from Hacker News

Brazilian president: US surveillance a 'breach of international law'

by thex86 on 9/24/13, 11:20 PM with 48 comments

  • by superflit on 9/25/13, 2:18 AM

    Just another populist in South America,

    It has to be clear that anonymity in Brazil is Forbidden by the Constitution. So it is strange that the brazilian president asks for 'democracy' and privacy when its own constitution does not allow anonymity. What she is saying is: "we are going to implement and force all gov. employees and others to use or OWN email, so we can snoop and guarantee 'our' democracy.... It will be bad if you did not get that job or contract.. Bad things happen To people Who do not agree with us.. Other 'privacy' fact about this govt is the mandatory GPS in each car in Brazil. To make surveillance AND check taxes.

    Brazil is one of most intrusive state ask any reasonable brazilian if it rather have his data in 'Obama' hands or Brazilian Govt hands...

    For all people I know they all better be in US datacenters than Brazilian Govt.

    And it is strange that the Brazilian govt. is Always attacking the freedom os speech by requests to google..[1]

    [1] - http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/government...

    (order by country)

  • by r0h1n on 9/25/13, 5:20 AM

    Jeez! I can't believe the number of HN folks - people waaay above the average Internet commenting monkeys and nutjobs - attacking the messenger while completely missing the message.

    Heck if all Rousseff said was just these two sentences, I'd still applaud her:

    > A sovereign nation can never establish itself to the detriment of another sovereign nation. The right to safety of citizens of one country can never be guaranteed by violating fundamental human rights of citizens of another country.

  • by beloch on 9/25/13, 4:20 AM

    "Just as we reviewed how we deploy our extraordinary military capabilities in a way that lives up to our ideals, we have begun to review the way that we gather intelligence, so as to properly balance the legitimate security concerns of our citizens and allies, with the privacy concerns that all people share."

    Notice how Obama said nothing about neutral parties, let alone civilians who are citizens of hostile countries. The "either you're with us or you're against us" philosophy is alive and well! Who really knows the definition of "with us" in a war on an emotion?

    The sad thing is that, were the entire UN unified in condemnation of U.S. spying, nothing could come of it. The UN is, be design, absolutely toothless when it comes to permanent security council members. It's impotent enough even when it comes to countries like Syria! The only way to make the UN effective is to grant it real power, but that can never happen as long as some of the citizens it represents are more equal than others.

  • by foobarbazqux on 9/25/13, 3:37 AM

    The term "international law" doesn't mean very much if we don't have a functioning international police force.

  • by greeneggs on 9/25/13, 2:09 AM

    The ironic thing is that incidents like this are exactly why we need to spy on our allies. Relationships change and we need to be prepared.

    Good luck to Rousseff making her argument, but I am not sure how spying on embassies violates anybody's "fundamental human rights." Is Brazil willing to stop spying itself?

  • by benihana on 9/25/13, 12:14 AM

    Captain Obvious to the Rescue! Does the Brazilian president have a response to the American president's implied statement of: 'What are you going to do about it, Brazil'?

  • by bsullivan01 on 9/25/13, 4:25 AM

    Brazilian president: US surveillance a 'breach of international law'

    Ummm, even if it is, no one cares. Brazil would spy on US in a heartbeat if they could and probably try to spy on the US Embassy there. The spying I'm worried about is different, not the reading a foreign leader's email kind.