The title of this post says "Are they going to Block it!?", but in Portuguese. According to Boing-Boing, the Brazilian Congress will vote this Thursday, November 8th, on a bill that forces every user and provider under its jurisdiction to identify every transaction. Should it pass, every time a Brazilian user sends an email, talks in a chat or comments in a blog, he will be tracked either by the provider, or by a government agency. So the Brazilians are afraid that the government may track their online activity, and people here are afraid that they may totally block some sites. What is really going on!? Is the internet boom coming to an end, and some governments are afraid that the free-speech given to people with such technology may threat their domination on the media.
But on the other hand, a long time ago, we all heard of a project called ECHELON, and I am sure that many countries including Egypt have their own probes in their service providers' networks. So tracking people's activity online is there from the beginning.
Senator Eduardo Azeredo says the proposal aims at discouraging hackers and libel and stopping cyber-crime. But guess what, hackers and cyber criminals sure know how to encrypt their communications and they can simply use tools to encrypt their Emails, IM conversations, etc.
Tags: Brazil, Egypt, Free Speech, Hackers, Internet, Gr33n Data
I really enjoyed your post. Thanks for pointing out to a significant issue when it comes to freedom of speech, unlike some arab bloggers that thought freedom of speech meant defending the publiction of pictures of G-stringed Brazlian Dancers in a Nox Magazine, and defending an atheist like Karime that is not doing much except bash their own religion. Thanks again.
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