One of the commissioners of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the country’s regulatory body for the sector, sent a letter this Thursday (5) to the president of the National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel), Carlos Manuel Baigorri, asking for a meeting on the decisions of the Minister of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) Alexandre de Moraes to suspend X and block accounts and assets of Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite division, in Brazil, as well as on the actions of the Brazilian agency on the matter.
Brendan Carr, one of the four commissioners leading the FCC (which also has a chairwoman, Jessica Rosenworcel), posted the statement he sent to Baigorri on his X profile. The post was accessed by People’s Gazette from a connection outside Brazil.
In the document, Carr highlighted the partnership between the two agencies, but stated that he felt “compelled to address” with the president of Anatel “the cascade of apparently illegal and partisan political actions that his agency has been carrying out against companies with ties to the United States, including its own threat to withdraw Starlink’s licenses and authorizations to operate in Brazil”.
“These punitive actions — publicly supported by the Lula administration — are already having a wide impact and undermining confidence in the stability and predictability of Brazil’s regulated markets,” Carr wrote.
In compliance with Moraes’ order, which suspended X in Brazil due to the company’s refusal to appoint a legal representative in the country, Anatel began notifying telephone operators last weekend to block access to the platform.
Starlink, which has billionaire Elon Musk, owner of X, as its main shareholder, initially said it would not comply with the order, but later backtracked.
“Anatel is now actively enforcing a widely criticized decision by Judge Moraes to censor X that, according to government officials in Brazil, violates Brazil’s own Constitution and their country’s statutory prohibitions against government censorship,” Carr said.
“To make matters worse, Judge Moraes decided to enforce his decision by freezing Starlink’s assets — even though Starlink is a separate company with different shareholders that did not violate any laws,” he said, citing Moraes’ freezing of the company’s accounts and assets so that Musk would pay fines imposed on X for failing to comply with orders to suspend profiles and content on the social network.
“Judge Moraes has failed to respect the universal and basic principles of transparency, fair notice and due process. In fact, it has now been revealed that Judge Moraes has been sending secret orders to social media companies to censor the political posts of elected members of Brazil’s Congress,” added the commissioner, who alleged that the Supreme Court Justice’s decisions would disregard the Brazilian Constitution, “which expressly prohibits ‘any and all censorship of a political, ideological and artistic nature’, as well as other provisions of Brazilian law that further guarantee freedom of expression.”
“Therefore, I am requesting a meeting with you to address and resolve these issues. If you prefer, I will meet with you in Brazil to do so,” Carr concluded.
Brendan Carr is the senior Republican at the FCC and was appointed to the agency by Presidents Donald Trump (2017-2021) and Joe Biden, and has been unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate three times.
Over the weekend, on X itself, Carr had questioned the suspension of the social network in Brazil and classified Moraes’ decision as “Orwellian”.
THE People’s Gazette asked the presidency of Anatel for a position on the letter, but has not yet received a response from the press office.
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