Alwaght | News & Analysis Website

Alwaght- WikiLeaks, in a disclosure published on 4 July, released a top secret NSA target list of 29 key Brazilian government members, including the country's president, phone numbers that were selected for intensive interception.
According to the whistleblowing website, not only President Dilma Rousseff was targeted but also her assistant, her secretary, her chief of staff, her Palace office and even the phone in her Presidential jet were intercepted. Revealing that the US has waged an economic espionage campaign against Brazil, report reads that the country's key Finance Ministers and even the head of the Brazilian Central Bank were targets of the US espionage campaign.
wikiLeaks' latest revelation that comes after its last week's report on the US economic espionage against France, Germany and the EU leaks that "Cabinet Minister Nelson Henrique Barbosa Filho, who served as Executive Secretary at Brazil's Ministry of Finance from 2011 to 2013 and who is now Minister of Planning, Budget and Management is on the target list, as is Antonio Palocci, Minister of Finance under former President Lula and formerly Dilma's Chief of Staff," says.
Based on documents published by WikiLeaks, the US also extensively spied on the Brazil's diplomacy, targeting the phones of its Foreign Minister and its ambassadors to Germany, France, the EU, the US and Geneva. For example, the report says that the cell phone of Luiz Alberto Figueiredo Machado, former Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2013 to 2015 and current Brazilian Ambassador to the US was targeted.
Although, due to information leaked by the US NSA security contractor Edward Snowden in 2013 that revealed American authorities had been spying on Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff's cell phone and e-mail communications, as well as those of many of her advisers and oil giant Petrobras, the US-Brazil relations became strained the summit of the Americas in Panama in April 2015 the US tried to warm up its relations between with Brazil.
On Tuesday, Rousseff said things had changed and she had assurances from President Barack Obama and the U.S. government that intrusive spying on friendly countries had stopped.
"I believe President Obama… He has told me that should he ever need nonpublic information about Brazil, he would just pick up the phone and call me," she added.
However, despite the fact that Rousseff, in a statement published on Saturday, reaffirmed that she considers the spy episode with the US "overcome", whistleblowing site's 4th July revelation unveiled that that she " Even on her official travels is not safe from interception as the target list includes the Inmarsat satellite phone service for the President's jet".
Commenting on the US espionage campaign against Brazil, the Whistleblowing group's founder Julian Assange said "Our publication today shows the US has a long way to go to prove its dragnet surveillance on 'friendly' governments is over. The US has not just been targeting President Rousseff but the key figures she talks to every day". Rebuking Rousseff's optimism about the US good will towards her country, Assange statistically commented "Even if US assurances of ceasing its targeting of President Rousseff could be trusted, which they cannot, it is fanciful to imagine that President Rousseff can run Brazil by talking to herself all day."
"If President Rousseff wants to see more US investment in Brazil on the back of her recent trip as she claims, how can she assure Brazilian companies that their US counterparts will not have an advantage provided by this surveillance, until she can really guarantee the spying has stopped – not just on her, but on all Brazilian issues," he added.
The Brazilian target list adds to the previous US espionage on so-called "friendly" countries -wiretapping highest Germans officials’ communications publications, spying on three French presidents including Francois Hollande, Nicolas Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac, their economic ministries, as well as the EU Central Bank- that shows the US is systematically targeting different countries' leaders, high rank officials, and economy and industry managers.