Brazil is continuing to spearhead a very public anti-NSA (National Security Agency) movement, with President Dilma Rousseff revealing more details on Twitter about the launch of a national secure e-mail.

"This measure is [the first part of enlarging the] privacy and inviolability of official messages," wrote Rousseff (according to Google Translate). "We must secure messaging to prevent possible espionage."

Rousseff went on to say that Serpro, the Brazilian federal data processing service, would deploy the new system, designed to protect all official government correspondence.

Since early September, when Rio-based Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald revealed that the NSA had been spying on Brazilian government emails, Rousseff has not hesitated in making her feelings clear about the diplomatic betrayal.

With the reveal, Greenwald showed the world that far from US intelligence being "focused, above all, on finding the information that's necessary to protect our people and, in many cases, protect our allies," as President Obama put it during an August press conference, the NSA program stretches to commercial espionage, apparently for US financial gain.

According to Greenwald, Snowden shared documentation with the Guardian that proved the NSA spied not only on Rousseff's private correspondence, her Internet history, and e-mails between her aides, but also on ordinary Brazilian citizens and the country's commercial interests, including Brazilian energy company Petrobras' dealings. The latter has since announced it will invest $9.5 billion over the next five years in protecting its privacy. The leaks also showed that Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto's correspondence was watched and that Canada's spy agency had monitored activity surrounding Brazil's Mine and Energy Ministry.

Immediately after the revelations, the idea of a national e-mail system was floated by the Brazilian government. It had already been working on a national equivalent to services such as Gmail, but in the aftermath of the Snowden leaks, the country announced it would extend the encrypted service. For more on the relative pros and cons of a national Internet service—a proposal that, when floated by other governments, has generally been met with distrust—read Wired.co.uk's September report here.

Obama's August words, "I want to make clear, once again, that America is not interested in spying on ordinary people," along with the snarky kick-to-the-global-gut, "we show a restraint that many governments around the world don't even think to do" were understandably tough to swallow after these revelations. And Rousseff has fought back with more ferocity than perhaps any other nation, taking action rather than floating platitudes.

Speaking to the United Nations at the end of September, weeks after the revelations, she said: "Without the right of privacy, there is no real freedom of speech or freedom of opinion, and so there is no actual democracy. Without respect for [a nation's] sovereignty, there is no basis for proper relations among nations. Those who want a strategic partnership cannot possibly allow recurring and illegal action to go on as if they were an ordinary practice."

The future of Internet governance

Meanwhile, on October 7, a conglomerate of representatives from bodies seeking to monitor the development and growth of the Internet, from the non-profit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers to the World Wide Web Consortium, released a statement on the "Future of Internet Cooperation," announcing its concerns over "the undermining of the trust and confidence of internet users globally due to recent revelations of pervasive monitoring and surveillance." It called for the "globalization of ICANN and IANA functions, towards an environment in which all stakeholders, including all governments, participate on an equal footing."

Both ICANN and IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) are US-based organizations, with the latter founded by the US government and responsible for overseeing global IP address allocation and other administrative duties that keep the web running smoothly. The call by the ten organizations makes it clear there is a drive to break down US dominance of Internet controls, many of which are overseen purely by the US Commerce Department. One day after the statement was released, Fadi Chehadé, CEO of ICANN, met with Rousseff and called on her to "elevate her leadership to a new level, to ensure that we can all get together around a new model of governance in which all are equal."

Rousseff stepped up to the challenge and shortly after announced Brazil would host "an international summit of government, industry, civil society, and academia" on the topic of internet governance in April 2014.

"The trust in the global Internet has been punctured, and now it's time to restore this trust through leadership and institutions that can make that happen," commented Chehadé, explaining Rousseff's suitability for the leadership role in this domain by referring to her UN address: "She expressed the world's interest to actually find out how we are going to all live together in this new digital age."

Senators heading the Comissão Parlamentar de Inquérito, organized in the aftermath of the NSA revelations, last week called on Greenwald to divulge more details on the surveillance program, suggesting it might seize the papers if it could not arrange for an interview with Edward Snowden. Greenwald was understandably reluctant, and it looks more likely a teleconferencing session might be held.

Meanwhile Brazil Communications Minister Paulo Bernardo has announced he's looking into making it a legal requirement for all data exchanges in Brazil to be made using locally produced equipment.

US-Brazil trade and energy issues were debated by the nations' respective leaders as recently as April, several months before the extent of Prism was made public. Then, President Obama said "we think that we can cooperate closely on a whole range of energy projects together," after praising its South American partner for its "extraordinary progress" in becoming "not only a leading voice in the region, but also a leading voice in the world." Obama might be rueing the day he acknowledged the nation's strength and global influence.

This story originally appeared on Wired UK.