The whole Google+Orkut+Brazil affair

Just read an article on Boing Boing by Bernardo commenting on Google's Orkut collaboration with Brazilian Police and what's seen as censorship.

I agree with most of it, but there's one point that bothers me: the article says that corporate bashing is illegal speech in Brazil. It's not. What's illegal is slander/libel, which by the way is illegal here in the US as well. You can say so and so sucks, but you can't say they eat little children (unless they do, of course).

I do agree, however, that giving the cops the key to shutting down any content they feel objectionable is a very bad idea and I'm convinced it immediately leads to censorship, which is a dangerous proposition in Brazil, considering the country only emerged from dictatorship 20 years or so ago.