WikiLeaks: NSA spied on Brazil’s president
WikiLeaks disclosed documents Saturday detailing the National Security Agency’s wiretapping of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.
They said the NSA also spied on Rousseff’s secretary, her chief of staff and other top Brazilian government officials, according to USA Today.
“Our publication today shows the U.S. has a long way to go to prove its dragnet surveillance on ‘friendly’ governments is over,” WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange wrote in a statement.
{mosads}“The U.S. has not just [been] targeting Rousseff but the key figures she talks to everyday,” he added.
WikiLeaks said the NSA eavesdropped on 29 critical Brazilian phone numbers, including Rousseff’s palace office line and her presidential jet’s number. It also wiretapped phone numbers for Brazil’s foreign minister, ambassadors and military chiefs.
The group said the NSA conducted an “economic espionage campaign” by spying on those in charge of Brazil’s economy.
That initiative targeted the head of Brazil’s Central Bank.
WikiLeaks additionally said the NSA surveyed Brazil’s diplomacy abroad in a number of locations.
The agency reportedly spied on Brazil’s ambassadors to the U.S., Germany, France, Switzerland and the European Union.
WikiLeaks cited two major Brazilian officials that the NSA’s probe had allegedly compromised.
It first probed the cell phone of Luiz Alberto Figueiredo Machado, the current Brazilian diplomat to the U.S. and a former foreign minister for his nation.
It then tapped Army General Jose Elito Carvalho Siqueira, the director of Brazil’s institutional security cabinet.
Siqueira’s panel briefs Rousseff on national security matters and defense policies, USA Today reported.
Gilberto Carvalho, a top Rousseff aide, sharply denounced the NSA’s surveillance measures in a Saturday interview.
He argued the NSA “does not have a right” to wiretap Brazil’s officials.
He also described “maximum indignation” over WikiLeaks’ disclosures, calling it a “violation of Brazilian sovereignty.”
“[That Brazil] is trying to repair our relationship with the U.S. does not in any way diminish the gravity of these new revelations,” Carvalho said.
Saturday’s intelligence leak follows reports Friday that the NSA also allegedly spied on Germany’s media.
An official representing both the CIA and the NSA in Berlin reportedly used intelligence information as leverage over Der Spiegel.
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