Source: Al Jazeera
Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota is deeply concerned about the scope of a US monitoring programme targeting Brazilians.
Brazil’s foreign minister has said his government is worried by a report that the United States has collected data on millions of telephone and email conversations in his country and promised to push for international protection of internet privacy.
Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota on Sunday expressed “deep concern at the report that electronic and telephone communications of Brazilian citizens are being the object of espionage by organs of American intelligence.
“The Brazilian government has asked for clarifications” through the US Embassy in Brazil and Brazil’s embassy in Washington, he said.
Patriota also said Brazil will ask the UN for measures “to impede abuses and protect the privacy” of internet users, laying down rules for governments.
The O Globo newspaper reported over the weekend that information released by NSA leaker Edward Snowden shows that the number of telephone and email messages logged by the US National Security Agency in January alone was not far behind the 2.3 million reportedly collected in the United States.
The spokesman for the US embassy in Brazil’s capital, Dean Chaves, said earlier that any response to the O Globo report would be issued in Washington.