This post is a summary of three articles. The first with the title above, more the words "in Rio." Published at http://oglobo.globo.com/, on June, 1st, 2012. The second with the title of, "US tech companies warn of threat to internet from foreign governments." Published at http://www.washingtonpost.com/, on May,31,2012. The third with the title of, "Blogger, with focus on surveillance, is at center of a debate." Published at http://global.nytimes.com/, on June, 6th, 2013.
The freedom in the internet is in check, the alert was made by analysts in the RightsCon, human rights and technology conference, that take place in Rio de Janeiro. According to Thor Halvorssen, president of the Human Right Foundation ( http://www.thehrf.org/ ), 55% of the countries in the United Nations does not has democracy and 24% of them are totalitarians states, which reflects in cyberspace. The most populars websites of the world, such as Facebook, Google and Twitter are blocked in these countries. "These governments act like this, because they are terrified with the reach of the internet and they do not want that their citizens leaves the ignorance of what happens outside their dictatorships or that any local information leaking to the world," said Halvorssen. Some companies of I.T. ( information tech ) also contributed with arbitraries attitudes, as Ericsson that sold to the dictator of Bielorusia a system of telecommunications capable of interceptions. The Cisco sold to China modules to the mounting of a system which blocks some websites to population. One of the paths to become internet more democratic, is to increase the concurrence in the infrastructure, thus is possible to avoid cases like what happened in Egypt, when Vodafone blocked its services of connection, requested of the government during the manifestations.
In a congressional hearing U.S. officials and high-tech business will warn lawmakers of a growing movement led by China, Russia and some Arabs states to hand more control of the web to the U.N. and places rules on the internet that the U.S. companies say would empower governments to clamp down on civil rights and free speech. That could mean the web might look drastically different in other countries than it does in the U.S. An internet user could be more easily tracked by governments and might get access to only a portion of the Google search results seen in the U.S., for example. In a coordinated effort to knock down the proposals, Google, Microsoft and Cisco also warn of financial risk, if new rules are adopted. They say some nations could lead to tariffs on internet services providers or even web firms. "The threats are real and not imagined although they sound like works of fiction at times," said Robert McDowell, a congressman member of the federal communication commission. Facebook and Twitter proved to be vital for revolutionaries during the Arab Spring protests. And in many countries, the only outlet to the outside world is what people read online. Russia, China and other wrote a letter to the U.N. General Assembly that called for an "international code of conduct" that would establish "norms and rules guiding the behaviour" of countries overseeing the web. "Such proposals raise the prospect of policies that enable government controls but greatly diminish the innovation that underlies extraordinary internet-based economic growth, to say nothing of trampling human rights," said Vint Cerf, Google vice-president.
After writing intensely for years about government surveillance and the prosecution of journalists, Glenn Greenwald, has suddenly put himself directly at the intersection of those two issues, and perhaps in the cross hairs of federal prosecutors. Greenwald, a lawyer and blogger, published an article in the Guardian newspaper about the existence of a secreta court order allowing the National Security Agency ( NSA ) to monitor millions of telephones and emails. The article, which included a link to the order, is expected to attract an investigation from the Justice Department. " The NSA is kind of the crown jewel in government secrecy. I expect them to react even more extremely," said Greenwald. He said that he had decided that what he is doing is exactly what the constitution is about and he is not worried about it. Greenwald, 46 years-old, who came to mainstream journalism through his own blog, before that he was a lawyer, when he worked to a very important New York firm. He began his blog in 2005 (http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com.br/), after the news of warrantless surveillance under the Bush Administration. Greenwald said he has had to get up to speed in the security precautions that are expected from a reporter covering national security matters, including installing encrypted chat and email programs. By the time he was studying law at NY University, he was always passionate about constitutional issues and he was very deep into those issues and how it must come out. He was tireless and relentless about pursuing this. His writings has made him a frequent target from ideological foes who accuse him of excusing terrorism.
