Over the weekend the Guardian, New York Times and others wrote about Glenn Greenwald’s disclosure of Edward Snowden’s top secret NSA docs revealing that the U.S. government had been monitoring the phone calls and emails of Petrobras executives as well as of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.
Rousseff said she was so offended that she is considering cancelling her state visit to the U.S. in October. Former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said the NSA spying violates Brazil’s national sovereignty. “If the facts reported by the press are confirmed, it will be evident that the motive for the spying attempts is not security or the war on terrorism but strategic economic interests,” Rousseff said in a statement. “Clearly, Petrobras is not a threat to the security of any country.”
Aren’t you just shocked, shocked that the National Security Agency has been spying on Brazilian oil giant Petrobras? I’m not. In fact it would be more shocking if the NSA weren’t gathering every fact it could on Brazil and Petrobras, a bloated, state-controlled behemoth reportedly rife with corruption.
The company is Brazil’s biggest. Brazil relies on it to supply low-cost, subsidized fuel for its growing economy, even though that subsidy policy has forced the company to eat $8 billion a year in foregone income and sell assets and bonds to make ends meet. Efforts to rein in those subsidies to limit refining losses were met with riots this summer. Meanwhile, the Brazilian real has been falling against the U.S. dollar, dramatically pushing up Petrobras’ costs of servicing its $75 billion in mostly dollar-denominated debt — more than any other oil company.
A weakened Petrobras means a weakened Brazil, which means a less stable South America. Shouldn’t this be directly in the NSA wheelhouse?
Note EU-Digest: Of course Mr.Christopher Helman - if you believe that spying of one country over another is legitimate.
Read more: Of Course The NSA Should Be Spying On Petrobras - Forbes
Rousseff said she was so offended that she is considering cancelling her state visit to the U.S. in October. Former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said the NSA spying violates Brazil’s national sovereignty. “If the facts reported by the press are confirmed, it will be evident that the motive for the spying attempts is not security or the war on terrorism but strategic economic interests,” Rousseff said in a statement. “Clearly, Petrobras is not a threat to the security of any country.”
Aren’t you just shocked, shocked that the National Security Agency has been spying on Brazilian oil giant Petrobras? I’m not. In fact it would be more shocking if the NSA weren’t gathering every fact it could on Brazil and Petrobras, a bloated, state-controlled behemoth reportedly rife with corruption.
The company is Brazil’s biggest. Brazil relies on it to supply low-cost, subsidized fuel for its growing economy, even though that subsidy policy has forced the company to eat $8 billion a year in foregone income and sell assets and bonds to make ends meet. Efforts to rein in those subsidies to limit refining losses were met with riots this summer. Meanwhile, the Brazilian real has been falling against the U.S. dollar, dramatically pushing up Petrobras’ costs of servicing its $75 billion in mostly dollar-denominated debt — more than any other oil company.
A weakened Petrobras means a weakened Brazil, which means a less stable South America. Shouldn’t this be directly in the NSA wheelhouse?
Note EU-Digest: Of course Mr.Christopher Helman - if you believe that spying of one country over another is legitimate.
Read more: Of Course The NSA Should Be Spying On Petrobras - Forbes
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