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(Reuters) Brazil and the European Union agreed on Monday to lay an undersea communications cable from Lisbon to Fortaleza to reduce Brazil's reliance on the United States after Washington spied on Brasilia.
At a summit in Brussels, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said the $185 million cable project was central to "guarantee the neutrality" of the Internet, signaling her desire to shield Brazil's Internet traffic from U.S. surveillance. According to other sources, the construction is scheduled to begin in July.
A joint venture between Brazilian telecoms provider Telebras and Spain's IslaLink Submarine Cables would lay the communications link. Telebras would have a 35 percent stake, IslaLink would have a 45 percent interest and European and Brazilian pension funds could put up the remainder.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday February 25 2014, @09:58AM
Yes, sure they can. But, as a late friend of mine learned very close to the end of his life (that is, immediately after striking a match to see how much gas the tank still holds), something being possible doesn't mean is a good idea to actually do it.
Problem is: for how long will the US govt be willing to support the cost of such aggressive acts before a significant part of their "friends/allies" will start avoiding contact with anything US based? It may take a while, but... US is only 5% of the world population; significantly limiting relations with US has better chances to happen in our life time than... say... Kurzweil's strong AI.
Uh, you know? Maybe unrelated, but Spain is a NATO member and so is Germany or France. You really think pissing of your allies is a good geopolitical strategy?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 25 2014, @11:53AM
What allies?
Isn't the excuse always "But we're not any worse than everybody else. Everybody else is spying on their enemies too".
The rest of the world just needs to get the point the US has been making loud and clearly.
(Score: 1) by c0lo on Tuesday February 25 2014, @12:19PM
Call me a stupid optimist or naive, but I can hardly believe the US in its whole is the "baddy" here, I prefer to think it is only their govt that ran amok... well, maybe their corporations too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Insightful) by unimatrix on Tuesday February 25 2014, @04:50PM
Um, the DGSE (French Foreign Intelligence) spends about a quarter of its published budget on industrial espionage to help French companies. It's been widely known in the international business community that they've been doing this for decade and some of their favorite targets are US and British companies.
The dirty little secret is that everyone is trying to spy one everyone and has been for a very long time. To anyone who's worked inside the beltway this really isn't new news. It's just the rest of the world is just now finding this out.
(Score: 3, Informative) by gottabeme on Tuesday February 25 2014, @05:26PM
Read the book Blind Man's Bluff. Even U.S. Presidents didn't know what the Navy was doing, tapping Soviet Navy cables in their own backyard. A U.S. sub literally sailed along a Soviet beach looking through its periscope for a "CAUTION: UNDERSEA CABLE" sign, found one, and proceeded to tap the cable.