Posted on 09/10/2013 1:53:51 PM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
US SPYING ON BRAZIL HALTS TALKS ON WARPLANE PURCHASE
BRASILIA (AFP) - Alleged US spying on the communications of Brazil's president have brought negotiations on buying US warplanes to a halt, a Brazilian government source said Tuesday.
The talks have been going on for years, and got a nudge with a visit from Vice President Joe Biden in May.
"The negotiations were going very well, and then they stopped" with the recent press reports that the National Security Agency had spied on the online and other communications of President Dilma Rousseff. Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto was also alleged to have been targeted by the NSA.
The US government was eager to close the aircraft deal in time for a planned October visit to Washington by Rousseff, the source said.
Brazil has been in talks to buy 36 fighter jets for years, at a cost of $5 billion.
The candidates are the Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet, the Rafale from France's Dassault the Gripen NG by Saab of Sweden.
Rousseff said last week she will decide whether to go ahead with the Washington trip depending on the explanation she gets from Obama about the alleged espionage. Obama has promised an answer this week, Rousseff said.
"They have to win back our trust," the source said.
Brazilian broadcaster TV Globo has reported over the past two weeks that the NSA spied on the online communications of Rousseff, her aides and Brazilian oil giant Petrobras.
The allegations stem from documents leaked by fugitive former
(Excerpt) Read more at au.news.yahoo.com ...
So the NSA was doing what It’s supposed to be doing instead of monitoring “US Persons?”
Obama rebuilding America’s moral stature in the world.
What on earth! Have we always spied on other countries during peace time, or is this something new since obammy came to town?
The Germans are flying helicopters over our embassy in a “How do you like it?” response.
More brilliant foreign policy from the man-child president.
Well...in addition to, not instead of.
“What on earth! Have we always spied on other countries during peace time,”
I attended numerous classified briefings by the FBI in the ‘80’s. They showed convincing evidence that spying was taking place every day. We wanted to use regular PC’s. They took us to the top of our building and pointed an antenna at Hercules over a mile away. They tuned in on people who were working on the same proposal we were working. We could read every word they typed.
The French conduct the most thorough technology theft in the world. When the cold war ended they didn’t fire any spies. They turned them lose to spy on American industry to help French industry. (We don’t do that. Of that I’m certain.) A negotiator for Honeywell went to France and during the negotiation told the French company rep he wasn’t authorized to give them what they were asking for. The Frenchman said, “sure you are,” and showed him a copy of the Honeywell rep’s negotiating authorization which they apparently got from his locked briefcase in his hotel room while he was at dinner. He got up and left.
Yep, they all do it.
The NSA was doing what It’s supposed to be doing in addition to monitoring “US Persons.”
“The Germans are flying helicopters over our embassy in a ‘How do you like it?’ response.”
That was just a PR stunt for the public due to the upcoming vote. I work with public available map data. For every square meter of Germany you get at least 25 colorful pixel. Building heights are collected by laser scanning.
If it wasn’t a PR stunt the government has to be replaced due to incompetence. I have to remember the UN Libya resolution where Germany vote with China and Russia. Also what happens now with Syria and the hesitant German Government.
Maybe Brazil will buy French jets just send a massage.
The US has always spied on other countries, and other countries have always spied on the US. There is nothing peculiar about any of that, and in many ways most spying takes place during peace time (when it is easier to do so than during times of overt conflagration). The spying extends to allies as well, with the Israelis spying on the US, the US on the Germans, the French on the Brits, and so on. Some of it is targeted (e.g. Ben-Ami Kadish and Jonathan Pollard spying on the US for Israel), some of it is business related (the French in particular), and most is just general stuff for anything that may be of interest and available.
The issue with Snowden is that it brought things that were well known in private to harsh public light and review. It is not that the Brazillians didn't know that the US was looking at their stuff. It is that the depth and breadth of it came out, and came out publicly. Officials couldn't just refuse to do anything.
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