RIO DE JANEIRO - The U.S. intercepted phone calls and emails of the presidents of Brazil and Mexico to showcase the reach of an anti-terror surveillance program, according to documents leaked by fugitive security analyst Edward Snowden.
The allegations were made Sunday night by American journalist Glenn Greenwald, who obtained secret documents from Snowden in May, on Brazil’s most-watched TV news magazine, Fantastico, owned by the Globo network.
In one document, the National Security Agency cites how it intercepted text messages by Mexico’s Enrique Pena Nieto in which the then-presidential front-runner discusses two possible Cabinet picks. The 24-slide presentation was dated June 2012, a month before Pena Nieto was elected. In the case of Brazil, the document highlights software that was used to probe President Dilma Rousseff ’s communications with several unidentified aides. Both leaders will cross paths with President Barack Obama this week at a Group of 20 summit in Russia.
“What struck me about these documents was how personal they were. They had pictures of them,” Greenwald, who lives in Rio de Janeiro and writes for The Guardian newspaper of Britain, said in a phone interview. “I’d think there has to be some sense of violation and invasion that will produce some outrage.”
Justice Minister Jose Eduardo Cardozo, who met last week in Washington with Vice President Joe Biden to discuss Brazilian concerns about the surveillance program, told Fantastico that such spying is “unacceptable” and, if confirmed, constitutes a “clear violation of our national sovereignty.”
Rousseff, after an emergency meeting with Cardozo and other aides Sunday night, called on the U.S. ambassador, Thomas Shannon, to provide explanations.The U.S. envoy left without speaking to reporters after a meeting Monday morning with Foreign Minister Luiz Alberto Figueiredo, who told Shannon that Brazil expects the White House to provide a prompt written explanation over the espionage allegations.
Mexico’s government said it had expressed its concerns to the U.S. ambassador and directly to the U.S. administration.
Figueiredo said that “there has to be international regulations that prohibit citizens and governments alike from being exposed to interceptions, violations of privacy and cyberattacks.”
In a sign that fallout over the spy program is spreading, the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo reported that Rousseff is considering canceling her October trip to the U.S., where she has been scheduled to be honored with a state dinner. Folha cited unidentified Rousseff aides. The president’s office declined to comment.
Greenwald said the presentation was part of the first batch of documents he received from Snowden when he met him in Hong Kong in May. That was before the former Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp. employee was granted a one-year asylum in Russia on President Vladimir Putin’s condition that he stop disclosing documents that harm U.S. interests.
In July, Greenwald cowrote articles in the O Globo newspaper that said Brazil’s telecommunications network, a hub for traffic from Latin America, was a priority target for the National Security Agency, alongside China, Iran and Russia. The surveillance was facilitated by associations between Brazilian and American companies, the extent and names of which Greenwald said he couldn’t verify.
Shannon at the time denied the report by the Rio de Janeiro newspaper, telling officials that the U.S. didn’t spy on Brazilian citizens and collects only records of phone calls or email messages abroad to pursue suspected terrorists.
“Shannon first said we only look at metadata,” said Greenwald. “It was a complete and absolute lie.”
The secret document disclosed Sunday was prepared by a division of the National Security Agency known only by its intials SATC, Greenwald said. The presentation concludes that the National Security Agency was able to penetrate the communications networks of high-profile, security-savvy Brazilian and Mexican targets. The benefits of the exercise allow analysts to “find a needle in a haystack in a repeatable and efficient way,” according to the document.
An official at the U.S. Embassy said any statement would be handled by the State Department in Washington, where staffing is limited because of the Labor Day holiday. Rousseff ’s office and the Foreign Ministry declined to comment.
Rousseff and Pena Nieto will meet Obama at the G-20summit this week in St. Petersburg. In addition, Rousseff is also scheduled to be feted at the White House in October during the first state visit by a Brazilian leader in more than two decades.
That visit was scheduled before Snowden’s leaks rocked relations between the Western Hemisphere’s two biggest economies, leading Rousseff ’s government to take its concerns to the United Nations and discuss legislation to restrict data gathering by U.S. companies in Brazil.
Cardozo said that in his meetings last week with Biden and Attorney General Eric Holder, he proposed a protocol of intentions between the two countries to reinforce Brazil’s sovereignty and prevent the U.S. from collecting data in the country without a judicial order.The proposal was rejected by the U.S., Cardozo said.
In a separate document shown by Fantastico outlining the National Security Agency’s assessment of U.S. geopolitical challenges through 2019, the rise of Brazil on the global stage is classified as a “stressor” to regional stability and a potential risk to U.S. interests. In the document it appears alongside Iran, Mexico, Sudan, Egypt and several other countries under the heading “Friends, Enemies or Problems?”
Sen. Ricardo Ferraco, head of the Brazilian Senate’s foreign-relations committee, said lawmakers already had decided to formally investigate the U.S. program’s focus on Brazil because of earlier revelations that the country was a top target of U.S. spying in the region. He said the probe would likely start this week.
“I feel a mixture of amazement and indignation. It seems like there are no limits. When the phone of the president of the republic is monitored, it’s hard to imagine what else might be happening,” Ferraco told reporters in Brasilia. “It’s unacceptable that in a country like ours, where there is absolutely no climate of terrorism, that there is this type of spying.” Information for this article was contributed by Joshua Goodman, Anna Edgerton, Matthew Malinowski,Arnaldo Galvao and Eric Martin of Bloomberg News, and by Bradley Brooks, Marco Sibaja and Michael Weissenstein of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 09/03/2013