AfterDawn: News

Europe, Brazil planning massive undersea cable to avoid U.S. spying

The European Union and Brazil have agreed this week to create a massive undersea communications cable between Lisbon, Portugal and Fortaleza, Brazil that will help the nations avoid spying from the U.S.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff says the cable will "guarantee the neutrality," and Rousseff has been very public with her desires to keep the country's Internet free from U.S. spying. The cable will cost $185 million.



"We have to respect privacy, human rights and the sovereignty of nations. We don't want businesses to be spied upon," Rousseff said during the press conference. "The Internet is one of the best things man has ever invented. So we agreed for the need to guarantee ... the neutrality of the network, a democratic area where we can protect freedom of expression."

It was revealed last year that the NSA had been spying on the Brazilian President's email and phone calls. Brazil uses U.S. undersea cables for its communications to Europe but will now use their own. The current EU to Brazil cable can only support voice transmission.

U.S. President Obama has banned spying on leaders of allied nations, but following the news of the spying on Rousseff and Germany's Angela Merkel, trust has been shaky at best.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 26 Feb 2014 11:59

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• 2 comments

• Mysttic

  If society would think this would stop spying from USA they can think again. There will always be ways to infiltrate a network. Also it's not like it solves anything from EU from spying on their own people which they have reportedly done.

  26.2.2014 18:43 #1

• Interestx

  Originally posted by Mysttic: Also it's not like it solves anything from EU from spying on their own people which they have reportedly done. I think the point here is that in the EU we can & will deal with our own security services, thank you very much.
  
  What we can do without is friendly nations thinking they have a right to spy on us without permission or the oversight or control we have on our own services.
  
  Of course it's an evolving situation & we begin from a less than perfect starting point, what has gone before within the EU (& within the individual nations) is unacceptable, but at least we can find out about it & are doing something about it.
  
  Some sort of spying (whether commercially or politically) will undoubtedly continue but nobody can be surprised that when it is discovered it damages international relations and those who think this doesn't matter are very wrong.
  
  

  27.2.2014 08:52 #2