New Greenwald article: US Surveillance spread throughout Latin America

US Surveillance spread throughout Latin America\

- After Brazil, Colombia was the country's most watched
- Venezuela also came in the crosshairs of U.S. programs

Glenn Greenwald, Roberto Kaz and José Casado | 9/07/13


Venezuela, in the Chavez era, was also spied. Ueslei Marcelino / REUTERS

RIO - The United States has been conducting massive surveillance in several other Latin American countries, besides Brazil. Classified documents from the National Security Agency (NSA, its acronym in English) to which the GLOBO has access show that similar situations occur in Mexico, Venezuela, Argentina, Colombia and Ecuador, among others.

... (links to related stories)

One aspect that stands out in the documents is that, according to them, the United States does not seem to be interested only in military affairs but also in trade secrets - "oil" in Venezuela and "energy" in Mexico, according to a listing produced NSA in the first half of this year (see links above).

...

The "Prism" program enables access to emails, chatting and voice calls from customers of companies like Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and YouTube. With it, the NSA collected data on oil and military purchases from Venezuela, energy and narcotics from Mexico, and mapped the movement of Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC). The map of the NSA (above left) clearly shows the amount of data transmitted over fiber-optic submarine cable that the agency could capture in April 2007. With the use of "Prism", this flow of information was captured for processing.

...

To extend their reach, the agency developed other programs with corporate partners, to have access to international communications. This is the case of the "Boundless Informant" for cataloging phone calls and internet access.

...

The importance of operations in Colombia is highlighted on the agency's maps. They can partially be explained by the intense cooperation between the governments in Washington and Bogota in their offensive against the FARC guerrillas and their financial alliance with the drug cartels. But beyond the military aspects, there are also economic one- oil.

... .

(Surveillance in Venezuela, Argentina, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Paraguay, Chile, Peru and El Salvador.)

...

http://oglobo.globo.com/mundo/espionagem-dos-eua-se-espalhou-pela-america-latina-8966619