media Giant Realizes It Can Use The DMCA To Censor Criticism Of Its Coverage

from the what-a-wonderful-censorship-tool dept

As we've explained over and over again, copyright and censorship go hand in hand. People who want to censor seem to love the power that copyright conveys on them. Take, for example, the Brazilian media giant Globo. As you may have heard, there's a big political fight down in Brazil, as the Congress there looks to impeach the President, Dilma Rousseff. It's a big political mess, made even more ridiculous by the fact that many of the leading voices looking to impeach Rousseff have themselves been indicted for corruption or are being investigated for corruption. Last week, David Miranda wrote an article for the Guardian, arguing that the whole thing is political, and that the corruption claim against Rousseff is just a pretext for an opposing party to gain power. In that article, he blames the major media properties in Brazil for supporting the fiction in pushing an anti-Rousseff story.

The story of Brazil’s political crisis, and the rapidly changing global perception of it, begins with its national media. The country’s dominant broadcast and print outlets are owned by a tiny handful of Brazil’s richest families, and are steadfastly conservative. For decades, those media outlets have been used to agitate for the Brazilian rich, ensuring that severe wealth inequality (and the political inequality that results) remains firmly in place.

Indeed, most of today’s largest media outlets – that appear respectable to outsiders – supported the 1964 military coup that ushered in two decades of rightwing dictatorship and further enriched the nation’s oligarchs. This key historical event still casts a shadow over the country’s identity and politics. Those corporations – led by the multiple media arms of the Globo organisation – heralded that coup as a noble blow against a corrupt, democratically elected liberal government. Sound familiar?

Globo TV was apparently not happy with that and asked the Guardian to post its response, written by the company's Chair of the Editiorial Board, Joao Roberto Marinho, who apparently is the heir to the Globo empire.

Miranda then responded to Marinho over at the Intercept, to show why Globo has been extremely biased in pushing one side of the story in Brazil. Miranda goes through Globo's somewhat sordid history as a propaganda arm, and then goes point for point debunking Marinho's claims. Towards the end he tries to show just how one-sided Globo's coverage has been:

For more than a year, one Globo-owned Epoca magazine cover after the next used manipulative, demonizing art to incite the public in favor of impeachment. The Twitter feeds of Globo’s stars — both news and entertainment — are filled every day with pro-impeachment propaganda. Even when Jornal Nacional tries to deny that it is placing its heavy finger on the scale in favor of pro-impeachment protests, it cannot help itself: It glorifies those pro-impeachment protests and gives them far more airtime than their pro-democracy counterparts:

After this, he linked to a video demonstrating all of this... but soon after his article went up, that video became this: Yup. Globo suddenly decided to make a copyright claim on the video that was being used in an article demonstrating how its coverage has been incredibly biased. That video had been up for months before that with no problem, but just a little while after it was included in Miranda's article it was gone. Poof.

And people still want to claim copyright isn't regularly used as a tool for censorship?

Yes, the content in the video is content from Globo. But it's not taking it down over any concern over licensing issues or "piracy." It issued the takedown to clearly hide the video from the public viewing Miranda's article. It is purely a censorship move, and copyright is just a convenient tool. Thankfully, others have been reuploading the videos elsewhere, but just think what will happen if the legacy entertainment industry is successful in pushing a "notice and staydown" regime? This kind of censorship will become much, much more effective.

Filed Under: brazil, censorship, copyright, criticism, david miranda, dilma rousseff, dmca, impeachment, joao roberto marinho
Companies: globo, youtube

Brazilian President Blasts NSA Spying In Front Of World Leaders -- Including Obama -- At UN

from the just-listen-to-that dept

It was expected that the Brazilian President, Dilma Rousseff, would raise the issue of NSA spying when she addressed the opening session of the UN General Assembly in New York this week. But few would have predicted that her speech would be quite so excoriating (pdf), especially since it was given in the presence of President Obama, who spoke immediately after her.

Rousseff launched straight into her denunciation of online spying:

Recent revelations concerning the activities of a global network of electronic espionage have caused indignation and repudiation in public opinion around the world.

She then went on to emphasize that Brazil seems to have suffered more than most in this matter, not least because of economic espionage and the targeting of politicians:

In Brazil, the situation was even more serious, as it emerged that we were targeted by this intrusion. Personal data of citizens was intercepted indiscriminately. Corporate information -- often of high economic and even strategic value -- was at the center of espionage activity. Also, Brazilian diplomatic missions, among them the Permanent Mission to the United Nations and the Office of the President of the Republic itself, had their communications intercepted. Tampering in such a manner in the affairs of other countries is a breach of International Law and is an affront to the principles that must guide the relations among them, especially among friendly nations. A sovereign nation can never establish itself to the detriment of another sovereign nation. The right to safety of citizens of one country can never be guaranteed by violating fundamental human rights of citizens of another country.

Rousseff explicitly rejected the "because terrorism" excuse so often trotted out to justify such global surveillance:

The arguments that the illegal interception of information and data aims at protecting nations against terrorism cannot be sustained.

Brazil, Mr. President, knows how to protect itself. We reject, fight and do not harbor terrorist groups.

She pointed out the key importance of the right to personal privacy and national sovereignty, both called into question by blanket surveillance:

As many other Latin Americans, I fought against authoritarianism and censorship, and I cannot but defend, in an uncompromising fashion, the right to privacy of individuals and the sovereignty of my country. In the absence of the right to privacy, there can be no true freedom of expression and opinion, and therefore no effective democracy. In the absence of the respect for sovereignty, there is no basis for the relationship among Nations.

She reminded Obama that Brazil was still waiting for an explanation of the NSA's actions and a promise that they wouldn't happen again:

We expressed to the Government of the United States our disapproval, and demanded explanations, apologies and guarantees that such procedures will never be repeated.

The President of Brazil then confirmed that her country will be taking measures to protect itself better from future attempts to spy on its citizens and companies, but without going into details:

Brazil, Mr. President, will redouble its efforts to adopt legislation, technologies and mechanisms to protect us from the illegal interception of communications and data.

Finally, Rousseff called for the United Nations to get involved:

The United Nations must play a leading role in the effort to regulate the conduct of States with regard to these technologies.

For this reason, Brazil will present proposals for the establishment of a civilian multilateral framework for the governance and use of the Internet and to ensure the effective protection of data that travels through the web.

That's unlikely to go down well with many Western countries, already worried about what form Internet governance will take in the future. But many emerging nations would be happy to reduce the influence of the West, especially the US, on how the Internet is run, and would doubtless support any such initiative at the UN.

Even if it's unlikely that Rousseff's speech will lead to any immediate actions -- either by the US or by the United Nations -- it confirms the emergence of Brazil as an increasingly powerful and independent force in the world. Rousseff's stinging rebuke to the US contrasts with the feeble protests from just a few European Union politicians, even though their citizens and institutions have been spied upon comprehensively by the NSA and GCHQ for years. Once again we are seeing interesting knock-on consequences of Snowden's leaks, with the standing of Brazil and the other BRICS countries rising even as those of the US and EU begin to fall.

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Filed Under: barack obama, brazil, dilma rousseff, nsa, nsa surveillance, un, us

More NSA Spying Fallout: Brazilian President Snubs Obama Invitation, May Trigger Internet Balkanization

from the this-is-getting-serious dept

A couple of weeks ago, Techdirt noted that the Brazilian President, Dilma Rousseff, was angry that the NSA had been reading her private emails and text messages, and that as a result she was contemplating cancelling an imminent high-profile state visit to the US. That was before the recent revelations that the NSA had also engaged in industrial espionage at the biggest Brazilian company, Petrobras, which seems to have been the final straw: Rousseff has now formally "postponed" her trip to the US, according to the Brazilian news site O Globo (original in Portuguese.)

Despite the framing that this is merely a "postponement" until the US has provided satisfactory explanations of the NSA's behavior, it's a real slap in the face for President Obama -- in the past, no national leader would dream of snubbing the US in this way -- and a measure of how seriously the NSA's activities are affecting US standing in the world. But this is not just about symbolic actions like cancelling high-level meetings: there are also likely to be longer-term repercussions for both US companies and the whole Internet.

For example, Rousseff is making a speech next week at the opening session of the UN General Assembly in New York. According to O Globo, she will raise the issue of American spying there, and call for a ban on espionage conducted by means of the Internet. Meanwhile, an Associated Press story published by the Washington Post has some details of other actions that Rousseff intends to take in an effort to protect Brazilians from online snooping in the future:

Most of Brazil's global Internet traffic passes through the United States, so Rousseff's government plans to lay underwater fiber optic cable directly to Europe and also link to all South American nations to create what it hopes will be a network free of U.S. eavesdropping.

Of course, the problem is that then it will be the UK's GCHQ and other European agencies that start spying on Brazilian traffic, rather than the NSA. Here's another idea that the President of Brazil wants to see realised:

Rousseff is urging Brazil's Congress to compel Facebook, Google and all companies to store data generated by Brazilians on servers physically located inside Brazil in order to shield it from the NSA.

If that happens, and other nations follow suit, Silicon Valley's bottom line could be hit by lost business and higher operating costs: Brazilians rank No. 3 on Facebook and No. 2 on Twitter and YouTube.

Whether or not that helps to secure the personal data of Brazilians, such a move will almost certainly increase the costs for US Internet companies operating in Brazil -- more bad news for them, all thanks to the NSA. But there may be even worse in store for the Internet as a whole, as the AP article points out:

The effort by Latin America's biggest economy to digitally isolate itself from U.S. spying not only could be costly and difficult, it could encourage repressive governments to seek greater technical control over the Internet to crush free expression at home, experts say.

This is just what many people feared: that the leaks about the NSA's massive surveillance activities around the world -- including economic espionage -- will provide the pretext repressive regimes need in order to take complete technical control of the Internet in their countries, rather than continuing to acquiesce in its global governance, as at present. And so all the efforts by Western countries at the recent World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) to stop precisely that kind of balkanization will have been in vain.

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Filed Under: barack obama, brazil, dilma rousseff, internet, nsa, nsa surveillance, politics, snub

Brazilian President Possibly Canceling US Visit, $4 Billion Fighter Jet Order Over NSA's Snooping

from the the-NSA:-taking-down-the-country-from-the-inside dept

The fallout from the leaked NSA documents is apparently neverending. Brazil's president, Dilma Rousseff, has canceled her advance team's trip to Washington, DC. A high-ranking official stated the president was "furious" after information surfaced about the NSA's actions via a report by Globo TV.

The Globo report that aired Sunday was based on NSA documents leaked by Edward Snowden to U.S. journalist Glenn Greenwald, who lives in Rio de Janeiro and worked with the network on the story. Most of Greenwald’s stories on the NSA program have been published in Britain’s Guardian newspaper.

The report said the U.S. agency mapped out the aides with whom Rousseff communicated and tracked patterns of how those aides communicated with one another and also third parties, according to a June 2012 NSA document. Greenwald said the document, while not containing excerpts of Rousseff communications, made it clear that U.S. officials were reading her emails and text messages.

Rousseff had been extended a formal invitation by the administration to a "full state dinner," the only such invitation handed out this year, but it appears the Brazilian president is unwilling to entertain the offer, thanks to the administration's handling of the spying allegations.

[T]he official, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the episode, said Rousseff feels "patronized" by the U.S. response so far to the Globo report.

While it is common for state intelligence agencies to spy on other nations, the unwritten rule has always been, "don't get caught." Thanks to Snowden's leaks, the NSA has broken this rule, albeit more out of internal carelessness that led to the documents' escape, rather than through the carelessness of active agents.

The end result, however, is the same: another chilled international relationship and another one that the administration seems uninterested in rekindling. Rather than mend these fences, the administration seems to be putting more of its energy into playing defense.

But there's more on the line than some national embarrassment. Once again, allegations of spying are hurting American businesses. Not only does it appear that Rousseff with stand up Obama at the state dinner, but it also looks like a $4 billion deal to purchase F-18 fighters might evaporate as well. This is in addition to other mutually-beneficial agreements revolving around biofuels and oil.

The administration may be playing it safe and attempting to downplay the NSA's activities, but that only seems to be adding to the damage. As noted above, Rousseff felt "patronized" by the US government's response to the allegations. Brazil's Communications Minister Paulo Bernardo's assessment of the written response provided by the administration is even harsher.

Bernardo... said Brazil had yet to receive any "reasonable" explanation from the United States.

"All of the explanations that have been given to us from the beginning of these episodes have proven to be false," Bernardo said. "I think it's indiscriminate spying that has nothing to do with national security ... It's espionage with a commercial, industrial aim."

And that's the crux of the problem with the administration's response to these leaks. Rather than address the fact that many people feel violated by the surveillance, it instead doles out talking points about targeting, oversight, legality and security, when not issuing denials that are swiftly proven false. There's very little attempt to discuss the what bothers people about the NSA's actions -- the "why." Justification for these programs is always delivered in meaningless buzzwords and assertions that the NSA's activities are all very tightly controlled are delivered in words that have been stripped of their meaning by high-ranking intelligence officials.

It's not just Brazil that feels "patronized" by this "don't worry about it -- it's for your own good and it's all legal" treatment. It's everyone. While it may be the accepted m.o. for national intelligence agencies to play spy vs. spy, it's quite another to find out you've been directly targeted, no matter what your position, especially if you head a country that isn't directly antagonistic to the United States.

Filed Under: brazil, dilma rousseff, fallout, nsa, nsa surveillance