29-03-2024 11:38 AM Jerusalem Timing

US Spied on Brazil’s President, Top Officials

US Spied on Brazil’s President, Top Officials

The US spy agency bugged the phone of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff along with her top political and financial officials.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff (R), US President Barack Obama (L)The US spy agency bugged the phone of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff along with her top political and financial officials, according to new information released by WikiLeaks.

“Our publication today shows the US has a long way to go to prove its dragnet surveillance on ‘friendly’ governments is over,” WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange wrote in a statement, acccording to The Hill news.

“The US has not just [been] targeting Rousseff but the key figures she talks to everyday,” he added.

WikiLeaks said the NSA eavesdropped on 29 critical Brazilian phone numbers, including Rousseff’s palace office line and her presidential jet’s number. It also wiretapped phone numbers for Brazil’s foreign minister, ambassadors and military chiefs.

The group said the NSA conducted an “economic espionage campaign” by spying on those in charge of Brazil’s economy.

That initiative targeted the head of Brazil’s Central Bank.

WikiLeaks additionally said the NSA surveyed Brazil’s diplomacy abroad in a number of locations.

The agency reportedly spied on Brazil’s ambassadors to the US, Germany, France, Switzerland and the European Union.

Publication of the list sheds new light on the spying scandal that first erupted in 2013 and damaged relations between the US and Brazil, prompting Rousseff to cancel a state visit to Washington in an embarrassment for US President Barack Obama.