Abstract Snowden´s whistleblowing on the NSA program had a powerful impact in Brazil, prompting Dilma Rousseff´s administration to promote, at the United Nations, resolutions on Internet privacy, freedom of expression, as well as to host important multistakeholder conferences and, domestically, to approve the innovative legislation known as Marco Civil. These answers were only possible due to a network of officials and activists. However, Brazil´s global leadership in Internet governance is fragile, with many internal contradictions.