A proposed new law that restricts the freedom internet use in Brazil has already passed the Senate and is dangerously close to going on the books. The law, created by Senator Azeredo PSDB, restricts things like open wifi networks, forces ISP’s to keep user information for 3 years and gives ISP’s the ‘green light’ to open and look at packages coming from P2P user’s connection to check for copyright violations, and the list goes on and on.

The Free Software movement from Brazil is striking up against this project and they have a petition online against it. The FSF from Latin America has released an announcement about it, the Free Software Project of Brasil (http://softwarelivre.org) is also covering the process and participating on the campaign against the law project from Azeredo. Known bloggers and advocates of free software in Brazil are also taking part, like Sérgio Amadeu (who used to be head of the IT Institute of Brazil’s Federal Government), who has blogged a lot about how the law could be interpreted and will affect the freedoms of internet users in Brazil.

It is quite of a big surprise to see such law coming from a government that has defended the use of Free Software, supported the Creative Commons license inside of its Ministry of Culture and promoted initiatives of digital inclusion and knowledge sharing. Hopefully, the proposed legislation will be blocked and internet users from Brazil will not have to be worry about being monitored by packet sniffing by ISP’s. Otherwise, Brazil will become one of the biggest users of TOR, a free software that provides anonymity online.