Brazil to probe telecom companies implicated in NSA spying
RT | September 4, 2013
Brazil will probe telecommunications companies to see if they illegally shared data with the NSA after it was found the US had been spying on President Rousseff. Brazil’s government has accused the US of lying about the NSA’s activities in the country.
In response to the revelations, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff called an emergency meeting of ministers. Following the meeting the government called on the National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel) to carry out checks on telecom companies based in Brazil to see if they collaborated with the NSA.
The Brazilian government denounced the NSA’s activities as “impermissible and unacceptable” and a violation of Brazilian sovereignty.
“[The US has] not given any reasonable explanations. In fact, all the explanations that have been given so far are false,” said Minister of Communications Paulo Bernardo.
The American ambassador to Brazil, Thomas Shannon, was summoned by the government to account for the reports of NSA snooping on Tuesday. He claimed the NSA does not monitor communications on Brazilian territory or collaborate with telecommunications companies.
Citing data leaked by Edward Snowden, Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald revealed on Sunday that the NSA had been monitoring both the Brazilian and Mexican presidents.
“It is clear in several ways that [Rousseff’s] communications were intercepted, including the use of DNI Presenter, which is a program used by NSA to open and read emails and online chats,” Greenwald told AP in an email.
Brazilian-US relations on rocks
In the wake of the new scandal Brazilian media is speculating whether the spy revelations will lead to a knee-jerk reaction from the Brazilian government and the cancelation of Dilma’s October visit to the States.
Citing a presidential spokesperson, Globo reporter Gerson Camarotti wrote that if a “satisfactory explanation” is not given by the Americans then Dilma “will not rule out canceling the visit.”
“There has to be a convincing explanation. If this doesn’t happen, the situation will become extremely delicate,” said the spokesperson.
US relations with Brazil have worsened considerably as a result of Edward Snowden’s leaks regarding the NSA’s massive spy network. Back in August, UK authorities detained Brazilian citizen David Miranda in a London airport over suspicions he was carrying leaked NSA data on behalf of his partner Glen Greenwald. UK law enforcement held Miranda for nine hours under the terrorist act and confiscated electronic equipment.
Brazil called Miranda’s detention without charges unjustifiable and called on the UK authorities to account for the move. Meanwhile Brazilian lawmakers have called for police protection for Greenwald and his partner.
Related articles
- BRICS to discuss US spying on Rousseff: Brazil (thebricspost.com)
- Brazilian Senate to probe NSA spying reports (thebricspost.com)
- Brazilian lawmakers call for police protection of Glenn Greenwald and his partner (rt.com)
Brazilian lawmakers call for police protection of Glenn Greenwald and his partner
RT | September 4, 2013
Lawmakers in Brazil have asked that American journalist Glenn Greenwald and his partner David Miranda receive protection from federal police, due to the importance of their testimony regarding an ongoing investigation of US spying practices.
On Tuesday, the Brazilian Senate began an official investigation into allegations that the National Security Agency (NSA) had been surveilling the country and even intercepted personal emails sent by President Dilma Rousseff.
Greenwald first broke the news of allegations that the NSA had been tapping Brazil’s communications several weeks ago, but a Sunday report aired on Globo TV made more pointed accusations that the Brazilian head of state had been targeted.
The American journalist’s reports of alleged NSA spying operations on South America – based on leaks provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden – have been making headlines in Brazil, based in large part on Greenwald’s column with O Globo newspaper.
Sunday’s revelations seemed to be a direct result of the extended detention of Miranda at London’s Heathrow Airport in mid-August. Miranda, a Brazilian national who lives in Rio de Janeiro with Greenwald, was held by officers for nine hours. His electronic equipment was confiscated by authorities. Believing the incident was an attempt at intimidation, Greenwald then indicated that his reporting on Snowden’s leaks would only pick up pace.
In a separate incident in July, Greenwald told media that he believed his home had been broken into and a laptop stolen after he contacted Miranda telling him to expect emailed NSA documents.
The fresh allegations of NSA spying have brought into question president Rousseff’s scheduled state visit to the US in October. Brazil has officially requested an explanation on the new reports by the end of the week, saying that Rousseff’s decision on whether or not to visit Washington will be based on that response.
According to AP, Government security spokesman Eduardo Sanchez confirmed on Tuesday that Brazil’s foreign ministry had contacted the US and requested an “in-depth investigation into the matter.”
During its first meeting on the NSA scandal, Brazil’s Parliamentary Inquiry Commission approved an application for police protection of Greenwald and Miranda.
A member of the committee, Senator Pedro Taques, decried allegations of spying on the country’s leadership.
“There’s been an attempt, not only against our national laws that involve the immunity and safety of our head of state, but other people as well,” he told reporters.
The new report provided by Greenwald also alleges that the NSA targeted Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, monitoring his communications prior to the country’s July 2012 election.
Related articles
- Report: NSA targeted Brazil, Mexico leaders (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Brazil to probe telecom companies implicated in NSA spying (rt.com)
Report: NSA targeted Brazil, Mexico leaders
By Ian Swanson – The Hill – 09/02/13
The NSA monitored communications of the leaders of Brazil and Mexico, Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald said in an interview on Brazilian television, according to the Associated Press.
The revelations come days before President Obama is to travel to Russia for a meeting of the G20.
Greenwald told the Brazilian television program “Fantastico” that he has a document indicating Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto’s emails were being read. The document is dated from June 2012, a month before Nieto was elected.
National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden has leaked thousands of documents related to the U.S. surveillance programs to Greenwald.
The document from June 2012 shows who Nieto was considering for appointments to key government posts, according to the AP report.
While Greenwald said that document shows “specific intercepted messages” in the case of Nieto, the tracking of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was done through a program known as DNI Presenter that allows the NSA to open and read emails and online chats, the AP report said.
It said the U.S. targeting mapped out the aides with whom Rousseff communicated and tracked patterns of how those aides communicated with one another.
The NSA programs seem likely to come up in some of Obama’s meetings at the G20 in St. Petersburg. Brazil and Mexico are both members of the G20, and Snowden has been granted asylum by Russia.
Related articles
- NSA spied on Brazil, Mexico presidents – Greenwald (rt.com)
- Greenwald claims up to 20,000 Snowden documents are in his possession (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Brazil may reject US fighter jet deal over NSA spying scandal (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Greenwald Testifies to Brazilian Senate about NSA Espionage Targeting Brazil and Latin America (alethonews.wordpress.com)
NSA spied on French Foreign Ministry: Report
Press TV – | September 2, 2013
Top secret documents have shown that the US National Security Agency targeted France’s Foreign Ministry for spying.
Documents seen by Germany’s Der Spiegel weekly show that the US spy agency spied on the electronic communications of the French Foreign Ministry by breaking into the ministry’s computer network.
The internal documents also show NSA agents installed bugs in French diplomatic offices in Washington and at the United Nations in New York.
According to the “top secret” document, dated June 2010, the NSA infiltrated computers used by French diplomats to communicate with the Foreign Ministry’s Paris headquarters through a virtual private network (VPN).
France’s “foreign policy objectives, especially the weapons trade” were of primary interest to the NSA, Spiegel reported.
Moreover, the German weekly said that the Qatari-funded broadcaster Al Jazeera had been another target of spying for the US government’s premier spy agency because the channel broadcast audio and video messages from al-Qaeda leaders for more than a decade.
Documents leaked by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden have shed light on the scope and scale of US spying practices across the globe.
The documents have blown the lid on several US spying programs like PRISM and GENIE.
Under PRISM, US technology companies hand over user data pertaining to all people around the world after they receive orders from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
GENIE is also a $652 million spying project under which US computer specialists infiltrate foreign networks in order to bring them under secret US control.
According to NSA budget documents obtained by the Washington Post, US spy agencies have also conducted 231 cyber attacks in 2011.
The latest revelations about the NSA’s spying on the French Foreign Ministry come as the Paris prosecutor’s office has launched a preliminary investigation into the NSA’s illegal access to personal email and phone communications of French citizens through its PRISM program.
The results of the preliminary investigation determine whether a formal investigation will be launched into the allegations that the NSA has violated data protection and privacy rules in France.
US spying violated Brazil’s sovereignty: Brazilian minister
Press TV – August 30, 2013
Brazil has criticized the United States for spying on Brazilian companies and individuals, saying the electronic surveillance is a violation of the South American country’s sovereignty.
“We expressed Brazil’s unhappiness on learning that data was intercepted without the authorization of Brazilian authorities, for the use of US intelligence,” Brazilian Justice Minister Jose Eduardo Cardozo said on Thursday, the last day of his two-day visit to the US.
“The acts imply a violation of human rights, violation of Brazilian sovereignty and rights enshrined in our constitution,” he added.
Last month, Brazilian Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota expressed serious concerns over a report, which said the US National Security Agency (NSA) has been spying on Brazilian companies and individuals for a decade.
Brazil’s O Globo newspaper reported on July 7 that the NSA had collected data on billions of telephone and email conversations in the country.
The report said that information released by US surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden reveals that the number of telephone and email messages logged by the NSA in the 10-year period was near to the 2.3 billion captured in the US during the same period.
During his visit to Washington, the Brazilin justice minister met US Vice President Joe Biden, US Attorney General Eric Holder and White House counter-terrorism adviser Lisa Monaco.
Cardozo said US officials could not allay his country’s concerns.
“We made a proposal to move toward an agreement to establish the rules on procedures in the interception of data. They told us the United States would not sign an agreement under those terms with any country in the world,” he said.
Cardozo said US officials claimed that the spying was used for counter-terrorism purpose.
“But for us it was clear that there was collection of data to deal with organized crime and drug-trafficking, but what is worse, also Brazilian diplomatic actions,” he said.
The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, admitted in July that Snowden’s exposés have seriously damaged US ties with other countries. “There has been damage. I don’t think we actually have been able to determine the depth of that damage.”
Snowden, a former CIA employee, leaked two top secret US government spying programs under which the NSA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are eavesdropping on millions of American and European phone records and the Internet data from major Internet companies such as Facebook, Yahoo, Google, Apple, and Microsoft.
The NSA scandal took even broader dimensions when Snowden revealed information about its espionage activities targeting friendly countries.
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U.S. spied on UN: German weekly
Xinhua | August 26, 2013
BERLIN — The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) bugged the video conferencing system at the UN headquarters in New York and cracked its encryption, German weekly Der Spiegel reported Sunday.
The tapping scheme succeeded in the summer of 2012, the magazine said, citing secret documents disclosed by former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.
The move offered the NSA “a dramatic improvement of data on video conferencing and the ability to decrypt that data,” a quoted document said, noting that the number of decrypted communications jumped from 12 to 458 within three weeks.
Der Spiegel also reported that the U.S. intelligence agency spied on the European Union mission after it moved to its new embassy in New York last September.
The new embassy’s plans, as well as its IT infrastructure and servers, were among the copies of relevant NSA documents provided Snowden.
According to the documents analyzed by the weekly, the NSA also ran a monitoring program covering more than 80 embassies and consulates worldwide.
The program was called “the Special Collection Service” and operated without the knowledge of the host country, said the magazine.
NSA documents urged to keep the existence of the program as a secret at all costs, as “relations with the host country would be seriously damaged” if it was leaked, Der Spiegel reported.
Revelations about PRISM and other surveillance programs that obtain personal information by hacking phone calls and emails have embarrassed Washington and triggered outrage around the world.
Some EU privacy watchdogs are demanding an independent investigation into the extent of PRISM as well as other platforms used by the NSA.
U.S. President Barack Obama defended the spying program as a “modest encroachment” on privacy necessary to prevent terror attacks, but pledged to overhaul U.S. surveillance and turn it more transparent.
Snowden Accuses UK Gov’t Of Leaking Documents He Never Leaked To Make Him Look Bad
By Mike Masnick | Techdirt | August 23, 2013
The UK’s Independent newspaper today had an “exclusive” article, in which they claim that documents from Ed Snowden’s leaks revealed a secret internet surveillance base in the Middle East run by the UK government. There’s just one problem. While the article implies (though does not state) that it got those documents from Snowden, Snowden says he’s never talked to nor given anything to The Independent. Instead, he argues, that he’s worked carefully with key journalists (namely, Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and Barton Gellman) to make sure that the things they publish don’t reveal anything that might put anyone in danger. Snowden suggests, instead, that this is the UK government itself releasing this information in an attempt to “defend” the detention of David Miranda.
I have never spoken with, worked with, or provided any journalistic materials to the Independent. The journalists I have worked with have, at my request, been judicious and careful in ensuring that the only things disclosed are what the public should know but that does not place any person in danger. People at all levels of society up to and including the President of the United States have recognized the contribution of these careful disclosures to a necessary public debate, and we are proud of this record.
It appears that the UK government is now seeking to create an appearance that the Guardian and Washington Post’s disclosures are harmful, and they are doing so by intentionally leaking harmful information to The Independent and attributing it to others. The UK government should explain the reasoning behind this decision to disclose information that, were it released by a private citizen, they would argue is a criminal act.
If you read the Independent’s coverage carefully, they never actually claim they got the documents from Snowden, even if they leave that impression. Instead, they claim that “information on [the base’s] activities was contained in the leaked documents obtained from the NSA by Edward Snowden.” In other words, they got that information from someone else — almost certainly the UK government. And, yes, that’s convenient timing for the UK government to claim that some of the documents that Snowden downloaded might contain useful information to terrorists, so that they can then turn around and argue that they detained Miranda and took all of his electronics (and destroyed a Guardian hard drive) to avoid having this information “fall into the hands of terrorists.”
The Independent article also implies that the UK government is afraid that Greenwald is going to start revealing this type of info in response to the Miranda detention, even though there’s no basis to believe that all. Greenwald has been quite careful so far not to reveal any information that puts anyone at risk, so it’s odd to believe that he’d start doing so now. Of course, it’s fairly bizarre since the Independent story itself contains tons of details — the kinds of details that Greenwald has avoided.
If Snowden’s assertion is correct — and it does seem like the most plausible argument at this point — then it highlights the ridiculous lengths to which the UK government is going: releasing potentially damaging information that Snowden himself has avoided revealing just to suggest that Snowden was leaking damaging information. Incredible.
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South America: UNASUR To Build Fibre-Optic ‘Mega Ring’
By Chelsea Gray | The Argentina Independent | August 21, 2013
The Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) has approved plans for an optic fibre mega-ring which will break its members’ “dependence on the US, and provide a safer and cheaper means of communication.”
The fibre optic ring will become part of a ten-year plan to physically integrate all 12 UNASUR member states. The line, which will reach up to 10,000 kilometres long and will be managed by state enterprises from each country it crosses, is expected to interconnect South America through higher coverage and cheaper internet connections.
Industrial Minister of Uruguay, Roberto Kreimerman, explained that “it is about having a connection with great capacity that allows us to unite our countries together with the developed world.”
He continued to say, “We are considering that, at most, in a couple of years we will have one of these rings finalised.” He also added that ”I think the economy, security, and integration are the three important things we need in countries where Internet use is advancing exponentially.”
At the moment, up to 80% of Latin America’s communications go through the US. However, plans for an independent communication line comes shortly after the US was discovered to have been spying on Latin American data. The National Security Agency (NSA) were revealed to have been monitoring emails and intercepting telephone logs, spying on energy, military, politics, and terror activity across the continent.
UNASUR is made up of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, and Venezuela.
Declassified FISA Court Opinion Shows NSA Lied Repeatedly To The Court As Well
By Tim Cushing | Techdirt | August 21, 2013
The EFF finally gets to step away from one of its many legal battles with the government with its hands held aloft in victory and clutching a long-hidden FISA court opinion.
For over a year, EFF has been fighting the government in federal court to force the public release of an 86-page opinion of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). Issued in October 2011, the secret court’s opinion found that surveillance conducted by the NSA under the FISA Amendments Act was unconstitutional and violated “the spirit of” federal law.
Beyond the many instances of NSA malfeasance, the most damning aspect of the opinion is its lack of effect on future behavior. What does make it past the redaction details repeated wrongdoing that even the FISA Court, long perceived to be the NSA’s rubber stamp, found egregious.
A footnote on page 16 points out that the agency had “substantially misrepresented” the extent of its “major collection program” (including the harvesting of “internet transactions”) for the third time in less than three years. The same set of footnotes attacks the so-called “big business records” collection, accusing the agency of using a “flawed depiction” of how it used the data to basically fleece the FISA court since the program’s inception in 2006.
Then there’s this pair of concluding sentences, which severely undercut anyone’s arguments that the FISA Court is a reliable form of oversight.
Contrary to the government’s repeated assurances, NSA has been repeatedly running queries of the metadata using querying terms that did not meet the standard for querying. The Court concluded that this requirement had been “so frequently and systemically violated that it can fairly be said that this critical element of the overall… regime has never functioned effectively.”
Other pages detail more concerns, including misrepresentation of the methods used in 702 collections, which the opinion claims “fundamentally alters the Court’s understanding of the scope of the collection.”
As the Washington Post points out, this opinion, which details many instances in which the NSA flat out lied to the court, lends some credence to statements made by presiding judge Reggie Walton, who claimed the court was limited to making decisions based on information the NSA provided. This opinion appears to detail the NSA setting up its own complicit court system, intentionally misleading it in order to continue its surveillance programs unabated.
The only problem with accepting Walton’s narrative completely is the fact that, despite this opinion, the court granted every request that year (2011) and then proceeded to do the same the following year. The court was lied to but still kept giving the agency the thumbs-up on each new court order.
The leaks keep coming and keep pointing to the same conclusion: the NSA has acted as a law unto itself. And all the while it continues to point at its “overseers,” which include Congress (which has been lied to directly by the agency when not having information withheld from it by the leaders of the House Intelligence Committee) and the FISA Court (which has been lied to directly and is hampered by its reliance on the NSA’s data and narratives — which pretty much just means more lying).
And despite all this evidence that the NSA’s “oversight” is nearly completely compromised, the defenders, including those within the agency, continue to insist the system is working the way it should. In their eyes, maybe it is.
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US has ignored 5 Russian extradition demands in recent years
RIA Novosti | August 21, 2013
MOSCOW – Five of Russia’s extradition requests sent to the United States in the past few years have been left unanswered, a deputy Russian prosecutor general has said in an interview.
“Since 2008, the United States has refused 16 times to extradite people to us citing the absence of a relevant treaty,” Deputy Russian Prosecutor General Alexander Zvyagintsev told the Rossiiskaya Gazeta government daily.
“We have been insisting on concluding such a treaty but have been getting a refusal based on unconvincing arguments,” he said. “Another five of our requests sent to the United States in 2011-2012 have not been answered.”
The United States has been unsuccessfully pushing Russia for extradition of fugitive intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.
Snowden, a former contractor for the US National Security Agency (NSA), is wanted by the United States on espionage and other charges after he gave journalists classified documents detailing the NSA’s far-reaching electronic and telephone surveillance programs.
Snowden formally requested temporary asylum in Russia on July 16. Washington repeatedly called on Moscow to reject his request and send him back to the United States to stand trial, but in vain. Snowden was granted the asylum in early August.
Zvyagintsev said Russia has not received any official request for Snowden’s extradition from the United States.
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- Russia asks France to extradite Kazakh oligarch Ablyazov (uk.reuters.com)
- UK ignores Russian request on former Magnitsky boss Browder – prosecutor (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Russian official slams US for turning down Moscow’s extradition requests (alethonews.wordpress.com)

