Reports of U.S. Spying on Petrobras: Daily

By Chesney Hearst, Senior Contributing Reporter

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – More allegations of U.S. spying on Brazilian targets surfaced on Sunday, as the Globo TV program “Fantástico” revealed new classified U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) documents that show the U.S. spied on Brazil’s largest company, Petrobras.

Petróleo Brasileiro S.A., or Petrobras, an international technological leader in deep-sea drilling techniques for pre-salt, is Brazil’s largest company with annual revenues of R$280 billion.

Although O Globo states that the documents, which were uploaded to O Globo newspaper’s website, do not show what kind of information, if any, the NSA sought about the company. O Globo said that it was “possible to assume that [the information] had to do with technology and pre-salt oil fields.”

The new documents were again delivered to the “Fantástico” program by Rio-based American journalist, Glenn Greenwald. The information came from former NSA contractor turned whistleblower, Edward Snowden.

Greenwald, who vowed to reveal more classified documents after his partner, David Miranda, was detained in London’s Heathrow airport for nine hours over two weeks ago, is making good on his promise with this last batch of information.

At the time of Miranda’s return to Rio, Greenwald told reporters in Portuguese, “”I will be far more aggressive in my reporting from now. I am going to publish many more documents. I am going to publish things on England, too. I have many documents on England’s spy system. I think they will be sorry for what they did.”

The latest reports of U.S. spying on Brazilian targets comes amid a tense moment in Brazil-U.S. relations, which have been strained by the recent wave of spying allegations.

On Sunday, September 1st, “Fantástico” also aired a report that showed that the U.S. had allegedly spied on Brazil’s top government officials, including President Dilma Rousseff. The information had been given to Greenwald by Snowden.

On Thursday, September 5th during the G20 summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, President Dilma Rousseff spoke with U.S. President Obama about the NSA program to demand explanations about Brazil’s inclusion in the large-scale spying program. President Obama promised a response by next Wednesday.

Read more (in Portuguese).

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