Rousseff+Lula Double Act Unloads on US Net Spying

Cybersecurity is not an end unto itself; it is instead an obligation that our governments and societies must take on willingly, to ensure that innovation continues to flourish, drive markets, and improve lives. - Barack Obama [really]

It's been a busy time for followers of Internet governance as Brazil's president and her immediate predecessor unloaded both barrels at the United States' extreme abuse of its dominant position in the World Wide Web's infrastructure. Dilma Rousseff captured global attention not only by snubbing the White House's invitation for a state visit, but more recently by crucifying the double-talking American louse at the United Nations General Assembly.

[I] Here is the key part of her speech where she calls for the much-needed multilateral governance of the Internet to avoid rehashes of Americans spying on world leaders as well as you and me:

The problem, however, goes beyond a bilateral relationship. It affects the international community itself and demands a response from it. Information and telecommunication technologies cannot be the new battlefield between States. [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.

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.

We need to create multilateral mechanisms for the worldwide network that are capable of ensuring principles such as:

1 – Freedom of expression, privacy of the individual and respect for human rights.
2 – Open, multilateral and democratic governance, carried out with transparency by stimulating collective creativity and the participation of society, Governments and the private sector.
3 – Universality that ensures the social and human development and the construction of inclusive and non-discriminatory societies.
4 – Cultural diversity, without the imposition of beliefs, customs and values.
5 – Neutrality of the network, guided only by technical and ethical criteria, rendering it inadmissible to restrict it for political, commercial, religious or any other purposes.

[II] Less noticed is a recent interview with Hindu News of former Brazilian President Lula. (Alike his country's soccer stars, he seemingly goes by one name.) For better or worse, he and his handpicked successor will forever be entwined alike Putin and Medvedev or Chavez and Maduro. While leaving Rousseff to steal the limelight at the UN, he nevertheless two put in his two cents' worth, as the Yanquis would say:

The U.S. president should apologise to the world for thinking that it can control global communications and ignore the sovereignty of other countries. The U.S. can’t just capture the activities of India, Brazil, China and several other countries. This is very serious. We need to force the United Nations to make a decision on this. Where is the security in the world today, with the U.S. intelligence agency snooping on everything? Where is the confidence in mobile communication or emails? When the NSA revelations came out, the U.S. vice-president (Joe Biden) called Brazil to apologise. It’s not the vice-president who has to apologise, it’s the U.S. president who should apologise to us. What would happen if the U.S. was target of spying? Now, they can steal any information and industrial secrets; they have access to information of our scientists. It means the end of freedom within the territory of a nation state [...]

The independence and economic growth of countries such as India and Brazil seem to bother the U.S, which is now committing a crime against democracy. The argument that they are doing this to take care of the security of other countries is absurd. Nobody asked them to do so. Nobody hired the American espionage system. Democracy is less democratic if one nation has the power to intervene in others. 

Be a man, Barack. Own up to your nation's cowardly actions and welcome those to make Internet governance better reflect its changing user base.

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Can Brazil Escape Abusive, US-Centric Internet?

Absolute power corrupts absolutely - Lord Acton

Think of Barack Obama as the cyber-equivalent of Bashar al-Assad. Just as Assad does not own up to his chemical-attacking ways, so does Obama not own up to his Internet-abusing ways. All his pleas for "Internet Freedom" as they turn out, are meant to make it easier to spy on you and me. American digital hypocrites are thick on the ground, and Obama is just another one of their sorry lot. It is digital entrapment plain and simple.

Internationally, the US-centric Internet infrastructure which makes it so very easy for the US government to ask companies to disclose information about their users over alleged (yawn) national security concerns has come under sustained attack in the wake of disclosures that citizens and their leaders the world over have been hit by American snooping. Importantly, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers remains a US-based concern despite being responsible for allowing the Internet to function by maintaining control over IP addresses and suchlike. Given the increasing number of Internet users worldwide, many other countries have become concerned that the Internet's increasingly "global public goods" nature is not matched by changes in governance.

That introduction then brings us to Yanqui snooping: (mostly American) critics make the fallacy that since the strongest proponents of imbuing UN agencies with more voice in Internet governance are purportedly China, Iran, Russia, and Saudi Arabia, what they really are after is to improve their ability to wall off their Internet users from the rest of the world. Especially in the wake of disclosures about the extent of US spying, however, there are any number of other nations with legitimate concerns about near-absolute US power over the Internet corrupting absolutely. It is thus fascinating that Brazilian President Dilma Rouseff has been so aggrieved that she put off a state visit to America. What's more, she is urging Brazil to better insulate its telecoms infrastructure from more dastardly Yanqui deeds:

[Brazilian] President Dilma Rousseff ordered a series of measures aimed at greater Brazilian online independence and security following revelations that the U.S. National Security Agency intercepted her communications, hacked into the state-owned Petrobras oil company's network and spied on Brazilians who entrusted their personal data to U.S. tech companies such as Facebook and Google. The leader is so angered by the espionage that on Tuesday she postponed next month's scheduled trip to Washington, where she was to be honored with a state dinner...

While Brazil isn't proposing to bar its citizens from U.S.-based Web services, it wants their data to be stored locally as the nation assumes greater control over Brazilians' Internet use to protect them from NSA snooping...

There is also a fairly comprehensive set of actions Brazil intends to take to better deal with those Yanqui spies:

Rousseff says she intends to push for international rules on privacy and security in hardware and software during the U.N. General Assembly meeting later this month. Among Snowden revelations: the NSA has created backdoors in software and Web-based services.

Brazil is now pushing more aggressively than any other nation to end U.S. commercial hegemony on the Internet. More than 80 percent of online search, for example, is controlled by U.S.-based companies. 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.

More communications integrity protection is expected when Telebras, the state-run telecom company, works with partners to oversee the launch in 2016 of Brazil's first communications satellite, for military and public Internet traffic. Brazil's military currently relies on a satellite run by Embratel, which Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim controls. 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.

Internet freedom has become a laughingstock since the most egregious violator of this principle is the United States. If Silicon Valley is hit by commercial fallout over spying, it is well-deserved anyway for meekly playing along with the US government. (Hear that, my blog service provider?) Will the Internet become "Balkanized" or further fragmented as others follow Brazil's example? European governments have been targeted by similar intrusions but do not complain as loudly. OTOH, what benefit do we Internet users gain from the present system which facilitates American intrusion as it abuses its position?

There are legitimate reasons for placing more Internet governance in an international organization contrary to the claim that doing so will simply allow authoritarian regimes to keep better tabs on their citizens. Go ask Brazil. Even if its efforts are for naught as some security experts say, I applaud its courage in raising a question that others have cowered from asking and, better yet, doing something about it. Moreover, I suspect the solution is not for individual countries to try and wall themselves off from the rest of the world but to join nearly-unimpeachable critics of US Internet abuse in asking for basic guarantees concerning security. The pressure being applied at the moment is insufficient, but think of what may occur if millions threaten to flee Facebook, Google, etc. if such concerns remain unaddressed.

In the meantime, do yourselves a favor by not posting sensitive information online. Obama's operatives are definitely watching.

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Agents of Imperialism? Bolivia Expelled USAID

I have become captivated by the twists and turns of the Edward Snowden real-life spy caper. While the original accusation that the US was using its advantageous position in the Internet infrastructure to spy on its own citizens and its allies was expected--absolute power corrupts absolutely--its unfolding implications are far more interesting. Call it Frederick Forsyth...on crack. The IPE implications I've covered in some detail, from Ecuador unilaterally disavowing trade preferences given to it by the US to European lawmakers deliberating on whether to delay the start of EU-US FTA negotiations. The latest word is that EC President Manuel Barroso wants negotiations to occur alongside investigations of American spying. The sideshow is at least as interesting: I enjoy the (calculated) titillation as that master of self-promotion, former Russian spy Anna Chapman, has offered to marry spyboy / boytoy [!?] Edward Snowden and thus grant him rights to remain in Russia.

Back in Latin America, though, we recently had this misadventure of Bolivian President Evo Morales being harassed on his flight home from Russia by European nations France, Italy, Portugal and Spain--allegedly on suspicion that the Latin leftist may have been flying Snowden to Bolivian asylum. Just as spying has created a US-EU row, so too has perceived maltreatment of a Latin leader occasioned (surprise!) yet another continental conflict between the US and the Latin left. Where's Che Guevara when you need him--or Fidel Castro for that matter?

The story above pointed out something I was not previously aware of, though. Did you know that Bolivia expelled the US Agency for International Development (USAID) just last month? Just a short time ago Russia did the same as it was wary of the agency's "democracy promotion" agenda when it ought to have stuck with the task of development instead. Besides, who the heck needs all of that tied aid, anyway? At any rate, different country...same result. From Missus Clinton's favourite media outlet:

Bolivian president Evo Morales has expelled the US development agency from his country for allegedly seeking to undermine his leftist government. Morales claimed on Wednesday that the USAID is involved with "alleged political interference in peasant unions and other social organisations." He made the announcement before a crowd outside the presidential palace during a May Day rally. "Never again, never again USAID, who manipulate and use our leaders, our colleagues with hand-outs," Morales said in announcing the expulsion.

Given the United States' history of interfering in Latin America, you'd think USAID would have been more circumspect about "democracy promotion": fiddling with organized groups and so on. As with many things involving these parties, there is no real moral to the story, US protestations notwithstanding. Americans can be meddlesome hypocrites, while Latin blowhards like Morales blame the Latin left's repeated failures to lift their countries out of poverty on US interference. Same old, same old.

There are no protagonists here, but it does make you wonder if Morales has set himself up for additional harassment by expelling USAID.

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With (Spying) Friends Like US, Who Needs US-EU FTA?

It seems the Yanks have gotten themselves into yet another fine mess with their Internet Unfreedom spying activities. [Hello NSA lackeys, I hope you're enjoying yourselves reading this post in between surfing porn sites.] Over the weekend, Der Spiegel added fuel to the fire over the US National Security Agency spying on Internet communications of American friends and foes alike. (Do the Yanks treat them all that differently?) Alike most everyone else, the Germans have come under massive surveillance:

The documents prove that Germany played a central role in the NSA's global surveillance network -- and how the Germans have also become targets of US attacks. Each month, the US intelligence service saves data from around half a billion communications connections from Germany.

However, linguistic ties being paramount, there is a set of favoured Anglophone nations who are exempt from a thorough covert investigation from the American spooks:

No one is safe from this mass spying -- at least almost no one. Only one handpicked group of nations is excluded -- countries that the NSA has defined as close friends, or "2nd party," as one internal document indicates. They include the UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. A document classified as "top secret" states that, "The NSA does NOT target its 2nd party partners, nor request that 2nd parties do anything that is inherently illegal for NSA to do."

The allegations right before US-EU FTA are scheduled to start. European responses thus differ based on the amount of spying each nation is purportedly subject to. The French are obviously up in arms over the idea that they should ink a free trade agreement with those stealing sensitive information from Europeans:

The spying allegations come just days before trade negotiations between the U.S. and the EU are scheduled to start on July 8. But [French President Francois] Hollande raised doubts about the talks, saying there should be no negotiations with the U.S. on any matter until it guarantees that it is not spying on its European allies. "We cannot have any negotiations or deals in any domain unless we've gotten these guarantees for France, and that goes for the EU as well," Mr. Hollande said.

However, the Brits who have not been targeted as much are more relaxed about the issue, saying the trade talks should continue anyway according to a UK spokesperson. Still, particularly alarming to the Europeans are claims that spying on the European Council building is widespread and unabated in their own lands:

The EU security experts managed to pinpoint the [spying] line's exact location -- a building complex separated from the rest of the headquarters. From the street, it looks like a flat-roofed building with a brick facade and a large antenna on top. The structure is separated from the street by a high fence and a privacy shield, with security cameras placed all around. NATO telecommunications experts -- and a whole troop of NSA agents -- work inside. Within the intelligence community, this place is known as a sort of European headquarters for the NSA.

A review of calls made to the remote servicing line showed that it was reached several times from exactly this NATO complex -- with potentially serious consequences. Every EU member state has rooms at the Justus Lipsius building for use by ministers, complete with telephone and Internet connections.

Ultimately, if serious objections are raised to the US-EU FTA over American espionage, they will likely come from the European Parliament instead of the European Council despite the latter coming under more direct American data attacks. Post-Lisbon Agenda, the European Parliament has expanded powers to turn down free trade deals--especially over human rights violations such as violating the privacy of Europeans. While the Americans can probably gain the acquiescence of European leaders through the time-tested way of buying them off in any number of ways, such a trick is harder to do with the more heterogeneous and newly assertive European Parliament given its increased discretion.

The EU Parliament used to be pretty lame, but it has since gained authority in certain respects. Unfortunately for the Yanks, these include again basing FTAs on human rights criteria. Martin Schulz, the current [German Social Democrat] president of that body, is certainly annoyed by the spying:

The head of the European Parliament has demanded that the United States provide full clarification over a report disclosed by American whistleblower Edward Snowden alleging that Washington spied on EU offices. Martin Schulz said on Saturday that the revelation would have severe impacts on the ties between the EU and the US if proven true.  

“On behalf of the European Parliament, I demand full clarification and require further information speedily from the US authorities with regard to these allegations,” Schulz stated.

At the very least, expect greater European Parliament scrutiny of these so-called "friends" of theirs in trade negotiations. After all, with lying and spying friends like the US, who needs enemies? 

UPDATE: France is suggesting that the US be given a "time out" by delaying US-EU FTA negotiations by two weeks. However, the European Commission does not agree. As I said earlier, the most likely source of disapproval will come from the European Parliament. That will happen later on assuming that the US and EU come up with something they believe domestic audiences shall sign up to.

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Snowden Files: Ecuador Cuts US Trade Benefits + More

It's probably not the wisest thing to do, but at least Ecuador may be accepting the consequences of putting its foot in its mouth. Famously harbouring WikiLeaks' Julian Assange in its London embassy, it appears ready to up the stakes in testing America's (quite frankly idiotic) "Internet Freedom" concept by also harbouring former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. He famously leaked documents showing massive data gathering on Internet users on behalf of the US government and is under a global interdict from US authorities.

While this erstwhile hero to the nerdcore set has been sitting around in a Moscow airport waiting for a flight to Ecuador, a US senator threatened to remove American trade preferences granted to Andean nations:

The head of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee said on Wednesday he would seek to end preferential treatment for Ecuadorean goods if the South American nation offers political asylum to fugitive former spy agency contractor Edward Snowden.

Senator Robert Menendez [D-New Jersey], chairman of the foreign relations panel, warned in a statement that accepting Snowden "would severely jeopardize" preferential trade access the United States provides to Ecuador under two programs that are up for renewal in Congress. Our government will not reward countries for bad behavior," Menendez said.

The trade preferences, by the way, are a continuation of a 1991 pact (the Andean Trade Preference Act) wherein the US granted Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru improved access to the American market in exchange for better cooperation fighting drug production. In Iran-Contra lingo, it was a "trade for drugs" deal. As it turns out, it needs to be renewed every two years by lawmakers, thus occasioning Menendez's threat of non-renewal the next time around. Given its meagre trade, Ecuador benefited from this trade benefit with the US significantly as demonstrated by lobbying quite hard to continue it despite a steady stream of anti-American rhetoric. Really, Correa, like his purported opponents, is quite the hypocrite.

But I suppose things may have changed and Latin brio has overcome common sense: Ecuador's government has recently said, "go ahead, make my day":

Ecuador's leftist government thumbed its nose at Washington on Thursday by renouncing U.S. trade benefits and offering to pay for human rights training in America in response to pressure over asylum for former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden. The angry response threatens a showdown between the two nations over Snowden, and may burnish President Rafael Correa's credentials to be the continent's principal challenger of U.S. power after the death of Venezuelan socialist leader Hugo Chavez.

"Ecuador will not accept pressures or threats from anyone, and it does not traffic in its values or allow them to be subjugated to mercantile interests," government spokesman Fernando Alvarado said at a news conference.

I especially like the part about how Ecuador will gladly pay for the human rights training of Americans who keep yakking about them while acting in...let's just say inconsistent ways:

In a cheeky jab at the U.S. spying program that Snowden unveiled through leaks to the media, the South American nation offered $23 million per year to finance human rights training.

The funding would be destined to help "avoid violations of privacy, torture and other actions that are denigrating to humanity," Alvarado said. He said the amount was the equivalent of what Ecuador gained each year from the trade benefits.

The Latin Left is alive and well. If it weren't, then nobody would be making PR stunts of this nature to contest the seat vacated by the late Hugo Chavez. That said, let's just say that Ecuador has some way to go before topping Chavez's stunt of subsidizing heating oil purchases of poor Americans via the CITGO subsidiary of state-owned firm PVDSA.

Meanwhile, like his immediate predecessor, Obama should just shut the hell up and think before making more retarded statements about "Internet freedom" and so on if his government is always so hellbent on prosecuting these evildoers. Making folk heroes out of ninnies is a quintessentially American government pastime. This guy isn't even on Ecuadorean soil, fer cryin' out loud.

UPDATE: Note that the US has already cut Andean Trade Preference Act benefits with Bolivia, another repeat transgressor of the Will of America. However, Bolivia's case was over its nonchalance in combating drug production there whereas Ecuador's concerns...unusual and unrelated things.

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More "Internet Freedom" Hypocrisy c/o the Yanks

This post will be brief: I have identified the several contradictions of Hillary Clinton's hoary notion of "Internet Freedom" in a previous co-authored essay. Mind you, that bit of writing even preceded the WikiLeaks dustup which permanently consigned that bit of digital exceptionalism to the scrap heap of computer history.

More recently, American lawmakers have forwarded bits of legislation in the House and Senate designed to protect intellectual property rights by strongly obliging Internet service providers (ISPs) to monitor their customers for piracy. It seems even American tech firms recognize this sort of inconsistency regarding Uncle Sam's treatment of the Internet when it comes to addressing the rights of commercial rights holders (not predominantly theirs, mind you) vis-a-vis those of regular folks without such commercial clout. Certainly the likes of Wikimedia Foundation and Google of "Enabling Trade in the Era of Information Technologies: Breaking Down Barriers to the Free Flow of Information" fame are up in arms against this latest intrusion. Wikipedia is even blacked out today.

Why should being unable to pirate the latest episode of Gossip Girl be a more important global priority than, say, respecting other nations' rights to non-interference and non-intervention and hence keep the interstate system--in reasonably decent operation since 1648--intact? Not only do some folks have unworkable ideas but also a highly distorted set of priorities.

UPDATE: And don't forget this bit of proposed American legislation is but the tip of the iceberg. Actually, the Obama administration is very much behind the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Act (ACTA)--a nasty piece of work masquerading as a trade agreement with provisions not unlike those of PIPA and SOPA with farther-reaching potential.

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Twitter Revolution My Sassafrass: Back to Egypt

The self-styled American digerati has me ROFL even more now with their belief about the central importance of digital media in the Arab Spring events. A few days ago, we gathered that Egypt was in many ways worse off economically now than under President Mubarak. For, without a figure to provide basic law and order, the result would be what it is at present-chaotic. From today's headlines, we now gather that they're back in Tahrir Square. With civilians getting shot once more, we've seen this movie before.

So far, what can we reasonably deduce?

1. Digital technologies are mere communication tools, not instruments for lasting change or even "revolution" as some hype it to be;
2. Mob rule with people taking to the streets time and again is still mob rule even when using Twitter etc. to gather. It's inimical to establishing order;
   
3. Hence, exporting these technologies in the belief that it would promote freedom and economic growth is far-fetched. Take Egypt with its resulting reversion to military rule, endless protests and continuous credit downgrades;
4. Insofar as we haven't yet left the Westphalian system as far as I can tell, states should be left alone to determine their policies regarding these technologies--just as the United States is busy trying to prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for leaking US diplomatic cables;
5. Fair is fair: China should be left alone as unpalatable as its policies towards the Internet may be to some white people. National laws regarding non-intervention and non-interference with regard to media--whether they be those of the US or China--still have validity in a bordered world.

It's long overdue to consign the hypocritical, incredulous notion of "Internet freedom" to the dustbin of similarly awful American wheeze alike the "strong dollar" policy and the "Washington Consensus."

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