About 100 million Brazilians collectively cried out in anguish on Monday. But you wouldn't hear it from them, because that anguish was over yet another government shutdown of WhatsApp, which as Latin Post previously noted, is a free and vital form of daily communication for Brazilians.

Brazil Bans WhatsApp... Again

WhatsApp, the popular worldwide Internet messaging service owned by Facebook, was blocked to effectively half the Brazilian population for 72 hours starting at 2 p.m. on Monday on the order of Marcel Maia Montalvão.

If that name seems familiar, it's because that is the same judge who ordered the detainment of Facebook's VP for Latin America, Diego Dzodan about a month ago.

Dzodan was in custody for about a day before Montolvão's order was overturned by a higher court judge, who called the arrest "an extreme measure," as The New York Times noted.

Though Montolvão presides over a small town in the northeastern state of Sergipe, the judge's order applied nationally.

This time, the five largest wireless carriers nationwide were ordered to block WhatsApp for three days. Any Brazilian service providers failing to comply with the order will be penalized by fines running the equivalent of about $142,000 US per day.

Encryption Showdown Continues

The latest shutdown in Brazil comes from the same ongoing battle between Facebook, WhatsApp, and Brazilian authorities that have repeatedly insisted that the companies cooperate with criminal investigations, providing personal data and communications of Brazilian WhatsApp users suspected of drug trafficking.

WhatsApp and Facebook have repeatedly told Brazilian courts that complying with the court orders is impossible, as the app's communications are fully encrypted and out of the company's reach.

Speaking to TechCrunch on the latest ban in Brazil, a spokesperson for WhatsApp expressed the company's frustration with what is now the second shutdown in Brazil in the past few months. The last time Brazil banned WhatsApp in December, the 48-hour shutdown was lifted after only 12 hours.

"After cooperating to the full extent of our ability with the local courts, we are disappointed a judge in Sergipe decided yet again to order the block of WhatsApp in Brazil," said the spokesperson. "This decision punishes more than 100 million Brazilians who rely on our service to communicate, run their businesses, and more, in order to force us to turn over information we repeatedly said we don't have."

The frustration of WhatsApp's CEO Jan Koum was palpable as he reacted to the shutdown on Facebook. "Yet again millions of innocent Brazilians are being punished because a court wants WhatsApp to turn over information we repeatedly said we don't have," wrote Koum on his Facebook page.

"Not only do we encrypt messages end-to-end on WhatsApp to keep people's information safe and secure, we also don't keep your chat history on our servers. When you send an end-to-end encrypted message, no one else can read it - not even us," Koum added. "While we are working to get WhatsApp back up and running as soon as possible, we have no intention of compromising the security of our billion users around the world."

Escalating the Fight

The second shutdown of WhatsApp comes as a new cybercrime bill in Brazil's legislature is on the verge of being made into law.

As The Intercept reported, the legislation would give the federal government explicit internet-shutdown powers like the one imposed by the judge on Monday.

Up for a vote this week in Brazil are other controversial Internet measures, which privacy analysts are worried could erode online rights, some of which Brazil's own government made official when it passed the world's first "Bill of Rights" for the Internet two years ago, called the "Marco Civil da Internet."

One measure up for vote this week would call on Internet companies to remove online content within 48 hours if it's deemed critical to Brazilian politicians. Another proposal could impose imprisonment on individuals for violating an website's terms of use.

As a similar battle between the FBI and Apple has at least temporarily been sidestepped by the agency's newfound ability to hack iPhones without Apple's help, it appears the online privacy war in Brazil has only just begun.

Related