SafeUM
Home Blog Services Download Help About Recharge

Axarhöfði 14, 110 Reykjavik, Iceland

Iceland - 2015
SafeUM
Blog
Services
Download
Help
About
Recharge
Menu
Archive
TOP Security!
17 Dec 2013

Edward Snowden pens an open letter to the people of Brazil

National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden wrote in a lengthy "open letter to the people of Brazil" that he's been inspired by the global debate ignited by his release of thousands of National Security Agency documents, and that the NSA's culture of indiscriminate global espionage "is collapsing."

In the letter, released widely online, Snowden commended the Brazilian government for its strong stand against U.S. spying. He said he'd be willing to help the South American nation investigate NSA spying on its soil, but could not fully participate in doing so without being granted political asylum, because the U.S. "government will continue to interfere with my ability to speak."

Revelations about the NSA's spy programs were first published in the Guardian and The Washington Post newspapers in June, based on some of the thousands of documents Snowden handed over to the Brazil-based American journalist Glenn Greenwald and his reporting partner Laura Poitras, a U.S. filmmaker.

The documents revealed that Brazil is the top NSA target in Latin America, in spying that has included the monitoring of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff's cellphone and hacking into the internal network of state-run oil company Petrobras.

The revelations enraged Rousseff, who in October canceled an official visit to Washington that was to include a state dinner. She's also pushing the United Nations to give citizens more protections against spying. In his letter, Snowden dismissed U.S. explanations to the Brazilian government and others that the bulk metadata gathered on billions of emails and calls was more "data collection" than surveillance.

"There is a huge difference between legal programs, legitimate spying ... and these programs of dragnet mass surveillance that put entire populations under an all-seeing eye and save copies forever," he wrote. "These programs were never about terrorism: they're about economic spying, social control, and diplomatic manipulation. They're about power."

Brazilian senators have asked for Snowden's help during hearings about the NSA's targeting of Brazil, an important transit hub for trans-Atlantic fiber optic cables that are hacked. Both Greenwald and his domestic partner David Miranda spoke before the Senate, and Miranda has taken up the cause of persuading the Brazilian government to grant political asylum to Snowden.

Snowden, who is living in Russia on a temporary one-year visa, previously requested political asylum in Brazil and several other nations. On Tuesday, neither Brazil's Foreign Ministry nor the presidential office said they had immediate comment on Snowden's letter or any pending asylum request. Several members of Brazil's Congress have called for Snowden to receive asylum, so that he could assist lawmakers' investigation into NSA activity in Brazil.

Rousseff recently joined Germany in pushing for the United Nations to adopt a symbolic resolution which seeks to extend personal privacy rights to all people. The Brazilian leader has also ordered her government to take several measures, including laying fiber optic lines directly to Europe and South American nations, to "divorce" Brazil from the U.S.-centric backbone of the Internet that experts say has facilitated NSA spying.

The Snowden letter was first published Tuesday in a Portuguese translation by the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper. The AP later obtained the original English version. It comes one day after a U.S. district judge ruled that the NSA's bulk collection of millions of Americans' telephone records likely violates the U.S. Constitution's ban on unreasonable search. The case is likely to go to the Supreme Court for a final decision.

"Six months ago, I revealed that the NSA wanted to listen to the whole world," Snowden wrote. "Now, the whole world is listening back, and speaking out, too. ... The culture of indiscriminate worldwide surveillance, exposed to public debates and real investigations on every continent, is collapsing."

Tags:
USA Brazil Snowden NSA surveillance
Source:
The Huffington Post
1861
Other NEWS
3 Jul 2020 safeum news imgage An encrypted messaging service has been infiltrated by police
4 May 2020 safeum news imgage Two-Factor Authentication ​What Is It and Why You Should Use It
12 Dec 2019 safeum news imgage Encryption is under threat - this is how it affects you
4 Nov 2019 safeum news imgage Should Big Decisions Be Based on Data or Your Intuition?
7 Jun 2018 safeum news imgage VPNFilter malware infecting 500,000 devices is worse than we thought
4 Jun 2018 safeum news imgage Hackers target Booking.com in criminal bid to steal hundreds of thousands from customers
1 Jun 2018 safeum news imgage Operator of World's Top Internet Hub Sues German Spy Agency
30 May 2018 safeum news imgage US says North Korea behind malware attacks
29 May 2018 safeum news imgage Facebook and Google targeted as first GDPR complaints filed
25 May 2018 safeum news imgage A new reason to not buy these cheap Android devices
24 May 2018 safeum news imgage Flaws in smart pet devices, apps could come back to bite owners
23 May 2018 safeum news imgage Google sued for 'clandestine tracking' of 4.4m UK iPhone users' browsing data
21 May 2018 safeum news imgage LocationSmart reportedly leaked phone location data onto the web
18 May 2018 safeum news imgage The SEC created its own scammy ICO to teach investors a lesson
17 May 2018 safeum news imgage Thieves suck millions out of Mexican banks in transfer heist
All news
SafeUM
Confidential Terms of Use Our technologies Company
Follow us
Download
SafeUM © Safe Universal Messenger

Axarhöfði 14,
110 Reykjavik, Iceland

Iceland - 2015