
Brazilian president: US surveillance a 'breach of international law' - thex86
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/24/brazil-president-un-speech-nsa-surveillance
======
superflit
Just another populist in South America,

It has to be clear that anonymity in Brazil is Forbidden by the Constitution.
So it is strange that the brazilian president asks for 'democracy' and privacy
when its own constitution does not allow anonymity. What she is saying is: "we
are going to implement and force all gov. employees and others to use or OWN
email, so we can snoop and guarantee 'our' democracy.... It will be bad if you
did not get that job or contract.. Bad things happen To people Who do not
agree with us.. Other 'privacy' fact about this govt is the mandatory GPS in
each car in Brazil. To make surveillance AND check taxes.

Brazil is one of most intrusive state ask any reasonable brazilian if it
rather have his data in 'Obama' hands or Brazilian Govt hands...

For all people I know they all better be in US datacenters than Brazilian
Govt.

And it is strange that the Brazilian govt. is Always attacking the freedom os
speech by requests to google..[1]

[1] -
[http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/government...](http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/government/countries/?t=table)

(order by country)

~~~
oscargrouch
I wander where did you get all this "serious data" and statements over Brazil
?

about Spying: NO one country has this mass surveilance state patronized by
public money in the world. its proven.. its scary, and its US..

This must stop, period.

if every citizen take care of its own country actions.. so they do not
interfere badly with the other countries.. we would be just fine..

Anyway.. this happening its a warning to all of us.. we should listen
carefully, and take good measures about it.. cause in peace time, they might
look harmles or like a joke.. but in war time, or with dictatorships, they
might have severe consequences

~~~
anologwintermut
I have serious objections the the NSAs domestic spying and foreign
surveillance of civilians in other countries. Unfortunately, like any major
power, US foreign surveillance is not going to go away because 1) everyone
else does it and 2) there's no way to verify that other countries have stopped
even if they did.

If you read the history of arms control talks between the US and the USSR, the
only reason they worked was because both parties could verify that the other
was honoring the agreement. The Russians could physically look at satellite
photos and verify the US actually removed some of its ICBMs and vice versa.

There is no way to verify a country is not spying on you. As such, no country,
no matter their rhetoric, is going to actually give up that ability for the
hope that others do so as well. It's a suckers bet.

The solution to privacy in the face of foreign dragnet surveillance is
cryptography.

~~~
oscargrouch
> The solution to privacy in the face of foreign dragnet surveillance is
> cryptography.

I agree with you on that.. of course defensive matters must come to aid this
dragnet environment..

We cannot put the genie back in the bottle anymore,once he came out..

But,together with preventive and defensive measures, politically we must make
our governments and rule makers to stand in favor of privacy, writing more
severe laws against mass surveilance, that do not obey any court order for
particular citizens....

Even if they lie, and they tell us they do so.. once we catch them lying, like
right now, we can do something about it, in the political sphere.. their
political position are defenseless

For instance, Companies in US right now need to fight politically over this,
because even the economy is in danger..

So i think this is a battle that should be fight in two fronts.. If we pick
just one of them, we will lost in the long term

------
r0h1n
Jeez! I can't believe the number of HN folks - people waaay above the average
Internet commenting monkeys and nutjobs - attacking the messenger while
completely missing the message.

Heck if all Rousseff said was just these two sentences, I'd still applaud her:

> A sovereign nation can never establish itself to the detriment of another
> sovereign nation. The right to safety of citizens of one country can never
> be guaranteed by violating fundamental human rights of citizens of another
> country.

~~~
calibraxis
Yes, it's just a common view among US's elites; one poster called her, "Just
another populist in South America". There's a context behind this.

The article mentioned, _" She was imprisoned and tortured for her role in a
guerilla movement opposed to Brazil's military dictatorship in the 1970s."_
The US supported the 1964 military coup, which put in place the Nazi-like
security state which tortured her.
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_Brazilian_coup_d%27%C3%A9t...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_Brazilian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat#American_involvement))

(And there's dissident lit from people who lived through these times, pointing
out the domino effect this had for US intervention against other Latin
American countries, emboldened by our success against Brazil.
[http://www.chomsky.info/talks/19850319.htm](http://www.chomsky.info/talks/19850319.htm))

------
beloch
"Just as we reviewed how we deploy our extraordinary military capabilities in
a way that lives up to our ideals, we have begun to review the way that we
gather intelligence, so as to properly balance the legitimate security
concerns of our citizens and allies, with the privacy concerns that all people
share."

Notice how Obama said nothing about neutral parties, let alone civilians who
are citizens of hostile countries. The "either you're with us or you're
against us" philosophy is alive and well! Who really knows the definition of
"with us" in a war on an _emotion_?

The sad thing is that, were the entire UN unified in condemnation of U.S.
spying, nothing could come of it. The UN is, be design, absolutely toothless
when it comes to permanent security council members. It's impotent enough even
when it comes to countries like Syria! The only way to make the UN effective
is to grant it real power, but that can never happen as long as some of the
citizens it represents are more equal than others.

~~~
mixmastamyk
Not happy about the surveillance, but also not expecting China (or other less
obvious states) to fight for the cause.

------
foobarbazqux
The term "international law" doesn't mean very much if we don't have a
functioning international police force.

~~~
a3n
It probably is a violation. I'd like her and her staff to state exactly what
laws, or what principles and precedents that imply a law, were violated, and
then take that charge to the appropriate court. Or introduce a resolution to
the UN, to force the US the embarrassment of blocking it.

------
greeneggs
The ironic thing is that incidents like this are exactly why we need to spy on
our allies. Relationships change and we need to be prepared.

Good luck to Rousseff making her argument, but I am not sure how spying on
embassies violates anybody's "fundamental human rights." Is Brazil willing to
stop spying itself?

~~~
oscargrouch
It was not just embassies.. it was the president, ministers, comercial
companies, and thousands of civilians..

Also, privacy IS a fundamental human right

You may dont feel it now, since your government doesnt make any movement
against you, or your freedom.. and maybe its not that bad, right now.. but you
ever wander.. if a hitler-like figure get elected to president of US, do you
think anyone would be safe?

Imagine if you tell a joke about your government, and policeman jump right at
your door to put you in jail for that, without a fair trial..

We never now... so in any case.. no government should try to achieve this kind
of power..

And worse yeat, if you think they do it with the money you pay them in taxes..

so you pay, to empower them to crush you whatever they want..

Democratic governments are not so strong as one might think.. there are
sereval politician in anyone country just waiting to something like that to
happen.. think about that

~~~
greeneggs
I am not sure where you are getting your information. Where did you hear that
the NSA was spying on commercial companies? I am just arguing based on the
linked article. It only mentions one company, Petrobas, which is the state-
owned oil company (a minority share is public). The president, ministers,
embassies, Petrobas---these are all parts of the government. Spying on other
governments is why we have spies. Can you tell me that Brazil is willing to
stop spying on foreign governments? (Do you really believe that?)

Furthermore, I am not sure that spying on commercial companies is wrong. If
information learned is redistributed to American companies, then that seems
wrong to me. (Because it would invite retaliation, introduce unfair
competition, etc.) But if the information is kept within the US government,
then what exactly is wrong about that? Are you arguing that privacy is a
fundamental right for corporations, too?

Hitler, etc.: This is all a strawman. I am only talking about spying on
Brazil. But I'm sure it will get you upvotes, so feel free to bring up
Mussolini, too.

~~~
oscargrouch
> "Furthermore, I am not sure that spying on commercial companies is wrong. If
> information learned is redistributed to American companies, then that seems
> wrong to me."

Thats was exacly my the point; Once the information was collected, we never
know exactly in what hands (harmless or not) they will pass by.. not now, and
not in the future.. it gets out of control.. (chinese hackers might breach
security somewhere and enter the party.. and on.. and on..)

We dont know all of this.. what we know its that, its too much dangerous that
all that data be flying around.. it doesnt matter if its about you, me, the
president of whatever.. it has unpredictable results.. (and probably none of
the good ones)

(My point by using the Hitler example, was to point out an archetipical
example of any one with dictatorship intentions, that might surprisingly
subvert the democratic system and do whatever he likes with the country.. its
just easy to think about him first, as such an example.. sorry about that)

~~~
greeneggs
> "Thats was exacly my the point; Once the information was collected, we never
> know exactly in what hands (harmless or not) they will pass by.. not now,
> and not in the future.. it gets out of control.. (chinese hackers might
> breach security somewhere and enter the party.. and on.. and on..)"

We might not know exactly where the information goes, but we have a very good
idea about it. And if Chinese hackers break into the NSA data centers and
discover secrets about Petrobas oil, that's the least of our problems! I'm not
sure what you are worried about exactly. Are you opposed to spying on any
other states, or are you just opposed to spying on state-owned oil companies,
or what?

I understand your concerns about surveilling _citizens_ , but that is very
different from spying on governments and companies. Good information, earned
from spying, can prevent horrible misunderstandings and wars between
countries, save people's lives, etc.

------
benihana
Captain Obvious to the Rescue! Does the Brazilian president have a response to
the American president's implied statement of: 'What are you going to do about
it, Brazil'?

~~~
hcarvalhoalves
No one is in a position to tell US to "stick it", so no.

As a brazilian, I see that even though the speech is based on legit concerns,
the bravado will end up more useful to secure Dilma's position in leadership
(her popularity dropped this year, and by taking a jab at US she'll recover
popularity with a portion of the electorate, who have a hatred for america)
and make Brazil look like a beacon of freedom and transparency to the
international community (or at least, strengthen it's multilateral diplomacy
with the anti-US crowd).

The government will probably try to push a top-down agenda for (unilaterally)
legislating and regulating Internet usage in Brazil in the next months, using
the opportunity to force IT companies to move inside the country and heat the
economy.

All in all, the Snowden scandal has been blown out of proportion by the media,
and will now be used by leaders for all kinds of power play and political
agendas. Anyone who understands the fundamentals of the internet can tell
espionage is a feature that comes for free, and it's not like, suddenly, all
countries in the world can get outraged to know the NSA has been spying. In
fact, espionage is _central_ to the diplomatic game, it only gets harder to
justify on domestic affairs. US citizens have more right to be outraged than
anyone else.

~~~
grecy
> No one is in a position to tell US to "stick it", so no.

Of course we are.

A good start would be if a bunch of countries got together and stopped using a
USD.

Also changing trade deals with the US would send a message.

~~~
mc32
Yeah, except it's pretty much a given that all govt's who can spy do spy as
much as they can on each other, overtly and covertly.

She's just using this to foment fervor in her favor.

Who cares if other countries use the RMB or Euro as trade currency. And no
country with significant trade with any other is going to commit economic
self-inflicted wounds to "send a message". The US doesn't retaliate
economically against any significant partner itself, neither does China. It'd
be silly.

------
bsullivan01
_Brazilian president: US surveillance a 'breach of international law'_

Ummm, even if it is, no one cares. Brazil would spy on US in a heartbeat if
they could and probably try to spy on the US Embassy there. The spying I'm
worried about is different, not the reading a foreign leader's email kind.

