Edward Snowden’s in Brazil supporters gave the Foreign Ministry a concrete petition signed by over 1.1 million individuals advocating for the government of Dilma Rousseff to allow the US NSA (National Security Agency) whistle-blower asylum in their country.
The petition, started in November 2013 on the Avaaz, gathering support from all over Brazil and around the whole world, this provided a powerful and great expression of the concrete support for Snowden showed hostility towards the global leading spying operations carried by the NSA.
The Revelations of the documents made available by Snowden have made a strong impact in the country, in the county, they have managed to identify the USA spying agency’s systematic hacking and snooping of government officials, phone-calls, messages, emails and Internet searches of President Rousseff and her assistants. This means that economic sabotage towards the 4th largest state owned Oil Company in the and towards the ministry of mining and energy too.
David Miranda initiated the petitions, he is the Brazilian partner in the Rio-based journalist Glenn Greenwald, and he has also broken many other stories which concern the documents leaked by Snowden. Last year August, Miranda was allegedly held for over 9 hours at London’s Heathrow airport while his luggage and belongings were seized by the UK government.
The numerous discussions on Edward Snowden’s life have apparently heated in Brazil since last December, especially after the open letter to Brazil’s population was given by Snowden. This was after a response to a request that was issued by the legislating committee of Brazil and the Federal police of Brazil.
In his response, the former contractor made demands seeking political asylum and protection in any state where he was to be allowed to speak freely without intimidation. Russian government granted him a temporary asylum provided that he does no action that will harm the interests of America.
Currently if a person is carrying a mobile phone and is in São Paulo, the US NSA must be tracking the phone and probably the location of that individual. The NSA also does this in many other countries and cities all over the world. Accordingly, the NSA is in a position to know what website one visited and the activities that an individual did in that website. The NSA is able to track and keep phone records for over 5 years and it was very shocking to know that they are in a position to be able to determine who is watching porn.
The Foreign Ministry on Thursday was obliged to accept the petition which had been signed by 1.1 M people even though there’s no clear indication for the Brazilian government to comply with such demands.
The petition read that since Brazil was among the leader in the global treaties and movement for freedom and privacy in internet services, the country is best suited to be the home of Snowden. The problem is that other states especially the neighbors of Brazil are not willing to offer him asylum.
There was mass protesting in government last year June because of the reason that the country had refused to avail a safe Snowden asylum. Afterwards, there was a special unit that was established in order to uncover the truth.
Rousseff issued a public condemnation; during the time which he cancelled the planned Washington visit in December. Accordingly Rousseff did not want this to trickle down to trade as it may affect the profits.
In the recent past, there was a denounced espionage by two of Brazilian corporations (Vale, and Norte Energia). The two have been accused of organizing and spying on the lives of Brazilian’s social movements while aiding the Brazil’s agency.
The senate of Brazil is mandated to have a vote on legislation on terrorism. It is defined as terrorism as provoking and spreading terror and panic through committing of an offence.
This piece of legislation has gotten a big attention since the February 10th death of a TV cameraman who was killed by protestors who were demonstrating in the streets of Rio against hikes on bus fare.
The legislation purpose was articulated by Jorge Viana who said that the law will help to deal with protests that may erupt during the football world cup. He also added that the laws will be more effective to curb with violent individuals.
Efforts are being made in Brazil to put up a strong legal framework whereby the police use reasonable powers. This come just as the country will be marking it 50th anniversary of the coup that was facilitated by the CIA.
