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Brazilian Government To Monitor Social Media To Counter Recent Riots
First time accepted submitter prxp writes "Recent riots in Brazil have taken the Brazilian Government completely by surprise, since most of its intelligence personnel have been assigned to work on the security of Fifa's Confederations Cup, according to 'O Estado de São Paulo' (Google translation), one of Brazil's major newspapers. This is particularly ironic, since protesting against the way Fifa has managed Confederations Cup in Brazil accompanied with overspending by the Brazilian Government is in the heart of these riots. Because of that, ABIN (the Brazilian equivalent to CIA) "has assembled a last minute operation to monitor the Internet" where intelligence officials have been tasked to monitor protesters' every move 'though Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and WhatsApp' in order to "anticipate itineraries and size of riots" among other intel. The legality of such action is unknown, since Brazilian laws prohibit this kind of wiretapping."
Damn!!! I AM A BRAZILIAN.. and our government is FUCKING with us!!
I'm sorry...you'll have to repeat that once more. I couldn't quite hear you over the sound of my brain cells committing suicide one by one.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
Really? What are their intelligence agencies doing, twiddling their thumbs? Epic Fail.
Since this is becoming a global trend, I for one, DO NOT welcome our orwellian state overlords
As corrupt as FIFA might be with its match-fixes, the root of the problem in Brazil is the dishonesty of the politicians (who would sell their mothers/wives/daughters for a quick buck) and the complacency of the population (who whine, but vote for the same politicians every year).
Monitoring and wiretapping aren't the same thing. I expect any decent state intelligence agency to have the ability to go on Twitter and read public tweets.
Didn't you know? We must destroy democracy and civil liberties in order to save them. One life saved is worth all our civil liberties. Our voters expect no less (and sadly, they really don't).
Why can't people learn from past mistakes? Do not under any circumstance let your city or country host one of these once every 4 year politically charged sporting events. They are way too expensive for the average citizen, and they're just a get rich quick scheme for a few and a way for politicians to make the naive feel good about them and re-elect them. These events funnel way too much money into building infrastructure that rarely gets used again after the event, and wrecks the local culture by taking away sponsorship money.
You're much better off getting on a regular championship circuit where you can invest in the infrastructure once and profit from it annually. And the championship circuits are much less politically charged, so the politicians don't gain much from meddling with the events.
Might want to include "dark web" forums, too, like:
HackBB
http://www.tinyurl.com/hackbbonion
Above tinyurl requires Tor as it's a link to a Tor hidden service .onion discussion forums site.
I think the causes and the protesters are interesting:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/19/us-brazil-protests-impact-analysis-idUSBRE95I1LQ20130619
Causes:
So, it's educated middle class people in the city protesting that politicians aren't giving them stuff cheaper and that politicians are wasting their money. Remember that Brazil is under a left-wing government headed by the PT (Worker's Party). At least it's not Venezuela, where the left wing government managed to produce a shortage of toilet paper; you really don't want to have riots involving large numbers of people lacking toilet paper; it's likely to be smelly.
Of course, if Brazil had a free market kind of government, some people would be protesting against that as well because they think they aren't getting their "fair share". They'd want a left wing government that gives them "free stuff", until that left wing government predictably fails to be able to deliver, and then they protest against that. Well, as long as the stay away from fascist or theocratic government and don't run out of toilet paper, the Brazilians should still be mostly OK.
is the only way to get usefull information and fight back crime ! : Camera
Has a link: CHECK
Has blockquotes: CHECK
Has blatant stab at Lefties: CHECK
You, sir, will have +5 in mere seconds. You've been paying attention.
There are two ways to deal with civil protest.
The first, is to put down any protest with violence. Let the peons know who's boss.
The second way, and the one more likely not to get you murdered, is to find out what the problem is and sort that out.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
> So why is Obama kissing Russian/Chinese/North Korean ass?
Because they have nukes?
Next question please.
brazilian here:
The main problem, as far as I see, it's not the federal government: are the states and municipal ones.
The main riots begun against the price of the bus in the main cities (first in Porto Alegre in April, and took a big shape after Sao Paulo tried to raise the price of the bus ticket in may-june). People are beat by the local polices without clear reason (plus rubber bullets and moral gas) and lots of arrests are being made without a reason (in Sao Paulo the local police arrested hundreds of people with possession of VINEGAR*).
But look how crazy this sounds: the mayor of Sao Paulo (the city) is a left-wing (or center-left) workers party. The governor of Sao Paulo (the state) is a right-wing almost tea-party-look-a-like. The riots were against the mayor, but the state used its force (police). In porto alegre, the mayor is a center-right-wing and the state government is a left-wing workers party. The same: the riots were against the mayor, and the police (controled by the governor) was used in a brutal way (not so hard as sao paulo, but brutal) against the rioters.
Now that the main cities agreed to lower the price of the bus ticket (porto alegre in May and several other cities in the last few days), the riots looks more like french 68 riots than anything else. It's not about the price of the bus ticket anymore, but about the political and social culture in Brazil (corruption, a lack of social control, etc).
*Vinegar is used to decrease the effects of tear gas.
** One last thing: be careful with brazilian newspapers. Most of them will stand for its own agenda and they are part of the problem, not the solution.
Yet another case of a government Missing. The. Point.
stenvar says:
If you had done some proper research, you would have discovered that the "middle class" did not support the protest, it started off peacefully and only gained traction after abusive police crackdowns.
There's even a eyewitness report, together with pictures and videos of the police brutality by the poster "Canslli" here .
So while you sit safely at home smugly spinning lies to support your ideological war against the left, understand that there are real people with real issues who are bleeding and dying in the riots. At least respect that.
If you do not get what the problem is, see: Stop bankers betting on food - What is the problem?.
Also on Brazil: Currency War Rattles Brazil, Wakes Up the People:
The spark that lit it – after price and asset inflation had made life too expensive for the middle class – was an increase in bus fares.
[Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega] taken aim at the Fed’s “bold” efforts to hand trillions to the big players – the hot money – who didn’t invest it in production and jobs in the US but plowed it into every conceivable “asset class,” such as commodity and currency speculation and similar productive uses. It hit prices in Brazil and drove up the Real.
Brazil counterattacked last year. The Real plunged 24% against the buck. Prices of imported goods soared – adding to the inflation that had already been zigzagging up from 3.7% in 2007. In May, it hit a red-hot 6.45%.
It was just too much for the 40 million people who’d made the transition from poverty into (barely) the middle class since the turn of the millennium. Products they buy on a daily basis have jumped: tomatoes are up 96% over last year, onions 70%, rice 20%, chicken 23%. Since 2008, rents are up 118%.
Of course, bankers do what they like, own the politicians and sit on the board directly or indirectly of nearly ever major news source out there - so move along, no currency war to see here...
I'm sorry, but the CIA is not supposed to collect intelligence to operate against its own citizens. Since that sounds like what ABIN is doing, it is therefore not the "Brazilian version of the CIA".
Unless ABIN is also not supposed to spy on their citizens, but is doing it *anyway* and doesn't give a fuck, in which case they are exactly equivalent to the CIA.
How about governments stop riots by doing what is in the best interest of the population they are responsible for? If people think their government is fair and acting in their best interest, there is no reason to riot.
Look, there are two things that must be kept in mind about how things works in Brazil.
1. The police _really_ doesn't know better. They are ill trained and scared of riots. This means it is rather easy to start a major mess unless specific pressure against the use of rubber shots/tear gas is issued. That explains what happened in the first days.
2. We have quite a large amount of bandits that are just waiting for an opportunity to strike. And I don't mean the government (although the description fits all the *four* "powers" in Brazil just fine: press, judiciary, executive and legislative).
Yesterday, there were hundreds of thousands protesting in my city. It was peaceful, it was beatifull, and the police was prepared ahead of time to NOT go bonkers. After the main body of people went home, malcontents and bandits decided to start destroying public buildings in order to create a diversion. Their objective is only to destroy in order to create enough of a mess to be able to pillage stores. The bus fare was ALREADY reduced from R$ 3.30 to R$ 3.00 in the previous day, so there really wasn't much of a reason to protest[1]
The end result? People injured, lots of property destruction, and the city I live in is a major mess. The police was told to not shot the criminals dead just in case there were decent people caught in the middle. In Rio de Janeiro, it was MUCH worse yesterday.
It will get worse.
I don't get why the parent post got a Troll modding. I live in Brazil and I think I wouldn't have described it better.
So say we all
the US did this during the occupy protests. to their credit, it was a largely successful means of quelling civil unrest in New York, preventing unrest in other cities, and downplaying the message that the united states class is a lemon socialism designed to perpetuate a class stratification of the rich and the rest of us.
Good people go to bed earlier.
The google translation didn't come up for me...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
If Brazilian law prohibits "this kind of wiretapping" how would the legality be unknown. Is there some question whether listening in on social media is illegal -- or not -- because there may not be a phone connection involved? They're going play the "semantics" card? No phone call therefore legal?
Off the small budget they've got, most goes on salaries for technically incompetent people, while the remaining is diverted to "ghost" companies registered in the name of relatives or deceased people. Through a few more operations, that cash disappears somewhere in Switzerland. That said, nothing stops them from requesting the help of other nations, as it happened in 1964 when the US stationed 2 aircraft carriers, oil tankers and generous amounts of weapons and ammunition (Operation Brother Sam)*.
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_Brazilian_coup_d'%C3%A9tat
Doesn't everybody remember last year, when multiple reports came out from sociologists saying that food prices cause riots, and that food prices worldwide were expected to peak in the summer of 2013? Headlines like 'We have until August 2013 before riots sweep the globe', and 'We have one year before everything explodes' -- that doesn't ring a bell for anyone else?
Social unrest is correlated to the price of necessary commodities. When the poor cannot afford basic necessities, they have no choice but to get violent. Because of crop failures last year, this year is primed for social unrest EVERYWHERE.
The Arxiv paper demonstrating the correlation, based on data from the 2008 food riots.
An article warning us from last year. And another. And another.
Sociologists have known this was coming. Governments should have known this was coming. It's going to be a brutal, bloody summer. Get ready.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
Everyone knows the age old strategy that they're using. Whenever your people are super mad at you and rioting and protesting, the first thing you should do is something to piss them off more.
Its a warm up for FIFA's World Cup which will happen in Brazil in 2014.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_FIFA_Confederations_Cup
Germany spent like 1.6 Billion dolars in their world cup in 2006. South Africa spent 1.8 billion in 2010. Brazil spent 16 billion so far, and more costs are expected.
But it is specifically illegal by Brazilian law?
So where does the unknown come in? Is it unknown if Brazilian law applies to the Brazilian CIA?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
I'm very sorry to tell you all that, although all the things said here do have some real counterpart, it's a bit more messy. First, a prelude:
It is quite normal for protests here in São Paulo, and quite generaly in Brazil to be brutally repressed by the police, which you can verify with the simplest google+google translate query. I like to call it 'heritage'. Thing is, 30 years of military government ruining public education have spawned a ginormous, uneducated and consumist middle class, watchers of 'TV GLOBO' (create in the military govt. and initially funded by the warner group, which was in fact ilegal at the time). TV GLOBO covers 99% of the huge brazilian territory and is the media of choice for biased, dumb-minded oriented, extreme right-wing but declared 'apolitical', 'information'. The next paragraphs, when I mention "Media", it's basically TV GLOBO.
With that in mind, i recall the events since June 6th. It started with 3 protests, some days apart beginning in that day. They were organized by Movimento Passe Livre (Free Fare Movement) to protest an increase in bus and metro/train fares, from R$ 3 to R$ 3.20. I will not further discuss the merits of the claim or the economic issues because there are more pressing things, but is worth saying that the rise in price is enough for a lot of people to have to skip meals. Anyway, they began protesting and stoping the traffic (that is pretty much crammed already because of the many cars and lack of widespread quality mass public transport), saying that "If the fare don't go down, São Paulo will stop" (the city is said to "never stop").
The police is not out of control, as you may think. They are equiped, well trained and ready to obey orders.
At that point, there were about ~5k people attending each event, which is not very much but remember, the major number of people affected by the rise have to work all day, are not organized and can't afford to stop working and demand their rights, else they starve. On thursday, June 13th, the state governor had already stated that, because of the traffic blocks and an actually quite small amount of vandalism, the police was told to "be very rigorous" against the protesters. All the major newspapers supported this view. So they were. They closed Avenida Paulista first so the protesters couldn't (that was quite strange). When the ~20k peaceful people tried to march that way, they 'dispersed' the crowd, with ridiculous amounts of rubber bullets, tear gar, moral effect bombs and pepper spray.
Ok, what next? Le Coup.
After an uneasy weekend, with more cases of police repression against peaceful protests, 65k (according to DataFolha), 100k (acording to some other newspapers) or 1 000k (acording to numerous independent estimates) people took the streets on monday. But there was something strange, very strange. The media had changed sides. The MPL demanded the mayor to reduce the 20 cents again. That was the only claim. "If the fare don't go down, São Paulo will stop". Well, on monday there was a lot of people in the streets that were very unfamiliar with street protests, there was a lot of people wrapped in brazilian flags, and chanting the nacional anthem. In line with the press, there was no police action, and there was no violence, except for a small group that tried to enter the Governor Palace, breaking the gates. Back on to them shortly.
The following day, another protest, with ~60k people, took the city center. It was quite peaceful, until some 200 people started to break into the city hall, and the police locked itself inside it. They burned and looted the center, whilst in Avenida Paulista, the 60k chanted the nacional anthem, painted their faces green and yellow, and demanded "Dilma get out", "Alckim get out", "no more corruption" and other ridiculously generic things. The left-wing fare movement had been overtaken by a right-wing, fascist, generic, "democratic" fiesta, insuflated by the media.
But it gets worse: on the next day, the mayor reduced the fare, saying that it was "a great s
south africa hosted the previous fifa soccer world cup in 2010. exactly the same thing happened. our corrupt government awarded contracts for building new stadiums that the country could not afford; road and rail infrastructure were upgraded specifically to support the stadiums; a lot of this is now obsolete yet the majority of people live in underdeveloped or even slum conditions. a stadium close to me that was built for the 2010 world cup is hardly ever used, yet poor people living around it are dying of hunger and disease. fifa walked away from the 2010 soccer world cup with billions in profit; the south african taxpayer was left to foot the bill for the stadiums. the protests in brazil are valid and for a righteous cause.