The Brazilian congressional debates of the informatics laws

The paper forwards some initial conclusions taken from a research in progress on the controversies and debates which took place in the Brazilian Congress during the parliamentary proceedings for the approval of four laws (1984, 1991, 2001, 2004) about informatics activities in Brazil. Which were the issues at stake in order to build local and autonomously a Brazilian computer technology? Which issues “warmed up” the controversies and which ones “cooled” them, so enabling the final enactment of a new law? Whose voices were heard from the so called “civil society”? What had they to say and to what extent did they strengthen the law later approved? These questions can be answered either by setting up at the start which kinds of groups and interests will be focused on, or by following the actors´ own ways of forming and dismantling groups, the latter being the choice of the research. Another set of propositions is related to the comparison between the four debates in the Congress. Which issues did perform the enactment of four informatics laws in such a brief time? Which translations did bring about the proposition of a new policy later on? Which controversies did remain, which did renew, which did start, which groups were formed and which were dismantled in each new law enactment? These groups formation and dismantling leave many traces. The research is focused on the traces left by politicians along the parliamentary debates, mainly the documents where they are formally registered as also as the press coverage.