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.”
This is just plain incorrect in any jurisdiction of which I’m aware.
If you own a house in suburbia, then you have a “title” which “entitles” you to certain rights within the boundaries described on set title. These rights will vary by jurisdiction but they’re things like the right to erect fences, erect structures, control access, contain livestock, and quietly enjoy that area.
The concept of “owning” land merely means owning that title and the rights it confers.
Your title will not grant you any rights as regards, for example, air traffic passing over the property in question.
A classic example of this dynamic is mining rights. The specifics will vary a lot by jurisdiction, but generally a title holder does not have any rights as regards the minerals located below their property. In many cases this might be moot, given that the only way to mine those minerals may be to buy the property and construct a mine. However it does present some interesting intricacies of the law. For example in Australia you may be authorised to access private property for the purposes of a mineral survey (using a metal detector …) but it’s a fairly fraught practice being “technically allowed” might be small comfort when faced with a shotgun.
Brazil does not have title to or otherwise control that part of the sky where Starlink operates its satellites.
You just used a lot of words to repeat what I said, while claiming I was incorrect.
The part where you said you own a little piece of earth down to the core, and up to space is incorrect.
The part where you said Brazil does not “have title” to the sky implies a very limited understanding on your part.
Brazil is a sovereign nation, the bearer of the force from which these rights derive and the one who has the power to change them. Sovereign nations very famously have the right to control their airspace by force and while none have tested it I don’t doubt they can remove satellites from their low earth orbit if they give sufficient time to remove them.
The difference between musk and Brazil is that Brazil has an Air Force in addition to just a space program.
You really, really should doubt that. If we were talking about a handful of traditional communication satellites, I’d agree with you. The US military has demonstrated the capability of shooting down a couple satellites. But for what it costs, and in the time it takes to shoot down one satellite, Starlink can launch hundreds.
The idea of forcefully downing the Starlink constellation is well beyond the collective capability of every nation on the planet. Humanity does not have the ability to take direct, forceful action against that constellation. They can simply put them up faster than the rest of us can take them down.
No, the only way Brazil could even begin to try to impact Starlink would be by attempting to jam the RF spectrum in which it operates.
Ok, but then you can get into the diplomatic capacity. An American company is subverting the sovereign capacity of Brazil. Now, this is South America so it could go either way here, but this is an area where it’s reasonable to request the host country to stop this behavior or face strained relations.
And for the “they can put them up faster than we can take them down”, that’s absolutely true if we only take them down rather than stopping them from putting them up.
There you go: he is outside Brazilian law, but Brazil can call on the US to rein him in.
Brazil does not have the capacity to stop Starlink from putting up satellites.
But also what happens in Brazil and Brazilian airspace is recognized to be within Brazilian authority. Calling their bluff they won’t shoot it down may be correct but it’s also exactly the shit that gets Americans our bad reputation