Stupid Decisions Court

The ban of X in Brazil, regardless of how the story ends, has already bestowed upon the current Supreme Federal Court (STF) the exceptional feat of having imposed the most sordid moment in the history of Brazilian justice. Can anyone, honestly and with rational arguments, cite another instance? This infamy, to become even more infamous, was conducted through a massive brainwashing operation. The court, in partnership with the government and its propaganda squads in the press, created the greatest piece of fiction ever presented to the public by national politics. They managed to spin their own disgrace as a heroic act of defending “democracy” against a foreign power, or some other nonsense of the same order.

The lynching of X in Brazil will go down in history as a case of judicial psychosis. What justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered—and was later endorsed by all the other justices in the STF—does not abide by any of the current Brazilian laws. Everything he did came from non-existent legislation and was forged in his own mind as demands to do something would come up. Is what I want outside the law? he thinks, Then, let’s use creativity to make it stay within it. From there, with the support of journalists, jurists interviewed by journalists, and STF militants, the justice’s dispatches turn into “court orders.” Illegalities then become imperatives and what is legal becomes a challenge to “justice.”

The progress of dementia rarely can be reversed over time. In the case of Moraes’ war against X, violating the law the first time led to violating it again a second time, then a third, and so on—until we reached the point where we are today, the point where the STF’s serial illegality has turned into an insult to reason, morality, and the natural order of things. With its latest insanity outburst, our Supreme Court has matched evil geniuses such as Dr. Sivana and Lex Luthor, who want to take control of the universe. It’s really a comic book story: Alexandre Moraes and his plenary partners have forbidden 210 million Brazilians from using a technology available to the rest of humanity.

The Federal Police and inspector Paulo Gonet, along with their majesty the Public Prosecutor’s Office, are already hunting these new “enemies of democracy.” If they manage to catch anyone, Moraes will slap a R$50,000 fine on their back. This is what was said above: what was merely illegal is turning into an order from a lunatic Napoleon. It’s the general principle by which one madness inevitably leads to another, in a chain reaction that will only stop when the raw material that such madnesses are made of runs out. In his first “court order,” justice Moraes has banned more than 20 million Brazilians from expressing themselves through X—including those who, accounting for 90% of all subscribers, would only use it make small talk or ask for the dismissal of Tite, Flamengo’s football coach.

Since his knowledge of technology stands between nada and absolute zero (see detailed report in this edition of Oeste), he did not foresee that the ban could be made ineffective with the use of VPN, a mechanism that can be activated in seconds by any digital illiterate. Moraes then—with the unwavering applause of the friendly media—decided to go after those who use or could use VPN. Bottom line: Brazil’s STF, in the very heart of the 21st century, makes it a crime to use a technological resource, like electric light, chest tomography, or a pressure cooker. It’s as if Brazil were in Nazi Germany, where the Gestapo jailed anyone listening to BBC radio broadcasts—even if it was a Mozart concert.

Of course, no one can use any tool to commit a crime. But using VPN to read a chicken recipe or write about the minimum wage in Austria is not a crime under any Brazilian law; something similar can only be seen in North Korea. Someone must have reminded justice Moraes and the journalists at his service that the R$50,000 fine for using VPN was sheer stupidity: how to punish someone who used X via VPN, say, to praise the government? It’s true that logic hasn’t been able to prevent Moraes and his STF colleagues from condemning people who committed no crime—like the ones who used slingshots to “stage a coup” on the January 8 protest. However, in the case of VPN, even the justices themselves thought the ban and fine were way too much.

Moraes then issued an amendment—and, as the General Law of Stupid Decisions provides, it turned out worse than the original order. Nothing was fixed: it was just a written admission of incompetence. In his new instructions to the Brazilian and global public, the justice lowered the bar and explained that only those who used VPN in an “extreme” way would be fined. This means we are now caught up in the complete chaos into which Brazil’s legal order has turned.

What the hell does “extreme” mean? It’s either legal or illegal; there’s no such thing as “extremely illegal,” as there’s no adjective or adverb in the law used to express opinions. There is no crime without a law that determines it as such; thus, there is no penalty without a crime. There is no law prohibiting the “extreme” use of VPN or anything else. Therefore, no one can be punished by Moraes’ decree.

The “VPN law” is just the latest chapter in this legal horror story; when you think Moraes has crossed the finish line, he sprints again and just keeps going. The justice started this run long ago by ordering X to censor authors of posts he accuses of being “anti-democratic,” or traffickers of fake news, or spreaders of “hate” and the rest of the litany—not only for what those people have already written but for what they might write in the future. The order goes against articles 5 and 220 of the Federal Constitution, and therefore, X refused to comply. Immediately, without their lawyers being able to say a single syllable in defense of the client’s attitude, Moraes slapped an R$18 million fine on the platform.

Moreover, he threatened to arrest the company’s president—and God knows who else—, which led X, as expected, to close its offices in Brazil to avoid that any of its employees ended up in jail. The justice then demanded that Elon Musk, the company’s owner, immediately appointed a new president for X in Brazil. But how could he do that, and who would accept the job if they could be arrested five minutes after taking office? As no one was appointed, and Moraes then pulled out the red card: he ordered Anatel (National Telecommunications Agency) to block X’s operation in Brazil. What immediately followed was an insurmountable conundrum from the most elementary legality standpoint.

The justice’s main claim was that a series of people were using X to attack democracy, among other things. But the platform was being used by at least 20 million citizens who were not accused of anything by Moraes, or indicted in any of his perpetual police inquiries, or part of any judicial procedure, whether legal or illegal, led by him. Nor could they be, not even in the Brazil ruled by the STF. In the real world, 40% of all posts on X were about sports. Another 20% were about Big Brother Brasil. Less than 10% discussed politics—among which only the profiles Moraes wanted to take down were formally accused of something. So, how can all these people be punished for a crime none of them has been even accused of?

It’s Stone Age justice, but that’s basically what the STF has reduced Brazil’s judicial system to. Moraes and his colleagues rule the country backed by the police and armed forces and reliant on a government that is on its last legs, without people, without a majority in Congress, without votes, and bankrupt. In the general disorder created around X, the justice publicly displayed the feat of surpassing himself. When they thought he had done about all sorts of things, he raised the bar and confiscated bank deposits of Starlink, also headed by Musk, to pay the fines imposed on X—something like ordering bank Itaú to cover obligations of Alpargatas (manufacturer of the famous Havaianas flip flops). Aren’t they from the same “economic group”? To complete his work, now Moraes has criminalized the use of VPN in an “extreme” way, whatever this means.

Each of these aberrations was applauded by the press—edited by Secom (Social Communication Secretariat)—as acts of “rigorous punishment” to the “far-right Bolsonarists,” defense of “national sovereignty” and the maintenance of an uncompromising stance in law enforcement. The president of the Supreme Court, Luís Roberto Barroso, in turn, reiterates that there is nothing to complain about since everything Alexandre de Moraes did was to enforce legal decisions. “Simple as that,” he said in his last Epistle to the Americans, recently circulated in New York. Emperor Caligula, as is generally known, appointed his horse Incitatus to a seat in the Roman Senate. The Barrosos of that time agreed it was a “legal act”—just like today’s Barrosos think Nicolás Maduro being elected by the Venezuelan Supreme Court was also a “legal act.” Moraes determined it. Case closed.

The condemnation of X by the STF is one of those disasters that insurance companies describe as a “total loss.” The true condemnation was never to X and even less to Elon Musk—for whom R$18 million is pocket change to be given away at the church door. It was also not to the adversaries on Moraes’ blacklist who can be pursued by his inquiries and his police until Judgment Day. The ones actually punished were the 20 million Brazilians who used X to express themselves—and never did any harm to Moraes, Barroso, or the state-controlled journalists.

As for the justice himself, nothing in this story points to a happy ending. If no changes come up, this will be the story of the legal savagery described in this article. If X returns after meeting the STF’s demands, as the current regime expects, it will be said that Moraes bent Musk’s spine, that “the billionaire” had to back down, and that Brazil is not a no man’s land. But what Moraes really wanted was to remove from X’s public square the citizens who were there to express themselves; these are his enemies —always have been and always will be. If he doesn’t achieve such goal, he will have lost the battle— “simple as that,” as justice Barroso would say. Even simpler is the fact that Alexandre de Moraes is probably betting on red in a roulette that only has black. He sees himself as capable of regulating technology advancements by calling the Federal Police, giving orders to Anatel, and signing dispatches in his office. But outside the STF bubble, where today his focus is entirely on Elon Musk, there will always be someone inventing something like VPN, or better than VPN, to render his repression useless—whereas he himself will never be able to invent anything. In the long run, or perhaps even sooner, this is a defeat foretold.