Last week, the President of Brazil, Dilma Roussef indefinitely postponed her visit to the United States scheduled for October due to evidence that the NSA had been spying on her.
Documents revealed by leaker Edward Snowden have claimed that not only was all her browsing history being monitored, but they also gained access into her e-mail accounts.
The documents have shown intercepted messages and e-mails between the President and the county’s oil company, Petrobras.
Dent in Foreign Relations
This information has harmed a budding relationship with the United States.
If the documents obtained from Snowden’s leak are not proven false, Roussef expressed that this will imply the US has taken part in ‘industrial espionage’. The reason being that many of the documents intercepted by US intelligence discuss a potential new oil site in Rio de Janeiro.
However the allegations are not limited to the President’s communications, claims that until 2002 the US base in Brasilia intercepted transmissions from all foreign satellites have also surfaced.
In addition, telecom companies in the nation have also been accused of working hand in hand with US intelligence to provide information on its customers.
The scheduled visit to the United States would have been the first in 5 years and it was the hope of many that this meeting may have been the catalyst to improve relations between the two countries.
UN
President Rousseff spoke at the beginning of the UN General Assembly meeting on the 24th of September and heavily citizen the US and the NSA claiming that they breached international law.
The United States justified itself by claiming that it was only in order to prevent harm coming to Brazil and to protect the country from potential acts of terrorism. She responded, “Brazil, Mr President, knows how to protect itself,”.
Volumes of intercepted data did not just deal with security matters, but any event that had large economic or strategic implications for Brazil’s future.
President Rousseff explained that involvement of any nature into another nations internal affairs is an “affront to the principles that must guide the relations among friendly nations”.
She then directed her discourse to the General Assembly and stated that necessary action must be taken in order to prevent the violation of civil liberties and threats to national sovereignty.
The Brazilian President has plans to introduce new laws in the nation protecting its citizens from outside intervention. She also plans to create a way to keep all Brazilian internet activity in Brazil.
This has big implications for large companies, such as Facebook, who will need to create new servers specific to Brazil.