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I'm a client of Bradesco, a popular bank in Brazil. I've chosen to migrate my account to a digital account called "Bradesco Prime Digital". The main communication channel with my account manager is WhatsApp, so he can take the day off.

I'm also selling my house and I'm pretty sure that every Real Estate agents in São Paulo use WhatsApp as the main communication channel. So no visits today.

I was having a conversation with the pediatrician of my children, so no answers today on what to do with my baby vomiting. It's not so serious to make a call, but it was fine to send a message.

My mother is 63 and sends WhatsApp messages every day to me, so no mommy messages today.

Well, it's not all that bad... I think today may be a very productive day for me.

After reading this and other messages like this, I feel like I'm living on a bubble. I hardly ever use whatsapp and didn't know it was so widely used by everyone around me.

Seems to me like it might be WhatsApp that's on a power trip. What would an American judge do if WhatsApp were to ignore a lawful subpoena?

> What would an American judge do if WhatsApp were to ignore a lawful subpoena?

Fine WhatsApp. Not compel all telcos to block it...

Contempt of court in the U.S. escalates considerably beyond fines if the company doesn't start complying quickly. The court can jail the company's officers, issue an injunction forcing them to stop doing business, instruct customs to blockade them at the U.S. border (in the case of companies selling physical goods), and a range of other things.

Yes, that's all true.

But they don't compel third parties to block the company's app.

That's when it's a US company if it's foreign it will end up on the US trade department sanction list which will blacklist them world wide not only in the US and will prevent any entity which operates in the US from doing any sort of business with them.

There is nothing that a Brazilian judge can do to whatsapp other than to harm them financially cutting off 100m users even in a developing market sends a clear sign.

Two wrongs make a right?

Where is the wrong here? When company does not cooperate you force it to do so by any means available to you.

"any means" is a slippery slope

>When company does not cooperate you force it to do so by any means available to you.

Some people don't consider this "might makes right" morally compelling.

This isn't might makes right this is a corporation pissing over laws, if this was some oil company killing seals would you respond in the same manner?

WhatsApp provides a service in a country, they gain direct financial benefit from almost 100M users, they received a subpoena and ignored it because it's Brazil, if this would've been a European nation they would most likely have complied, if it were a US court order they would for sure have complied.

The only "might makes right" here is WhatsApp ignoring the subpoena because they are an almighty multi billion dollar US company which thinks it's above the law. And on the other side we know that there's pretty much no company on the planet that would dare to defy a US subpoena or court order.

Should only US and "western" nation's legal systems be respected? Is this some how morally compelling to you?

Things should be taken into consideration, a "confidential" investigation that closes an service used by millions of citizens is highly controversial. They don't do the same to any Telecom company, so that's very suspicious.

A spilling of oil is not controversial. It's damage made by a company accidentally and that is causing great environmental damage.

The Brazilian government has the power to ask try to enforce their legislation, but asking other companies to close the service should be the last thing they do. And if necessary, they should close the service completely, 48h is pure nonsense. They should arrest representatives before closing the service. this is nonsense. Also, the reasons are all confidential, so we can't even know it they are justifiable. This is manipulative, not transparent, and very keen to a dictatorship.

Lastly. Brazil is a "western" nation...

Subpoena is a subpoena, most wire taps and telecom subpoenas are confidential you can't really have your target knowing that you are tapping them can you?

No where did i mentioned spilling of oil it's just an example if an energy company doesn't want to cooperate with the government it's perfectly legitimate to order your energy sector to stop importing oil from them this happens quite often. Same goes for websites that violate laws like copyright which are blocked by ISP's.

The Brazilian government has no power over WhatsApp and WhatsApp knows this very well this is why they've utterly ignored them, this isn't some civil rights issue WhatsApp cooperates with US and EU countries all the time this is they CBA because it's Brazil.

And lastly Brazil was part of the 3rd world during the Cold War and is a member of the Non-Aligned Movement so it's really not a western country.

a wiretap does not close the entire communication channel, does it? You used an analogy to the oil spillage, that would not result in the same impact for rhetoric purposes, but they are not similar.

The cold war ended. Look at "Modern Definitions": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_world#Modern_definitio...

For you "western" means "white and rich".

Again you are confusing what the subpoena was with what had to be done. When a company doesn't comply you force it, there is almost nothing that Brazil can do to WhatsApp other than to harm them financially and their only way to do so is to block them. The warrant was extreme yes but it also wasn't indefinite it was a warning shot, this would not have happened if WhatsApp would give the same amount of respect to Brazil as it does to N. American and European countries. But since Brazil isn't "white and rich" as you've so colorfully described they just pissed all over them. I really don't understand how can you argue for a corporation to piss all over the law. This isn't about privacy this is about respecting the legal framework of a nation which is one of the most important foundations of modern society, WhatsApp could as easily pissed over a law that protects your data as they pissed over a legal subpoena would you still go out of your way to defend them then?

Facebook has an office in Brazil. I don't really understand why they couldn't just levy financial penalties, since Facebook does actually have a business presence in the country.

WhatsApp and Facebook are still separate legal entities as far as i know, the subpoena was issued to WhatsApp it didn't comply they've issued a court order to block it in order to compel it to comply. If a US company would not comply to a court order, a US judge can prevent the company from operating at all by freezing all of their assets and halting all of their operations.

You're presuming that that Facebook office in Brazil actually has a lot of assets in Brazil to seize. It's likely that it's a shell organisation and has nothing to seize.

US government used coercion through unofficial back channels to force Amazon and Paypal to cutoff Wikileaks.

And that was the wrong approach to that "problem" as well

Why do you think it was the US government?

Fine WhatsApp? Really? In Another country, with another set of laws?!

Because you see that where? any US lawers suing let me see.. any russian company?

But its not a lawful subpoena.

What's app is a America n company, so it should only respond to American supoenas. Just as a American judge should not be able to order a Brazilian company to do anything before having it go though the Brazilian courts.

A Brazilian company with a presence in the US could absolutely be subject to a US court order without any court in Brazil needing to be involved. You don't get to dodge the laws of a country you're operating in just because your HQ is in some other country.

But whatsapp don't have a business presence in Brazil.

Just because they have users there is not the same as a business presence.

Does whatsapp make money from users in Brazil? Then yes, it has a business presence in Brazil.

No, that's not the international legal definition for a business presence.

My point is that Brazil should follow legal procedures and have a American judge issue a supena. That's what a MLAT is for.

They are following legal procedures. Brazilian ones, which are the only ones they have to care about. Why would they possibly care in the slightest what American courts have to say?

Because they want to enforce their law against a american company.

There are a reason many countries have MLAT's

Good point.

I suppose this could be a reason why they require a third party (the telcos) to block access to WhatsApp, as they are operating under Brazilian law.

They have paid users.

> What's app is a America n company, so it should only respond to American supoenas.

American exceptionalism and supremacy at work.

I am not American.

I expect it to work the other way around too. Brazilian companies should not respond to foreign subpoenas unless validated by Brazilian courts.

Does WhatsApp have any physical presence in Brazil? Did they incorporate any subsidiary there?

I don't know, but for the sake of argument, I think it's OK to say no.

If I have a website that is reachable on the internet that hosts a wiki and logs access, does that mean I am doing business in all countries that have internet access? Can any of their courts compel me to disclose visitors from their country? What if I refuse to provide visitor logs, is it OK for them to block my site at the border? What about to order a private teleco to block my site?

I have opinions, but I don't see any obvious answers one way or the other.

All the points you raised are legitimate but if WhatsApp or any other company has a physical presence in a certain country, that country authorities have the SOVEREIGN right to uphold the laws of the land and bring transgressors to justice and offering & guaranteeing them a fair trial.

It looks like you want to have your cake and eat it:

> If I have a website that is reachable on the internet that hosts a wiki and logs access, does that mean I am doing business in all countries that have internet access?

I'm guessing your answer to this question is "No". However, since you feel you are not doing business in Brazil (for example),then why complain when Brazil blocks your site? If your answer is "Yes" and you agree that you are in business in all countries, then you should be compelled to follow the laws of the countries whose populace are earning you wealth.

Morally and pragmatically, I feel that if you gain financial benefit from a country, you should follow their laws. If you find the laws unconscionable - refuse to do business there.

> What if I refuse to provide visitor logs, is it OK for them to block my site at the border? What about to order a private teleco to block my site?

That depends exclusively on the laws of the country in question, not on the laws of the country the offender is based on. That's what a sovereign state does, it determines its own rules.

It also says that, in a contained but nontrivial aspect of life, Brazil has given up its sovereignty to WhatsApp (and by transitive ownership, Facebook, and by transitive law enforcement, USA/NSA). And for various reasons, it is applying for a similar serf status at Telegram as we speak.

Think about it: Mark Zuckerberg can task his employees with an elaborate "find and replace" on all brazillian texts, replacing e.g. "sugar" with "salt", and it will just happen. Think that's improbable? Facebook has been toying with your emotions before [0]

[0] http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/02/facebook-a...

People voluntarily use WhatsApp because they consider it the best service. If it starts replacing "sugar" with "salt" I'm sure people will voluntarily start using something else. What should not happen is government force you to use something else.

Before, I was worried about facebook spying on me, but then I just asked all my friends to switch to spiderwizard (or whatever it's called) and now everything's fine.

Meanwhile, in reality...

. . . my friends didn't want to switch, so instead I simply stopped using Facebook and started using Telegram/email/SMS/IRC/any of a dozen other communication methods to talk with my friends?