President of Brazil Lashes Out At NSA Espionage Programs In Speech To UN 260
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "The Guardian reports that Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff launched a blistering attack on US espionage at the UN general assembly, accusing the NSA of violating international law by its indiscriminate collection of personal information of Brazilian citizens and economic espionage targeted on the country's strategic industries. 'Personal data of citizens was intercepted indiscriminately. Corporate information – often of high economic and even strategic value – was at the center of espionage activity,' said Rousseff. 'Brazilian diplomatic missions, among them the permanent mission to the UN and the office of the president of the republic itself, had their communications intercepted.' Rousseff's angry speech was a direct challenge to President Barack Obama, who was waiting in the wings to deliver his own address to the UN general assembly, and represented the most serious diplomatic fallout to date from the revelations by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. Washington's efforts to smooth over Brazilian outrage over NSA espionage have so far been rebuffed by Rousseff, who has proposed that Brazil build its own internet infrastructure. 'Friendly governments and societies that seek to build a true strategic partnership, as in our case, cannot allow recurring illegal actions to take place as if they were normal. They are unacceptable.'"
Re:And the asnwer is ... (Score:4, Interesting)
the end of the Arab Israeli conflict can only be solved in three ways,
- decide that palestine is all arab (and muslim)
- decide that israel is all isrealy (and jewish)
- decide that this vaguely federal country to be named is a democratic country with people of various ethnic and religious back ground who need to live together and the only way this can happen is to totally extirpate any reference to any specific religion, ethnic origin or "nation".
Choice one and two would mean lots of dead people, choice three would be seen as a "bad example" for the neighbours and protectors...
The thing is, that a lot of Americans would like to see choice 2, that Israel, including the entirety of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, be Israeli Jewish territory. This has a lot to do with conservative Christians who believe that the restoration of the Jews to Israel is a precursor to the Second Coming of Jesus, and also believe that Muslims are the Satanic forces they'll be battling at Armageddon. Some also have a goal of matching the borders of modern Israel with the borders described in the Book of Joshua and other texts that would eventually have Israel taking over the Sinai from Egypt, all of Lebanon, about 2/3 of Syria (up to the Euphrates), and a good portion of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq, in all cases kicking out or exterminating the Muslims living there and replacing them with Jews.
That kind of religious thinking is a major motivator of US-Israel relations, more than AIPAC (because there are other Jewish-American lobbying groups advocating different policies), more than the potential campaign donations from Jewish-Americans (again, there's significant divides among Jewish-Americans over the best policy for Israel), and more than what the government of Israel wants (the US has not been supportive of Israeli government efforts to remove settlers from the West Bank or Gaza, for example). Sure, their preferred policy would result in a lot of dead people, but from that crowd's point of view those dead people were irredeemably evil and thus should be killed at first opportunity.
Re:Commendable (Score:2, Interesting)
That doesn't mean that they should just give up fighting. The data is probably 99.999% junk anyway, but that doesn't mean that we should just roll over and accept governments breaking international laws.
Problem is how does a person or persons protest these activities? The governments are not going to stop mining data illegally no matter what anyone says.
From an American point of view, it is well past time we start scaling back government power. Republicans and Democrats, with the exception of their stances on abortion and health care, are the same @*#$ party. First, we have to vote 90% of the current ass clown politicians out of office. Second, we need term limits to avoid the career politicians which only breed corruption. And thirdly, the Constitution Party and Libertarian Party need to infiltrate and re-influence the Republican and Democratic parties to put them back where they were. Did I mention we need to disassemble Homeland Security?
Re:Yeah, talk me more about those "Washington Effo (Score:5, Interesting)
Exports outside the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrodollar [wikipedia.org] with countries like Japan, China - totally removing the need for any use of US currency.
The formation of views such as a new http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Aligned_Movement [wikipedia.org] locking up strategic materials and demanding market value.
The CIA and NSA never want the US to lose control of their vision of soft dollar loans. Long term the loans get repaid with interest or the sale of local assets back to US entities by emerging countries.
Re:Brazil has a lot of things going for it ... (Score:3, Interesting)
For the past ~~20 years Brazil has had a "democracy" and a generation has grown under the freedoms and emerging wealth, trade and stability.
The US was interested in Brazil for its emerging nuclear skill set, oil and aerospace exports.
Things an "emerging" nation is expected to take a loan out for in US and buy via the US not develop domestically and export to the world.