Can There Be a Non-US Internet?

Daniel_Stuckey writes "After discovering that the US government has been invading the privacy of not just Americans, but also Brazilians, Brazil is showing its teeth. The country responded to the spying revelations by declaring it'll just have to create its own internet. In reality, although Brazil President Dilma Rousseff is none too happy with the NSA's sketchy surveillance practices, Brazil and other up-and-coming economies have been pushing to shift the power dynamics of the World Wide Web away from a US-centric model for years."

Comments

That is not what they declared

[Anonymous Coward]

That is not what they declared, building local cloud, secure email services and infrastructure is different from "creating it's own internet" and I never heard this wording here, only in "international" press. The big difference is that when someone talk like that it gives the idea that it will be separated from the rest of the internet. That is not what the Brazilian government is proposing.
The national constitution (I'm Brazilian) states that the State has to provide the basic rights that are not met otherwise (if you can't buy water the State has to provide it, there is free medical care, the best universities are free, etc). Since private communications are a basic right (our constitutuion and the universal declaration of human rights), they are planning to offer alternatives for people who care.
Honestly, to force local clouds seems like a double win. On one hand you make companies accountable for our citizens rights, on the other hand - the one I think is the main point here - it creates investments, infrastructure, brings technology and high tech jobs. The cables to Europe are a need, our internet sucks. I hope they make some cables to China and Russia too, as online gaming is better over there.
But mainly, there is no censorship here, Brazilians will not be separated from the internet and nobody in the country thinks that even a possibility. Specially since this government is the one that fought against censorship in the past, you know, during the US created military dictatorship from 64 to 86/90.

Re:Yes, but it won't make any difference.

[flyingfsck]

That is exactly what Barizil is going to do: Run a cable across the Atlantic to South Africa. That will allow them to bypass most of the US snooping.