BRASILIA/ BERLIN: Brazil said yesterday it is moving to secure its communications through its own satellite and digital networks to end its dependence on the US, which is accused of electronically spying on the region.
“Brazil is in favour of greater decentralisation: Internet governance must be multilateral and multisectoral with a broader participation,” Communications Minister Paulo Bernardo told a congressional panel.
Tuesday, Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota warned his US counterpart John Kerry that the row over Washington’s electronic snooping could sow mistrust between the two countries.
Kerry responded by conceding that Brasilia was owed answers from Washington and would get them.
He suggested that the vast US surveillance programme aimed to “provide security, not just for Americans, but for Brazilians and the people of the world.”
But Bernardo yesterday criticised the “strong concentration of (Internet) traffic” by US firms.
Revelations by US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden about the vast scope of US electronic surveillance programs have caused deep unease in Brazil and other Latin American countries that have reportedly been targeted by the spying.
Bernardo said Brasilia was finalising the selection of companies that will be tasked with building and launching a geostationary defence and strategic communications satellite.
On Tuesday, French-Italian group Thales Alenia Space (TAS) said it had won a contract worth about $400m to build a satellite for Brazil’s developing space programme.
The order, placed by Visiona — jointly owned by Brazilian aeroplane maker Embraer and telecom provider Telebras — is for a geostationary satellite for civil and military use.
Telebras said that with the satellite, “high-speed Internet will be extended to the entire nation and will ensure the sovereignty of its civil and military communications.”
Arianespace has been selected to launch the satellite in 2015.
The deal also allows for a transfer of technology between TAS and Brazil, making TAS the preferred industrial partner in building up Brazil’s space programme.
Meanwhile, responding to Germans’ unease over US surveillance of the Internet, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet agreed initial plans yesterday to boost European technology companies and make them a more favourable alternative to US peers.
Merkel’s chief of staff said on Monday that fears of mass US spying on Germans were unfounded, and Washington had assured Berlin it had upheld German law. But with an election looming in less than six weeks, the government has come under pressure to do more to protect citizens’ private data.
“We need a strong European information technology industry which can offer alternatives,” said Economy Minister Philipp Roesler. Among ideas to be explored, he listed more secure cloud computing and better links between technology start-ups and established industry.
First results would be discussed at a IT summit in Hamburg in December, he said.
Edward Snowden set off an international furore when he told newspapers in June that the National Security Agency was mining the personal data of users of Google, Facebook, Skype and other US companies under a secret programme codenamed Prism. US President Barack Obama last week announced plans to limit the sweep of government surveillance programmes and make them more transparent.
Snowden, facing espionage charges back home, has been granted a year’s asylum in Russia.
The German cabinet also agreed to negotiate with the European Commission on tightening EU data protection laws, and to pursue a “no-spy deal” with Washington, whose details are as yet unspecified.
AFP/Reuters
