[governance] NSA penetrates Brazilian telecom

michael gurstein gurstein at gmail.com
Sun Jul 7 00:40:51 EDT 2013


The NSA's mass and indiscriminate spying on Brazilians


As it does in many non-adversarial countries, the surveillance agency is
bulk collecting the communications of millions of citizens of Brazil

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*	Glenn Greenwald <http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/glenn-greenwald>


*	guardian.co.uk <http://www.guardian.co.uk/> , Saturday 6 July 2013
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 Entrance to NSA headquarters in Fort Meade
<http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/About/General/2013/6/10/137086
9663763/Entrance-to-NSA-headquart-006.jpg> 

The National Security Administration headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland.
Whistleblower Edward Snowden worked as a data miner for the NSA in Hawaii.
Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

I've written an article on NSA surveillance for the front page of the Sunday
edition of O Globo
<http://oglobo.globo.com/mundo/eua-espionaram-milhoes-de-mails-ligacoes-de-b
rasileiros-8940934> , the large Brazilian newspaper based in Rio de Janeiro.
The article is headlined (translated) "US spied on millions of emails and
calls of Brazilians", and I co-wrote it with Globo reporters Roberto Kaz and
Jose Casado. The rough translation of the article into English is here
<http://translate.google.com.br/translate?sl=pt&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=
UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Foglobo.globo.com%2Fmundo%2Feua-espionaram-milhoes-de-ma
ils-ligacoes-de-brasileiros-8940934&act=url> . The main page of Globo's
website lists related NSA <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/nsa>  stories:
here <http://oglobo.globo.com/> .

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. The story follows an article in
Der Spiegel last week
<http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/nsa-spies-on-500-million-german
-data-connections-a-908648.html> , written by Laura Poitras and reporters
from that paper, detailing the NSA's mass and indiscriminate collection of
the electronic communications of millions of Germans. There are many more
populations of non-adversarial countries which have been subjected to the
same type of mass surveillance net by the NSA: indeed, the list of those
which haven't been are shorter than those which have. The claim that any
other nation is engaging in anything remotely approaching indiscriminate
worldwide surveillance of this sort is baseless.

As those two articles detail, all of this bulk, indiscriminate surveillance
aimed at populations of friendly foreign nations is part of the NSA's
"FAIRVIEW" program. Under that program, the NSA partners with a large US
telecommunications company, the identity of which is currently unknown, and
that US company then partners with telecoms in the foreign countries. Those
partnerships allow the US company access to those countries'
telecommunications systems, and that access is then exploited to direct
traffic to the NSA's repositories. Both articles are based on top secret
documents provided by Edward Snowden; O Globo published several of them.

The vast majority of the GuardianUS's revelations thus far have concerned
NSA domestic spying: the bulk collection of telephone records
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court
-order> , the PRISM program
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data> ,
Obama's presidential directive
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/07/obama-china-targets-cyber-overs
eas>  that authorizes domestic use of cyber-operations, the Boundless
Informant data
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/08/nsa-boundless-informant-global-
datamining>  detailing billions of records collected from US systems, the
serial falsehoods publicly voiced
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/19/fisa-court-oversight-pr
ocess-secrecy>  by top Obama officials about the NSA's surveillance schemes,
and most recently, the bulk collection of email and internet metadata
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/27/nsa-data-mining-authorised-obam
a>  records for Americans. Future stories in the GuardianUS will largely
continue to focus on the NSA's domestic spying.

But contrary to what some want to suggest, the privacy rights of Americans
aren't the only ones that matter. That the US government - in complete
secrecy - is constructing a ubiquitous spying apparatus aimed not only at
its own citizens, but all of the world's citizens, has profound
consequences. It erodes, if not eliminates, the ability to use the internet
with any remnant of privacy or personal security. It vests the US government
with boundless power over those to whom it has no accountability. It permits
allies of the US - including aggressively oppressive ones - to benefit from
indiscriminate spying on their citizens' communications. It radically alters
the balance of power between the US and ordinary citizens of the world. And
it sends an unmistakable signal to the world that while the US very
minimally values the privacy rights of Americans, it assigns zero value to
the privacy of everyone else on the planet.

This development - the construction of a worldwide, ubiquitous electronic
surveillance apparatus - is self-evidently newsworthy, extreme, and
dangerous. It deserves transparency. People around the world have no idea
that all of their telephonic and internet communications are being
collected, stored and analyzed by a distant government. But that's exactly
what is happening, in secrecy and with virtually no accountability. And it
is inexorably growing, all in the dark. At the very least, it merits public
understanding and debate. That is now possible thanks solely to these
disclosures.


The Guardian's reporting


One brief note on the Guardian is merited here: I've been continuously
amazed by how intrepid, fearless and committed the Guardian's editors have
been in reporting these NSA stories as effectively and aggressively as
possible. They have never flinched in reporting these stories, have spared
no expense in pursuing them, have refused to allow vague and baseless
government assertions to suppress any of the newsworthy revelations, have
devoted extraordinary resources to ensure accuracy and potency, and have
generally been animated by exactly the kind of adversarial journalistic
ethos that has been all too lacking over the last decade or so (see this
Atlantic article
<http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/07/the-british-are-coming-
and-theyve-brought-newspapers/277486/>  from yesterday highlighting the role
played by the Guardian US's editor-in-chief, Janine Gibson).

I don't need to say any of this, but do so only because it's so true and
impressive: they deserve a lot of credit for the impact these stories have
had. To underscore that: because we're currently working on so many articles
involving NSA domestic spying, it would have been weeks, at least, before we
would have been able to publish this story about indiscriminate NSA
surveillance of Brazilians. Rather than sit on such a newsworthy story -
especially at a time when Latin America, for several
<http://news.yahoo.com/bolivia-plane-incident-infuriates-latin-america-21105
1576.html>  reasons
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/06/venezuela-nicaragua-offer-asylu
m-edward-snowden> , is so focused on these revelations - they were enthused
about my partnering with O Globo, where it could produce the most impact. In
other words, they sacrificed short-term competitive advantage for the sake
of the story by encouraging me to write this story with O Globo. I don't
think many media outlets would have made that choice, but that's the kind of
journalistic virtue that has driven the paper's editors from the start of
this story. 

This has been a Guardian story from the start and will continue to be.
Snowden came to us before coming to any other media outlet, and I'll
continue to write virtually all NSA stories right in this very space. But
the O Globo story will resonate greatly in Brazil and more broadly in Latin
America, where most people had no idea that their electronic communications
were being collected in bulk by this highly secretive US agency. For more on
how the Guardian's editors have overseen the reporting of the NSA stories,
see this informative interview on the Charlie Rose Show from last week with
Gibson and Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger: 

 

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