NSA Spied on Brazil, Mexico Presidents' Emails

Latin American nations unamused by latest from Snowden trove
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 3, 2013 5:11 AM CDT
Updated Sep 3, 2013 7:38 AM CDT
Brazil, Mexico Fume Over NSA Snooping
The NSA read Dilma Rousseff's emails, according to files from NSA leaker Edward Snowden.   (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

The Snowden files keep on giving: Angry foreign ministers in Brazil and Mexico have summoned US ambassadors over reports that the National Security Agency spied on the presidents of both countries. A Brazilian news report revealed the alleged spying, citing documents obtained by journalist Glenn Greenwald from NSA leaker Edward Snowden. The files show that Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto's emails were being read by the NSA even before he was elected last year. The documents don't include any specific emails for Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, but "it is clear in several ways that her communications were intercepted," Greenwald tells the AP.

The revelation is certain to strain America's relationship with Latin America's two biggest countries—and Brazil had already been infuriated by earlier news that it was among the NSA's most-targeted countries, notes the New York Times. Rousseff is considering calling off her October state visit to the US, according to reports in the Brazilian press, and the country is working on plans to create a new encrypted national email system and to lay new undersea cables to reroute Internet traffic away from the US. A spokesman for the US Embassy in Brazil, meanwhile, says it won't comment on "every specific alleged intelligence activity." (More Brazil stories.)

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