Brazil to Try Ducking the NSA With New Satellite

Brazil was decidedly displeased when it learned that the NSA had been spying on its president, and it's sparing no expense in its response. The country is installing its own fiber-optic cables for direct-line communications with neighboring governments and urging officials to use a proprietary, secure email client, Reuters reports. Diplomats also suspect that Brazil specifically bought a new communications satellite from a French company, rather than a US or Japanese one, to avoid the NSA. It's set to be launched in 2016.

"Security has become a top concern," the head of Brazil's state-led telecom company admits, though he said price was the determining factor in choosing the satellite manufacturer. (Project's total cost: up to $650 million.) The cables, on the other hand, are a blatant attempt to avoid US networks. "The less your information travels around the world, the safer it will be," he says. Still, Brazil doesn't expect to evade Washington's prying eyes entirely. "Let's not kid ourselves," one Brazilian senator says. "However much we do, it will never be enough to stop US electronic surveillance, because today's technology is boundless." (More Brazil stories.)