Members of BRICS featured high on the list of countries singled out for special consideration by the National Security Agency’s intensive Prism program, which collected data on billions of telephone and internet records globally.
An article published at the weekend in Brazil’s O Globo newspaper
makes the observation that "Brazil…appears to stand out on
maps of the U.S. agency as a priority target for telephony and
data traffic, alongside nations such as China, Russia..."
Brazil, Russia and China are three prominent members of the
international association, which goes by the acronym BRICS, which
also includes India and South Africa.
Brazilian Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota expressed "deep
concern” that electronic and telephone communications of
citizens are being collected by the American intelligence
community. The report did not specify how much traffic was
monitored by the NSA, but it did emphasize that in the Americas,
Brazil was second only to the US in the number of communications
intercepted by the spy agency.
Patriota said Brazil will ask the UN for measures "to impede
abuses and protect the privacy" of internet users, laying
down rules for governments "to guarantee cybernetic security
that protects the rights of citizens and preserves the
sovereignty of all countries."
"There are many more populations of non-adversarial countries
which have been subjected to the same type of mass surveillance
net by the NSA: indeed, the list of those which haven't been are
shorter than those which have," wrote Glenn Greenwald, who
originally broke the Snowden story in the Britain's Guardian
newspaper, as quoted in the O Globo report.
The report did not provide details on the type of data the NSA
collected, but much of the focus has been on the retrieval and
storage of so-called ‘metadata’, which gives
intelligence-gathering agents the records of message times,
identities, addresses and other information – but not necessarily
the content of the messages themselves.
Russia on the NSA radar
That Russia was a prime target for NSA surveillance became
evident when NSA contractor turned whistleblower Edward Snowden
exposed the details of a massive ‘data-mining’ surveillance
operation, known as Prism, which collected details on billions of
telephone, email and internet communications both at home and
abroad.
Although the full extent of the NSA’s spying activities against
Russia lacks a precise numerical figure, the tentacles of the
global ‘data-mining’ operation is known to have penetrated into
the highest levels of the Russian government, even eavesdropping
on the top-secret communications of former Russian President
Dmitry Medvedev, during his visit to Britain for the
G20 summit in London.
Medvedev arrived in London on Wednesday 1 April. That same day,
the NSA intercepted communications from his delegation, according
to the NSA paper, entitled: "Russian Leadership Communications
in support of President Dmitry Medvedev at the G20 summit in
London – Intercept at Menwith Hill station."
The details of the intercept were allegedly shared with officials
from Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
The NSA interception of the Russian leader’s G20 communications
came just hours after Presdient Obama and Medvedev met for the
first time, and in the midst of the much-hyped ‘reset’ between
the former Cold War foes. During their meeting, the two discussed
a wide range of thorny issues, including the global financial
crisis, nuclear disarmament and Washington’s controversial
decision to build a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe.
Now, Russia finds itself in the position of playing host to the
individual responsible for what many believe to be the most
damaging leak of US intelligence ever.
Last month, Snowden boarded a plane from the United States to
Hong Kong with a mountain of sensitive US documents, which he
released once safely inside the China-owned territory. On June
23, the American whistleblower boarded a plane for Moscow, where
he has been holed up in Sheremetyevo Airport’s transit zone ever
since.
Judging by statements coming out of Moscow, however, it seems Mr.
Snowden is at risk of overstaying his welcome, and potentially
worse.
As Venezuela became the third South American country to hold out
the offer of political asylum, even placing a deadline of Monday
before their offer expires, one high-ranking Russian politician
strongly suggested that Snowden consider the invitation.
Alexei Pushkov, who heads the international affairs committee in
Russia's parliament, posted a message on Twitter saying:
"Venezuela is waiting for an answer from Snowden. This,
perhaps, is his last chance to receive political asylum."
Venezuelan authorities say they have not heard from Edward
Snowden since the country offered the NSA whistleblower asylum,
but would wait until Monday for his response.
“There has not been any type of communication,'' Foreign
Minster Elias Jaua said on state television. “We are waiting
until Monday to know whether he confirms his wish to take asylum
in Venezuela.”
Robert Bridge, RT