Brazil Building Internet Cable to Portugal to Avoid NSA Surveillance
The Brazilian government is breaking ties with American technology companies and is investing in building a cable to Portugal to escape the reach of the U.S. National Security Agency.
It's estimated that the investment will cost about $185 million. Brazil's government will build a 3,500-mile fiber-optic cable that will stretch across the Atlantic from Fortaleza to Portugal.
None of the investments will go to American vendors.
Since Edward Snowden leaked documents of NSA last year, many countries and local residents have dubbed the NSA as "spies."
In those documents was evidence that the NSA was accessing personal information of Brazilian citizens, including listening to phone calls of President Dilma Rousseff, its embassies and the state-owned oil company Petrobras, according to IBTimes.
"As many other Latin Americans, I fought against authoritarianism and censorship and I cannot but defend, in an uncompromising fashion, the right to privacy of individuals and the sovereignty of my country," Rousseff said at the U.N. that year.
"The arguments that the illegal interception of information and data aims at protecting nations against terrorism cannot be sustained. Brazil, Mr. President, knows how to protect itself. We reject, fight and do not harbor terrorist groups."
Since Snowden's message, Brazil switched to a state-developed platform called Expresso for emails and later required all government agencies use state-owned companies for their technology services.
As buyers doubt the security of the U.S., companies could lose about $35 billion in revenue, according to research group Information Technology & Innovation Foundation.
Last month, Brazil had its elections that kept Dilma Rousseff in office. About a week after re-election, many have called for her impeachment. Some called for the nation to go back under dictatorship, seeing her as part of a corrupted military party.
Brazilian state-owned company, Telecomunicacoes Brasileiras SA, known as Telebras, will oversee the project scheduled to be constructed in early 2015.
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