MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazil outraged with NSA spying waiting for a ‘satisfactory reply’ from Obama

Rousseff feels cheated by the US government and is considering three reaction options

Brazilian president Dilma Roussef is considering at least three reactions to the US government following allegations that the US National Security Agency, NSA, spy program targeted the president, her ministers and advisors as revealed by the O Globo television program ‘Fantastico’. Earlier on Monday US Ambassador Thomas Shannon was summoned by Foreign minister Luiz Alberto Figuereido.

The three possible scenarios are: a very strong speech against NSA this month during the opening of the UN General Assembly; recalling the Brazilian ambassador in Washington and finally canceling the official visit to the US planned for October. Official visits are rare and limited events in US diplomacy.

President Dilma will decide according to the reply from President Barack Obama regarding the NSA spying network that also extended to Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto when he was a candidate and while deciding names of his future cabinet. 

“We expect a satisfactory reply, because the president is not only outraged but extremely irritated; she feels cheated by the US government”, according to a close aide.

When the first news of NSA spying emerged the US government guaranteed Brazil that these actions were limited to data of interest to the US related to terrorist activities but with no specific targeting of Brazilian citizens or authorities.

Dilma has also asked her team to prepare a multilateral action against US espionage beginning with BRICS members (Russia, India, China and South Africa) to agree on an only speech against actions that violate countries’ sovereignty.

The Brazilian president is scheduled to meet Barack Obama later this week at the G20 summit in Russia 

According to ‘Fantastico’ the NSA spied on emails, phone calls and text messages of the presidents of Brazil and Mexico, Latin America's two biggest nations.

The report late Sunday by Globo's news program was based on documents that journalist Glenn Greenwald obtained from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
Greenwald, who lives in Rio de Janeiro, was listed as a co-contributor to the report.

“Fantastico” showed what it said was an NSA slide dated June 2012 displaying passages of written messages sent by Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, who was still a candidate at that time. In the messages, Peña Nieto discussed who he was considering naming as his ministers once elected.

A separate slide displayed communication patterns between Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and her top advisers, “Fantastico” said, although no specific written passages were included in the report.

Both slides were part of an NSA case study showing how data could be “intelligently” filtered by the agency's secret internet surveillance programs that were disclosed in a trove of documents leaked by Snowden in June, “Fantastico” said.

Justice Minister Jose Eduardo Cardozo said the contents of the documents, if confirmed, “should be considered very serious and constitute a clear violation of Brazilian sovereignty.”

“This (spying) hits not only Brazil but the sovereignty of several countries, which could have been violated in a way totally contrary to what international law establishes” he told O Globo newspaper.

Cardozo traveled last week to Washington and met with US Vice President Joseph Biden and other officials, seeking more details on a previous, seemingly less serious set of disclosures by Snowden regarding US spying in Brazil.