Walking Away from Empire

Latin America is finding its voice and for the first time in its recent history is able to stand up to the Empire.  Although the US is acting aggressively against South American politicians, America is showing itself to be a paper tiger.  The era of the Munroe Doctine is over.

Bolivian president to sue US govt for crimes against humanity

Bolivian President Evo Morales will file a lawsuit against the US government for crimes against humanity. He has decried the US for its intimidation tactics and fear-mongering after the Venezuelan presidential jet was blocked from entering US airspace.

RT,

26 January, 2013

“I would like to announce that we are preparing a lawsuit against Barack Obama to condemn him for crimes against humanity,” said President Morales at a press conference in the Bolivian city of Santa Cruz. He branded the US president as a “criminal” who violates international law.

In solidarity with Venezuela, Bolivia will begin preparing a lawsuit against the US head of state to be taken to the international court. Furthermore, Morales has called an emergency meeting of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) to discuss what has been condemned by Venezuela as “an act of intimidation by North American imperialism.”

The Bolivian president has suggested that the members of CELAC withdraw their ambassadors from the US to send a message to the Obama Administration. As an additional measure he will call on the member nations of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas to boycott the next meeting of the UN. Members of the Alliance include Antigua and Barbuda, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Saint Lucia.

“The US cannot be allowed to continue with its policy of intimidation and blockading presidential flights,” stressed Morales.

The Venezuelan government announced on Thursday that President Nicolas Maduro’s plane had been denied entry into Puerto Rican (US) airspace.

“We have received the information from American officials that we have been denied travel over its airspace,” Venezuelan Foreign Minister Elias Jaua said, speaking to reporters during an official meeting with his South African counterpart. Jaua decried the move “as yet another act of aggression on the part of North American imperialism against the government of the Bolivarian Republic.”

President Maduro was due to arrive in Beijing this weekend for bilateral talks with the Chinese government. Jaua was adamant that the Venezuelan leader would reach his destination, regardless of any perceived interference.

The US government has not yet made any statement regarding the closing of its airspace to the Venezuelan presidential plane. Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory of the US.

Relations on the rocks

Washington’s relations with Latin America have deteriorated since the beginning of the year following the aerial blockade that forced Bolivian President Evo Morales’ plane to land in Austria in July. Several EU countries closed their airspace to the presidential jet because of suspicions that former CIA employee Edward Snowden - wanted in the US on espionage charges - was on board. Bolivia alleged that the US was behind the aerial blockade.

In response to the incident, Latin American leaders joined together in condemnation of what they described as “neo-colonial intimidation.”

Later in the year, the revelations on the US’ global spy network released by Edward Snowden did little to improve relations. Leaked wires revealed that the National Security Agency (NSA) had monitored the private communications of both the Brazilian and Mexican presidents.

The Brazilian government denounced the NSA surveillance as “impermissible and unacceptable,” and a violation of Brazilian sovereignty. As a result of US spying Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has postponed a state visit to Washington in October.

No-Fly Zone: Venezuelan president denied US airspace

Venezuela's President has accused the U.S. of refusing to provide visas for a delegation going to the UN next week. Nicolas Maduro was also apparently refused permission to fly through American airspace to get to China. Venezuela's Foreign Ministry said these incidents were an act of aggression and a violation of international law.

RT's Marina Portnaya reports

Update:

Venezuela’s Maduro granted permission to fly over US after scandal

RT,

20 September, 2013

The US granted approval for a last-minute flight plan which allowed Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to fly over Puerto Rico on his way to China. Venezuela’s FM earlier told media an aircraft carrying Maduro was denied a path over the commonwealth.

Washington told Caracas Thursday night that permission was granted even though the request had not been properly submitted, Reuters cites State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf as saying.

Maduro tweeted at around 10:30 pm local time (0300 GMT) Thursday that he had left Venezuela for Beijing.

Earlier in the day, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Elias Jaua told media the aircraft carrying Maduro to China was forced to find an alternate flight path. Jaua  denounced the act as “an act of aggression.”

“We have received the information from American officials that we have been denied travel over its airspace,” Jaua said, speaking to reporters during an official meeting with his South African counterpart.

“We denounce this as yet another aggression on the part of North American imperialism against the government of the Bolivarian Republic,” he added.

"No one can deny airspace to a plane carrying a president on an international state visit."

There is “no valid argument” for denying travel through American airspace, Jaua said, adding that he expected the US to rectify the situation.

Harf said Venezuela did not follow proper steps in its flyover request, having given just one day’s notice instead of the mandatory three.

"Additionally, the plane in question was not a state aircraft, which is required for a diplomatic clearance," she said in a statement.

"Although the request was not properly submitted, US authorities worked with Venezuelan officials at the Venezuelan Embassy to resolve the issue. US authorities made an extraordinary effort to work with relevant authorities to grant overflight approval in a matter of hours," Harf said.

President Maduro is due to arrive in Beijing this weekend for bilateral talks with the Chinese government. Jaua was adamant that the Venezuelan leader would reach his destination, regardless of any perceived interference.

The incident is the latest diplomatic spat to take place between the United States and Venezuela, who have clashed regularly since Maduro took office in April.  

In July, the Venezuelan president announced that his government was halting attempts to improve relations with the US. The move was in response to comments made by the newly appointed US Ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, who told a Senate committee that her new role would include challenging the “crackdown on civil society” abroad, including in Venezuela. 

Relations under former President Chavez had been acrimonious, as he had long held suspicions that the US had actively intervened on behalf of an attempted coup in 2002. Since his election in April, President Maduro has often made pointed criticisms at alleged US interference in Venezuelan affairs. 

Bolivian President Evo Morales, whose own plane was grounded this summer allegedly due to suspicions by US authorities that the aircraft was transporting whistleblower Edward Snowden, said that ALBA bloc nations should consider a boycott of the upcoming UN General Assembly in New York as a response.

"We cannot accept that the US carries on with politics of intimidation and the prohibition of flights by presidents," said Morales, adding that the latest incident "demonstrates the country's predisposition to humiliate other governments" and commit crimes against other nations.   

Dispute over visas ahead of UN summit

The Venezuelan President also spoke of attempts by the US to set  “conditions” on a visa issued to General Wilmer  Barrientos, one of Maduro’s ministers who is slated to attend  meetings during the UN General Assembly next week.

"They want to put conditions, if we decide to go to New  York...They don't want to give a visa to my  minister," said Maduro. "Do we want to go as  tourists? We're going to the United Nations. You're obligated to  give visas to all the delegation."

Appearing via the television network TeleSUR on Thursday, Maduro  indicated that he had directed his foreign minister, Elías Jaua,  and Venezuela’s Ambassador to the UN, Samuel Moncada, to  “activate all mechanisms” in reference to the visa  dispute.

“US, you are not the UN’s owner. The UN will have to move out  of New York,” remarked Maduro.

He warned that if he has to take “measures” against the government of the US, he would be prepared to take “the most drastic measures necessary” to ensure Venezuelan sovereignty.

Brazil announces plans to leave US-centered internet

Classwarfareexists,

18 September, 2013

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff is angry at the United States. After revelations that the NSA has intercepted the president’s communications, hacked into the state-owned Petrobras oil company’s network (an act of industrial espionage), and spied on the personal data of Brazilians held by US tech companies, this leader is ready to take a stand and demand greater Brazilian online independence and security.

The NSA program, dubbed Bullrun, took 10 years to crack the web’s encryption technologies, before finally reaching a breakthrough in 2010 that made “vast amounts” of previously unreadable data accessible. Perhaps more worryingly, the NSA has an ongoing program to place backdoors in commercial products (websites, routers, encryption programs, etc.) to enable easy snooping on encrypted communications. 

The documents outline a three-pronged plan to ensure the NSA can access the bulk of the internet’s encrypted traffic: Influencing the development of new encryption standards to introduce weaknesses, using supercomputers to break encryption, and collaborating with ISPs and tech companies to gain backdoor access. [source]

These disturbing revelations from Edward Snowden have prompted action from the Brazilian president: Rouseff cancelled  her upcoming high profile state trip to Washington, described as a “slap in the face” to President Obama and a sign of diminished US prestige. Now Rousseff  is ready to push for a whole new way for Brazil to connect to the Internet, one that excludes the US as much as possible, while she plans to denounce US cyberespionage in her speech at the UN this month and push for international rules on privacy and security in hardware and software. However, the Associated Press report identifies this move as the potentially dangerous first step towards the political fracturing of the global network of the Internet…at least according to American experts

President Rousseff has come out with the following initiatives as she seeks to protect Brazilian’s personal data from the indiscriminate (and discriminating) spying of the NSA:

- US-based web services will be allowed, but their data must be stored locally; Rousseff has urged the Brazilian Congress to compel Facebook, Google, and other US companies to store all data generated by Brazilians on servers physically located inside Brazil

- lay fibre optic cables to connect Brazil directly to Europe, thus bypassing the US for internet traffic

- create a network of South American nations free of US eavesdropping

-  build more internet exchange points in order to route Brazilians’ traffic away from potential interception

-  push for international rules on privacy and security in hardware and software (one of the Snowden revelations was the back doors created by the NSA into software and web-based services)

But what does all of this mean for the Internet and the tech industry? Well, according to the AP, many experts are concerned that this could set the Internet on a course of Balkanization, where national privacy and sovereignty concerns created bottlenecks which interfere with the operation of the Internet, especially in the crucial areas of international searching and communication.

“The global backlash is only beginning and will get far more severe in coming months,” said Sascha Meinrath, director of the Open Technology Institute at the Washington-based New America Foundation think tank. “This notion of national privacy sovereignty is going to be an increasingly salient issue around the globe.”

While Brazil isn’t proposing to bar its citizens from U.S.-based Web services, it wants their data to be stored locally as the nation assumes greater control over Brazilians’ Internet use to protect them from NSA snooping.

The danger of mandating that kind of geographic isolation, Meinrath said, is that it could render inoperable popular software applications and services and endanger the Internet’s open, interconnected structure.

While these concerns center around the lost of openness and interconnectivity of the Internet that would happen if every country had its own servers, its own internet exchange points, and its own networks, there are also warnings of the impact on individual users, particularly around their access to information.

U.S. digital security expert Bruce Schneier says that while Brazil’s response is a rational reaction to NSA spying, it is likely to embolden “some of the worst countries out there to seek more control over their citizens’ Internet. That’s Russia, China, Iran and Syria.”

Well. I’m sure that digital security experts are truly concerned about the plight of people in Russia, China, Iran, Syria….and more, rather than the bottom line of Silicon Valley if this movement hits them with lost business and higher operating costs. But really, no matter how “free” they declare the Internet to be in the US, it is…monitored. And not even free. What about the government censorship that happens every day as YouTube and Google are ordered by the US government to remove content…while providing personal information about the users? The NSA has also declared that its goal is “for the US to maintain unrestricted access to and use of cyberspace,” which means that they are not going to stop trying to access and surveil systems around the world.

International spies, not just from the United States, also will adjust, experts said. Laying cable to Europe won’t make Brazil safer, they say. The NSA has reportedly tapped into undersea telecoms cables for decades.

Mr. Meinrath and others argue that what’s needed instead are strong international laws that hold nations accountable for guaranteeing online privacy.

“There’s nothing viable that Brazil can really do to protect its citizenry without changing what the US is doing,” he said.

It seems like President Rousseff has exactly the right idea; she’s going to push for better rules at the United Nations, and hopefully she succeeds, but UN resolutions are not a clear substitute for having systems in place that prevent data interception in the first place. The NSA may soon regret the day that it killed the golden goose of open internet data communication.