Brazil Passed On Boeing For $4.5 Billion Fighter Jet Deal Because Of Concerns Over NSA Surveillance
from the costly... dept
We've pointed out a few times now, how the NSA seems unable to do basic cost-benefit analysis on its widespread surveillance. The NSA still seems to think that its surveillance is "costless" (perhaps beyond the $70 billion or so from taxpayers). However, as we've pointed out time and time again, distrust in US businesses thanks to the NSA's overreaching surveillance creates a very real cost for the economy.And it seems to be growing day by day. Brazil, which has been one of the more vocal protesters concerning NSA surveillance, has just awarded a $4.5 billion contract for new fighter jets to Saab, rather than Boeing, which many expected to get the deal. And, Brazilian officials are making it clear that the NSA surveillance issue played a major role in throwing the contract from the Americans to the Swedes.
Until earlier this year, Boeing's F/A-18 Super Hornet had been considered the front runner. But revelations of spying by the U.S. National Security Agency in Brazil, including personal communication by Rousseff, led Brazil to believe it could not trust a U.S. company.So, as someone asks in the article, did the NSA's spying on Brazil provide over $4 billion in benefits to the US? That seems unlikely. Maybe now, someone, somewhere within the US government will finally start to do a cost-benefit analysis on the NSA's surveillance that actually takes into account how people will react when it is inevitably revealed how far the spying goes.
"The NSA problem ruined it for the Americans," a Brazilian government source said on condition of anonymity.
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Filed Under: benefit, brazil, business, cost, fighter jets, nsa, surveillance
Companies: boeing, saab
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Ah the good old NSA, destroying the US's reputation worldwide, sabotaging security measures, and now screwing up the economy to boot, and all to chase a phantom threat that was never more than a statistical blip compared to a hundred other common, everyday dangers.
Still, I'm actually hoping this sort of thing becomes more common as time passes, the regular people may not have much pull in the government, but if large companies start seeing hits like this in their profits, they will make their 'concerns' heard, and unfortunately(or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), they have a much better chance of getting such abuse of power stopped, or at least reigned in somewhat, even if it's only to protect their own interests.
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What if enough companies are negatively affected that one of them eventually gets the idea of using something akin to the ISDS process to sue the US Government for damages due to the spying. After all, the spying was put in motion via legislation and that legislation has now had a proven and serious negative affect on expected corporate revenue...
I know the US will just claim sovereign immunity and say "too bad", but it would be interesting to watch it unfold.
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You've got to be joking. The NSA is just going to say that the $4.5B is not part of their budget, so why should they care.
Only the Senators from Washington State will care.
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Re: Only the Senators from Washington State will care
Boeing is headquartered in Chicago now and Boeing is doing everything it can to move it's dependency out of Washington state to non-union locations. The aspects of this that Boeing works on come from their acquisition of Northup Grumman.
I hope this means at a minimum 4 senators other than the 2 in Washington State care as well. Well perhaps care is a strong word, maybe more likely to - take notice - and then find other busy work before looking to their next congressional holiday.
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Re: Re: Only the Senators from Washington State will care
I believe the corporate-speak you're looking for is "diversifying one's assets".
Yeah, speaking as someone from Washington state and living in an area where a lot a people work at Boeing (pretty much the western half of the state), the whole relocation to Chicago headquarters was rather... irritating. I mean, you move out of your figurative ancestral homeland to Corruption Capital, USA? What the hell were they thinking?!
But yes, the Senators from all the states Boeing operates in (Washington, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, California, Alabama, South Carolina, D.C., Florida... and that's off the top of my head. Probably a few more somewhere) will probably care (or at least pay lipservice) to what just happened.
Just another thing to put the NSA's feet to the flame over I suppose.
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How Long...
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Re: How Long...
Boeing was going to get a nice $4.5 billion contract, the Brazilian government decided to go with someone else, meaning Boeing instead gets a whopping $0, sounds like 'lost profits' to me, time to break out the lawyers and the 'oh-so-impartial' arbitration court.
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Re: Re: How Long...
ISDS is about expropriation by government. Eli Lilly could spin and twist the rules to interpret it "not granting a patent" is somehow "expropriating intellectual property" (two jokes in one sentence).
But I seriously doubt that Boeing could spin a story that somehow make a lost contract into expropriation of corporate assets. That would be so ridiculous I can't imagine even the ISDS court would stomach it. (Then again, I may be naive)
Even if it came to be, I think the proper reaction from Brazil would be to terminate the appropriate trade agreements with the US.
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Re: How Long...
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Re: How Long...
Also, Boeing was never much of a true contender... too much american congressional restrictions on tech transfer of designs and armaments, meaning the jets would have little options for evolution, and would offer very little that could help brazilian national industry. On the other side, the Daily Beast has this great article about the Grippen
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/03/24/the-planet-s-best-stealth-fighter-isn-t-made -in-america.html
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Re: Re: How Long...
But the acquisition was always intended to have a transfer of technology component, and the favored originally was the French plane, until political troubles in the relationship between Brazil and France, and the greed of Dassault last offers (in part justified by being the sole offer that included transfer of jet engine technology) gave the edge to SAAB.
Given that Brazil needs those fighters for defensive actions, the positioning of plane squadrons play a larger part in interception deployiments than the top speed of the fighter, and the large flight autonomy is also good.
Also, Russia is signaling interest in offer the new MIGs to Brazil, so the future prospects of Boeing getting a contract on anything other than engines to Brazil are very low. Also, Brazil will be able to supply to nearby South American countries, so outside Colombia and Venezuela, everyone else gets Grippen.
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Re: Re: Re: How Long...
F35 has been chosen in several countries under these auspices even though it is a messy prototype so far. MIG35 is also still more or less a prototype.
Gripen is probably the best buy of the primary planes on the market, anyway.
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Re: Re: Re: How Long...
If Brazil gets the MIGs the US is going to have conniptions. Though maybe the Four way economic powerhouse of China, Brazil, France/Sweden/EU & Russia can start looking at getting away from the current US Centric world economy and once more look at creating a new standard currency that removes the US$ from its current powerful position (too big to fail)
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I hope...
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Re: I hope...
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Re: Re: I hope...
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They won't. They'll just blame the loss on Snowden and ignore their own part in it.
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Re: Snowden
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will be a waste of time unless those who keep defending the NSA to the extent they do and who insist that there was nothing wrong, let alone illegal, in what the NSA did at home and abroad, nothing will change. i am surprised however that any country, let alone a company can afford to lose this amount of money in sales of anything. just goes to show how wrong you can be!
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saab makes fighter jets?
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Re: saab makes fighter jets?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Saab_900_GLE_(2)_(crop).jpg
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Re: saab makes fighter jets?
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Re: saab makes fighter jets?
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Probably for the best...
Brazil probably dodged a pretty big potential bullet by going with the Swedes and will end up with a more robust fighter jet that they own 100%
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Re: Probably for the best...
Even the NSA can't be that stupid. Please? Seriously please?
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Re: Re: Probably for the best...
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Re: Re: Re: Probably for the best...
I mean, I can understand the urge to make sure that your weapons aren't turned around and used against you, but they have to realize that if they include any such 'switch', unless it requires the person triggering it to be physically in the vehicle, or in physical contact with the (insert weapon system here) when they trip it, it's only a matter of time before their enemies learn about it, crack the security on it, and use it against them.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Probably for the best...
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Probably for the best...
The US Military and Government like every governments is Egotistic and never thinks anyone else is as smart (or smarter) than they are. Your old restrictions on encryption algorithms is a prime (ha!) example of this.
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Re: Probably for the best...
In 2010 the US unilaterally changed its mind, stating that "no country involved in the development of the jets will have access to the software codes." All software upgrades will be done in the US.
The other countries complained, and the UK specifically indicated they might cancel its entire order of F-35s without access to the coding, without which the nation will be unable to maintain its own aircraft.
If Saab is including source code, then they have an obvious advantage when selling national security products to countries who actually think about national security.
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Re: Re: Probably for the best...
That is all interesting background, but this contract would have been for F/A-18s, not F-35s.
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Foreign sales of military systems is a business that at times makes the NSA look like a church choir, so it is not at all difficult to ascribe possible motives unrelated to the NSA and its activities. The most likely motive? Price (with perhaps a few dollars exchanging hands under the table).
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I think you have it largely correct, though I notice that no one said anything about your post.
Indeed, of the three aircraft under consideration by Brazil, the Gripen was the cheapest, least capable aircraft of the bunch. If Brazil was looking for something comparable to the F-18 (even if somewhat remotely comparable), the Dassault Rafale would have been a better choice.
Furthermore, many of the relatively few sales of the Gripen have been associated with accusations of corruption and bribery.
Incidentally, all of this information has been widely documented.
I think Brazil is being more than a little disingenuous if it says anything about NSA having to do anything with their decision to buy the Gripen. Is it possible that revelations of NSA surveillance had ANYTHING to do with the decision to buy the Gripen over the F-18 and the Dassault Rafale? At best, only remotely, and more likely Brazil had already made its decision to chose the cheap, relatively lightweight Gripen over more capable aircraft, but someone in Brazil decided this would be an opportunity to blame a significant decision on something totally unrelated to that decision. How childish.
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Entirely Understandable Switch
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If remote GPS kill switches can be installed in cars with OnStar, do you really believe the same isn't possible for a military F/A-18 fighter jet?
http://www.gadgetreview.com/2009/07/gm-adds-remote-kill-switch-to-onstar-vehicles.html
Imagine every Brazilian fighter jet uploading it's GPS positional information in real to Pentagon satellites. It's kind of hard to avoid detection, if you're plane is secretly ratting you out.
The remote GPS kill switch doesn't even need to shut down the jet's engine, it just needs to prevent the weapon systems from firing when the pilot pulls the trigger.
Do you really think the United States would sell military hardware to a country, without built-in assurances that a country won't turn around and use that same hardware against them?
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II
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No, this is a fundamental misunderstanding. The system is working as designed.
Since the order did not come to a US firm the NSA now *must* (national security) spy even more on foreign firms.
Quite simply, the NSA is intent on creating more justification for it's services.
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Brazil is now planning on laying a new undersea cable for replacing the old one that is so degraded it will only support phone communications. Know that the US will have no fingers in the laying of it nor the installing of any equipment on either end. They'll have to use the Jimmy Carter to tie in subsea.
Germany is now planning on a new internet system that doesn't leave Europe to do emails to prevent the US from intercepting them in route through the US backbone routers.
AT&T was denied the right to bid on a communications contract by the association of it's ties with the NSA in Europe.
Many countries are now demanding if Google or any other data providers and handlers want business inside their country they must guarantee that the data won't leave the country.
Most of the big contracts haven't run out their time yet. We will hear more and more of these denials of access to the US or the total dropping of US services such as cloud systems in favor of domestic pardners.
Germany had a small time email provider benefit from the lack of US transmission and encryption beyond it's wildest dreams when Snowden revelations began.
Because of the lack of privacy in Europe, many countries are considering the ending of the banking data passing to the NSA.
One by one these things will add up. Corporations are fixing to ante up to stop the NSA or they are going to move out of country.
Other countries may be doing the same thing, it's just their dirty laundry isn't out being aired in public.
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another slap in Uncle Sam's face
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-2615726/Brazils-Bin-Laden-bar-welcome-England-fans-World-C up.html
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Meanwhile, the swedes help them make anything work with theirs.
I think its just more of a fuckyou than the real reason
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I would enjoy seeing your support for the statement that the F-18 can only use weapons made in the US. How is that even possible? The weapon/aircraft interface is easily reverse engineered (though it is not necessary to do that), and the F-18 is configured for NATO operations, which means it is compatible with NATO equipment, including weapons produced by countries other than the US. Indeed, the Gripen most likely handles most of the same weapons that the F-16 handles, except those that are too heavy for the Gripen, with its relatively light payload.
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This illustrates who the real traitors are
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Re: This illustrates who the real traitors are
Isn't it obvious?
The NSA has been infiltrated by foreign agents, and now spends billions of your tax dollars to undermine the government and the economy.
Much lulz social & judicial engineering..
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In realality
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Trust
The US founded the Internet and for a long time was its hub in the world. NSA has cost them that because no matter what the US government says about it, no other country will trust them or, for that matter, the British. In the long run, that makes the Internet even stronger as it becomes increasingly distributed and new foreign channels open.
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Russian T50 stealth fighter
now imagine iran , syria, india, brasil , and china to all have those....maybe evne north korea....
keep up the copyright terms and patent lengths boys its working
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@23 60 f35's are triple 12 bilion in cost
canada would have grabbed a like amount and were told 9 billion cost , then it became 30 billion and now its about 40 billion
no thanks
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