Snowden Leak Said to Derail Brazil Trip Ahead of Visit to Obama

[struggle4progress]

By Arnaldo Galvao - 2013-09-05T03:00:00Z

Brazilian authorities have canceled a trip to the U.S. that was designed to prepare for President Dilma Rousseff’s state visit next month in response to charges the U.S. spied on Latin America’s largest nation.

Brazilian officials originally scheduled the trip for Sept. 7 to 11 to organize the details of Rousseff’s visit, according to a government official who is close to the president and asked not to be named because the information isn’t official. He didn’t know whether Rousseff would cancel her trip.

Brazil’s government wants the U.S. to respond this week to a report the National Security Agency used software to probe Rousseff’s communications with several aides, Foreign Minister Luiz Alberto Figueiredo told reporters in Brasilia Sept. 2. The spying, if true, would be “unacceptable,” he said.

“It’s a warning shot,” David Fleischer, a Brasilia-based political scientist, said in a phone interview. “If the U.S. doesn’t provide adequate answers, they may cancel the visit altogether” ...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-05/snowden-leak-said-to-derail-brazil-trip-ahead-of-visit-to-obama.html

[pnwmom]

1. Once again his heroics fall short.

No, we didn't need his kind of transparency.

[David Krout]

6. Awww, you didn't want the Brazilian President to know her emails and phone calls were spied on?

Sowwy.

[pnwmom]

10. He's trying to interfere with American diplomacy around the world.

Who's going to benefit? Russia, primarily . . . that bastion of human rights where he has decided to take up residence.

[frylock]

13. our "American diplomacy around the world" is a pile of fucking shit.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. Bravo for Snowden. Hint: Stop spying on our allies...and on our own people.

[struggle4progress]

3. Under what, if any, circumstances would you consider intelligence activities permissible?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. Whistle blowing on governments and corporations.

How about you?

Do you condone spying by the Russians, Chinese, or other real or manufactured bogeymen? Allies? Should spies from other countries be pursued if they're just doing what "every" country does?

[struggle4progress]

5. I'm not anti-government on principle: the state, itself, is not the source of all evil

in the world IMO -- on that point, I part company from idealistic anarchists and libertarians

I don't expect to live in the world I want to live in: the best I can hope in that direction is to attempt to leave the world in some respects better than it was when I arrived. I have bvery little stomach for military operations or realpolitik based on the projection of power -- but it also sometimes seems to me inevitable

I'm glad the Polish cryptographers had spent time working out the theory of the German Enigma machine before WWII began, and I'm glad the US worked out some of the Japanese codes before Pearl Harbor

"Spying" is a mixed bag, of course. IMO Valerie Plame seems to have been doing important work, of value not only for the US but for everyone who opposes nuclear proliferation. I won't claim to similarly approve of every covert agent

[David Krout]

7. A better question: Did the US suspect the Brazilian President of terrorism? nt

[struggle4progress]

8. Dunno. But since I think Greenwald often tells fuggety-faced lies to whore for attention,

I'm not inclined to run immediately with whatever Greenwald says but rather prefer to study his claims a while before deciding what to think of them

[David Krout]

9. Brazil says US didn't want terrorism-related information but industrial/trade information

Are they Greenwald?

Now tell me if you believe the Brazilian Govt.

[pnwmom]

11. There could be lots of reasons they were interested in Brazilian communications.

For example, Brazil has very close relations with Cuba.

[Rumold]

12. They use our tax dollars to spy for their financial benefit

economic espionage to benefit the 1%

its not that hard to figure out

[frylock]

14. ZOMG!!1 Not Cuba!

[Blue_Tires]

15. I'm curious to know why there wasn't a peep of international outrage

when Manning revealed Hillary Clinton tapped the phones of pretty much everyone at the U.N.

I'm also wondering when, if ever, we'll finally get to see the Russian stuff...