Elon Musk-controlled satellite internet provider Starlink has told Brazil’s telecom regulator Anatel it will not comply with a court order to block social media platform X in the country until its local accounts are unfrozen.
Anatel confirmed the information to Reuters on Monday after its head Carlos Baigorri told Globo TV it had received a note from Starlink, which has more than 200,000 customers in Brazil, and passed it onto Brazil’s top court.
Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes last week ordered all telecom providers in the country to shut down X, which is also owned by billionaire Musk, for lacking a legal representative in Brazil.
The move also led to the freezing of Starlink’s bank accounts in Brazil. Starlink is a unit of Musk-led rocket company SpaceX. The billionaire responded to the account block by calling Moraes a “dictator.”
That’s a nice fantasy but no. You can’t sit in international waters while operating inside a national area and be immune to their laws. This isn’t a playground and they aren’t 10 year olds yelling, “I’m not touching you.”
Again we know this because ships have absolutely been detained, raided, and sunk in international waters. You cannot just commit crimes and expect a lack of jurisdiction to protect you.
You can’t do that for the same reason you can’t sit in a corner of the oval office. It’s a contradiction of terms. An oxymoronic proposition.
Starlink isn’t operating inside a national area. Low earth orbit is not a national area.
Yes, ships have been sunk in international waters by national governments. Those are acts of war.
Sigh. I’m done here, again. You’ve again just settled into repeating something ridiculous. Americans and their property don’t have some special protection just for being American. If you want to pretend everything is an act of war and it’s impossible to operate at a distance you can do so elsewhere with someone else.
Strawman. Never claimed they did. Everything I said is valid for any person of any nationality. Shooting down a Chinese satellite is an act of war against China. Shooting down one of Brazil’s dozen satellites is an act of war against Brazil, even if it is over the United States at the time.
Brazil does not have any authority to shoot down any satellites but it’s own. To do so is an act of war.
Operating at a distance is, indeed, possible, but at a distance, legal compliance is not obligatory. Starlink doesn’t have to follow Brazil’s laws any more than it does North Korea’s. Brazil can take legal action against its citizens if it prohibits them from using Starlink services. But it can’t take action against Starlink itself, except through diplomatic channels or with Starlink’s consent, because Starlink is not operating within Brazilian jurisdiction.
I don’t know why you keep insisting that a company operating outside of Brazil needs to follow Brazilian law. Brazilian customers of that company need to follow Brazilian law, but the company is not obligated, regardless of what Brazil thinks about it.
Same thing with the GDPR. Yeah, they’ll fine the European division of a company based on the company’s worldwide revenue, but if the company has no European division to fine, European regulators can piss up a rope, regardless of whether the company is based in the US or Brazil.