Brazil's Strategy to Evade the NSA Involves Buying a New Satellite

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff Eraldo Peres/AP

U.S. intelligence has collected Brazilian emails, phone calls, and texts in bulk.

Brazil will buy a new satellite and build its own fiber-optic cable to try and avoid the bulk collection of their country's communications by the NSA. The country learned from stories sourced to Edward Snowden's NSA leaks that U.S. intelligence was collecting the emails, phone calls, and texts of its citizens in bulk, including those of its president Dilma Rousseff

The country's plans also include directing its officials to use secure email platforms, might not sound as secure from the NSA as once believed. Except the platform being pushed the hardest on government employes is the open-source-based Expresso, which could make it at least harder for the NSA to access. The new email security is also the least expensive of Brazil's new plans. According to Reuters, the country will drop $600 million to $650 million for a new satellite to relay much of the government's communications, including those of its military. The satellite will be built in France. Currently, they're using a privately owned satellite that provides the country with little control over its security. And plans to expand fiber-optic connections to nearby countries for international communications are similarly expensive. 

Read the full story at TheAtlanticWire.com.