What if Dilma Rousseff walked into the headquarters of Google.br, put up a "Under New Ownership" sign and announced that in the interests of Brazilian national sovereignty Google Brazil was being nationalized? One thing that would happen, Sergei Brin--and Barack Obama--would assume the positions of that gent in yesterday's painting. What if Angela Merkel did the same thing with Google.de?
There was a time when such things were done! There was a time, before the earth was flat, before free trade agreements, when a nationalist revolution meant that the utilities and key industries of a country were simply expropriated from their foreign owners, nationalized. Nasser did it to the Suez Canal, Castro did it to the sugar industry, Allende did it to Kennecott Copper.
The United States government has used the world's trust to have the internet industry essentially headquartered in America. The US government then took advantage of that centralization to invade other countries by bugging their embassies--sovereign foreign territory--and intercepting the private communications of their leaders. It's not a violation of American law to bug foreigners, see? If Google and the other communications utilities were nationalized it would be a violation of the laws of those countries, Brazil, Germany, whomever.
President Rousseff has indicated she wants to break the grip of the US-centric internet. The European Union was deeply concerned--even before the revelations of NSA perfidy--over Google's power and privacy invasions. The EU is outraged now. A world less flat, a world with more hills to break up the run of the state's fiat, more (trade) barriers to multi-national corporations-that world would be less "US-centric." NSA spying would be hampered, Google would be restrained, the American economy, the engine of its worldwide influence, would take a hit. Here's to that world. Don't compromise, nationalize.
There was a time when such things were done! There was a time, before the earth was flat, before free trade agreements, when a nationalist revolution meant that the utilities and key industries of a country were simply expropriated from their foreign owners, nationalized. Nasser did it to the Suez Canal, Castro did it to the sugar industry, Allende did it to Kennecott Copper.
The United States government has used the world's trust to have the internet industry essentially headquartered in America. The US government then took advantage of that centralization to invade other countries by bugging their embassies--sovereign foreign territory--and intercepting the private communications of their leaders. It's not a violation of American law to bug foreigners, see? If Google and the other communications utilities were nationalized it would be a violation of the laws of those countries, Brazil, Germany, whomever.
President Rousseff has indicated she wants to break the grip of the US-centric internet. The European Union was deeply concerned--even before the revelations of NSA perfidy--over Google's power and privacy invasions. The EU is outraged now. A world less flat, a world with more hills to break up the run of the state's fiat, more (trade) barriers to multi-national corporations-that world would be less "US-centric." NSA spying would be hampered, Google would be restrained, the American economy, the engine of its worldwide influence, would take a hit. Here's to that world. Don't compromise, nationalize.
