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Brazilian Politicians Want To Offer Snowden Asylum After Learning Of US Spying On Brazilians

from the making-friends-around-the-globe dept

Mon, Jul 8th 2013 7:38pm — Mike Masnick

You may have heard that one of the latest revelations from Ed Snowden's whistleblowing efforts concerned the NSA's spying on Brazilians with a rather extensive program.

As the headline suggests, the crux of the main article details how the NSA has, for years, systematically tapped into the Brazilian telecommunication network and indiscriminately intercepted, collected and stored the email and telephone records of millions of Brazilians.

Of course, as each new country learns more and more about US spying on their citizens, the outrage against the US seems to grow. The Brazilian government has now kicked off an investigation, but perhaps more interesting is the fact that some Brazilian Senators are using this story to suggest that the country offer asylum to Snowden. Frankly, the spying on people outside the US by the NSA is hardly a surprise at all, since it's long been known that the NSA doesn't need any warrants concerning the spying on foreigners. However, from a diplomatic standpoint, this is (once again) making things tricky for the US government. But not just because more and more countries are "demanding answers," but also because this seems to be leading more countries to considering more strongly whether or not to grant Snowden asylum. Perhaps if the US didn't treat so-called "allies" as enemies, it wouldn't be having this problem in the first place.

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Filed Under: asylum, brazil, diplomacy, ed snowden, nsa, nsa surveillance

37 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 8 Jul 2013 @ 8:12pm

Frankly, the spying on people outside the US by the NSA is hardly a surprise at all, since it's long been known that the NSA doesn't need any warrants concerning the spying on foreigners. However, from a diplomatic standpoint, this is (once again) making things tricky for the US government.

What so everyone knows the US spy's on them, except the diplomats, because 'from the diplomatic standpoint'... something something...

So foreign diplomants know there is spying, but then complain about the spying they KNEW ABOUT, because they now KNOW what they already knew.

That makes SO MUCH SENSE even from you Masnick !!!

Do believe Brazilian diplomats do not spy ?? I bet they will not want to make too much noise, else they be exposed for their own activities.

Once again, Snowden is being used as a political pawn, and once again Masnick promotes and supports this conduct.

Snowden is running out of options, and being his 10th choice must really impress upon countries how desperate he is. And what he thinks of Countries he 'wants' to go to as the 10th or so choice, they are really going to want to pull out all stops to help Snowden.

It's also quite clear, most countries now realise that he really has NO GROUNDS to seek asylum as he has not suffered or been treated any different that any other common criminal.

I wonder if Snowden suddenly got very ill, or contracted serious cancer what country we he most want to go to for treatment.
I bet in that case he would scoot his sick ass back to the US to 'save him'..
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- Anonymous Coward, 8 Jul 2013 @ 8:22pm
  
  Re:
  I think the problem is that they're not just targetting people of interest, they're spying on millions of people. That's the problem, champ.
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  - anonymouse, 9 Jul 2013 @ 1:53am
    
    Re: Re:
    All in all this is not an American problem, Americans have accepted that they have lost their rights as human entities , the rest of the world has not accepted this especially when it is the US spying on them.
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    - TaCktiX (profile), 9 Jul 2013 @ 8:24am
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      I must not be American then, because I do not accept the US government taking away my right to privacy and the expectation that my stuff, digital or otherwise, will remain unsearched and unseized without a properly served warrant.
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    - Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2013 @ 12:50pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      Unsupported blanket statement based on personal biases followed by unsupported assertion to try and make first point seem more important.
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- Anonymous Coward, 8 Jul 2013 @ 8:29pm
  
  Re:
  Everyone knew it, but we never knew how much or had any good proof.. At least until Snowden stood up and did what most would have never done and gave us that proof.
  
  I don't blame others for not wanting to do it though I mean look at his situation.. :( I doubt I would give up everything I know and love even if it were for the greater good.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 8 Jul 2013 @ 9:09pm
    
    Re: Re:
    Everyone knew, everyone is doing it, is just others are not getting caught doing it.
    
    Now we will see a parade of liars saying how horrible those actions are and bla bla bla while they all try to emulate that same system to take advantage of it themselves.
    
    Make no mistake about it, governments everywhere are looking hard at this and trying to make one of their own.
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- John, 8 Jul 2013 @ 9:58pm
  
  Re:
  A couple of points here.
  
  1.) If Snowden got seriously ill he doesn't have to go to the US to get first class treatment. Expensive treatment probably, but first class medical treatment is available in many places across the world.
  
  2.) If he did go to the US for 'the best' medical treatment, he's likely to be arrested before he gets it, and would be denied all but basic treatment afforded 'common criminals.' He'd probably be better of getting second class treatment elsewhere!
  
  Why shouldn't we support his conduct. If he took an oath he's probably doing what he swore, to protect the constitution against enemies foreign and domestic. Something The Prez doesn't seem willing to do.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 8 Jul 2013 @ 10:21pm
    
    Re: Re:
    The US life expectancy is rather low compared to most developed nations. This indicates to me that their health service is poor or below average at best.
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    - Anonymous Coward, 8 Jul 2013 @ 11:05pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      What Heathcare.. most of us dont have it
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- Anonymous Coward, 8 Jul 2013 @ 10:39pm
  
  Re:
  darryl is furious because Australia stopped their spying plans. The moral horror that would be inflicted! he howled, thumping his chest in moral outrage. At least the solar panels would understand him.
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Damn Commie Constitutionalist, 8 Jul 2013 @ 8:22pm

I think Mr Snowden found a new home
Of all the places that have offered asylum, Brazil is the place I'd go. I hope he gets there.
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- John, 8 Jul 2013 @ 10:00pm
  
  Re: I think Mr Snowden found a new home
  Of all the places that have offered asylum, Brazil is the place I'd go. I hope he gets there.
  
  Although those waxings can be murder!
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- LEWCO, 9 Jul 2013 @ 7:52pm
  
  Re: I think Mr Snowden found a new home
  THE BRAZILIANS ARE PISSED OFF, IT IS A SHAME BECAUSE THEY ARE ONE OF THE FEW PEOPLE/COUNTRIES THAT TRULY LOVE AMERICANS AND AMERICA.
  
  LET US PRAY THAT THE ANGER CAN BE SOOTHED AND ONCE AGAIN THEY WILL BECOME OUR FRIENDS ......
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- Ninja (profile), 10 Jul 2013 @ 10:54am
  
  Re: I think Mr Snowden found a new home
  Brazil adopts the same standards on customs and borders check as the foreign country does. So you'd need to go through cavity searches and intensive patting here while most South Americans can just go in with their original IDs. Now if you are complaining about TSA try visiting London...
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  - countermeasures1 (profile), 11 Jul 2013 @ 4:51am
    
    Re: Re: I think Mr Snowden found a new home
    Unless you have someone "special" meets you - then you are whisked through with no more than a wave of the hand.
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Pixelation, 8 Jul 2013 @ 9:10pm

More important
"Brazilian Politicians Want To Offer Snowden Asylum After Learning Of US Spying On Brazilians"

Don't they need to offer him papers to get out of Russia?
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- tek, 8 Jul 2013 @ 11:39pm
  
  Re: More important
  In a weird international-law technical sense he is not In russia if he is indeed still in the "transit lounge" as far as I know.
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- Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2013 @ 5:57am
  
  Re: More important
  Since he's in a Moscow airport and in a zone that Putin says "eeeh I can't touch him and I don't wanna"
  
  It should be a straight forward matter to get him on a plane with special papers like he did flying from Hong Kong to Moscow.
  
  Although one of these countries might have to play a complicated shell game to get him out of the Moscow airport (if he hasn't already) given how the US somehow grounded the plane of a foreign president on the suspicion he was on that plane.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2013 @ 8:01am
    
    Re: Re: More important
    There is a big difference between shooting down a plane with an international diplomat on it over international waters and pressuring an allied country to simply refuse to let it enter their airspace such that the plane no longer has enough fuel to make the trip and has to make an emergency landing instead. Revoking approval to enter the airspace, isn't an aggressive act, even if it is a despicable one. If he was on a plane that was supposed to fly non-stop through international airspace with enough fuel to do so, that would be an act of war. Is the US above doing such a thing? If they could do it covertly with no one watching, probably not. However, with the entire world watching and many nations already upset about the revelations, it would be a geo-political nightmare if they did. It's difficult to say whether they would take that risk or not.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Jul 2013 @ 9:13pm

James Bamford interview
James Bamford (author of Puzzle Palace, among other works) interviewed by DW. At http://www.dw.de/the-agency-is-out-of-control/a-16926086

An excerpt: We all know the Germans and the Europeans spy on their neighbors, maybe also the US. Is there any difference to what the US does?

There is a big difference. President Barack Obama made a comment where he said, oh, we all spy on each other. The only difference is, the US spies with the eavesdropping equivalent of a nuclear weapon because of the money, the power, the technological capability of the US. The NSA is the largest intelligence agency in the world. Other countries spy with the equivalent of a cannon. One of the benefits the US has is that the major Internet companies are located in the US so they can put pressure on them to turn over information. If you look at the worldwide telecommunications net, almost all of it goes through the United States. 80 percent of telephone communications go through the United States. So the US is in the unique position of being able to eavesdrop on the world without much difficulty.
To a large degree, this a very counterproductive activity, if you're trying to find a needle in a haystack, and that is the whole idea post-9/11, and if you keep putting more and more hay on the haystack, it makes it more difficult to find that needle.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Jul 2013 @ 9:26pm

The Brazil spying might hurt Verizon
One suggestion is that the NSA has access to a Brazillion bits of data via cloning or splitting at NAP do Brasil in Sao Paulo.

From their page: "Opened in April of 2004, NAP do Brasil clients include all major carriers operating in Brazil, international content providers with local presence, ISP�s and System Integrators, among others." From http://www.terremark.com/data-centers/americas/nap-brazil.aspx

Terremark do Brasil is wholly owned by Terremark Worldwide, which is (now) wholly owned by Verizon. As a non-US location, NSA spying on the network of Terremark do Brasil might not be subject to the same US legal terms as at the Terremark Miami-located NAP of the Americas.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAP_of_the_Americas
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- John, 8 Jul 2013 @ 10:03pm
  
  Re: The Brazil spying might hurt Verizon
  If American owned telecoms companies operating in Brazil are spying for the NSA, perhaps the Brazilian govt should nationalize such companies and cut the NSA off.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Jul 2013 @ 9:53pm

To simplify things
Just have NSA list on a single piece of paper who in the world is NOT a suspected terrorist
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- A nonny mouse, 9 Jul 2013 @ 2:52am
  
  Re: To simplify things
  As it happens, I have access to this highly classified document, and have reproduced it below:
  -----------
  |��|
  |��|
  |��|
  -----------
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RubyPanther, 8 Jul 2013 @ 10:02pm

No, more like, as countries start whining about spying as if they don't do it, then guaranteed a couple days later somebody is going to leak info about their spying.

Want to keep your secret spying program secret? Quit complaining about ours.

As for the whine that, well, it is bad if the US does it because we're better at it... lolol no we're not going to give you free nukes, either.
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- The Groove Tiger (profile), 9 Jul 2013 @ 8:02am
  
  Re:
  AMERICA, FUCK YEAH!
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Robert, 8 Jul 2013 @ 10:03pm

US Starting Global Cyber War
To say that the NSA does not require a warrant to spy on foreigners is a lie and tantamount to saying the US government is 'THE' global government and foreigners and third class residents on the globe with no rights.
Basically the NSA is taking powers beyond those granted by local police forces in those countries and abusing the privacy of those countries citizens with the corporate collusion of US corporations operating in those countries.
Basically the NSA is forcing the requirement that foreign countries must ban US communications corporations from operating within those countries in order to protect the communications rights of their citizens.
It appears the US is doing everything possible to force the commencement of global cyber warfare in order to feed the greed of the US military industrial complex.
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Prometeus, 8 Jul 2013 @ 11:14pm

Hello Snowden

Argentina is more secure, Brazil is very violent.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2013 @ 1:50am

shame they couldn't have offered it to him just because of the false charges being weighed at him and the need for more justice to prevail than is atm. i must admit though, if i were in Snowden's shoes, i would plum for a country that is colder towards the USA
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RyanNerd (profile), 9 Jul 2013 @ 4:48am

As long as Snowden avoids playing or officiating soccer
Soccer Referee Killed And Quartered By Fans In Brazil After Fatally Stabbing Player
Don't mess with Brazil and how seriously they take their game or you just may end up with your head on a stick.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2013 @ 4:58am

"allies" as enemies
Well why not. The US government treats it's own citizens as enemies.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2013 @ 5:01am

Am I the only one seeing the Stasi and KGB as analogues here? Because they would have loved this kind of data hoovering.
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The Real Michael, 9 Jul 2013 @ 5:06am

Isn't it interesting. When caught spying on us Americans, they pull the "national security" excuse, but don't even bother trying it with foreign entities because they know that it wouldn't wash.

If you caught your neighbor spying on you, would you feel safe?
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2013 @ 6:41am

"Perhaps if the US didn't treat so-called "allies" as enemies, it wouldn't be having this problem in the first place."

But...but...that would require actual rational thought! From our government! The Horror!!!!!
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Neil Cameron, 9 Jul 2013 @ 7:20am

US self harm
"Perhaps if the US didn't treat so-called "allies" as enemies, it wouldn't be having this problem in the first place."

Put another way, if the US actually paid attention to protecting its interests in the rest of the world it would not have engaged such a policy in the first place.
This is going to raise some serious issues with any joint ventures or business deals, cast suspicion on Immigrants from the US and overall sour the perception of US and its citizens in the rest of the world (as if it wasn't already sour enough).
There are those who shoot themselves in the foot, then there are those who do so and go on to stuff & mount the foot and hang it on their own living room wall for the world to see.
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countermeasures1 (profile), 9 Jul 2013 @ 7:54am

The NSA and Brazil
We got over the U-2 (Gary Powers) shoot-down when things were "hot" between the US and Soviet Union. Brazilian politicians are squat compared to when, at the The Paris Summit between President Eisenhower and Nikita Krushchev, negotiations collapsed in large part because Krushchev demanded an apology that Eisenhower was unwilling to give. Looks like Brazilian politicos are trying to use the Snowden "revelations" to divert constituent concern over the down-turning economy - sooo typical!
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