Can Brazil break away from the American web?

Brazil is spending $185 million to separate itself from the American web.

The country's new undersea data cable will allow a direct data channel to Portugal, out of reach of the US or the UK spy agencies, and establishing the country as one of the fiercest opponents of global surveillance. It's a huge undertaking, both politically and financially, but the implications for the Internet could be even greater. By this logic, the Internet isn't international anymore: it's American. It's American companies running data through US-made routers, and it's vulnerable to secret orders from US courts. And if Brazil wants to change that, they have to build a new Internet from the ground up.