Latin American communications routed through the United States, affirms Assange

THE journalist and creator of the Wikileaks website, Julian Assange, affirms that virtually the totality of communications from Latin America are routed through the United States, and that this country intercepts them in order to consolidate its influence in the world.

It is a fact that 98% of telecommunications from Latin America to the rest of the world, including text messages, telephone calls, emails etc, pass through the U.S, Assange noted, in an interview with Russia Today conducted within the Ecuadoran embassy in London, where he has been granted refuge.

Washington’s objective is to obtain information on how Latin America is behaving, where it is making economic transactions and the activities of leaders and major players, the Australian activist added.

In Assange’s opinion, this espionage allows the U.S. to predict, to a certain degree, the conduct of Latin American leaders and interests, and also to exert coercion on almost any significant person.
 

He explained that the United States had aggressively tried to disprupt economic exchange through intervention and its control of Swift, Visa, MasterCard or monies sent to Latin America via the Bank of America.
 

The United States is appropriating economic and telecommunications interactions and this poses a threat to national sovereignty, he observed.

 

In relation to the former CIA technician Edward Snowden, who is living in exile in Russia after having revealed mass espionage on the part of U.S. secret services, Assange noted that Wikileaks was formally and informally implicated in Snowden’s requests for asylum made to approximately 20 countries.

 

Assange believes that Snowden had a genuine possibility of gaining asylum in several countries and Wikileaks noted others to inform the public of rejections and thus generate debate, and to report how governments were responding to Snowden’s applications for asylum.
 

The Wikileaks founder recalled that Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador were the Latin American countries which indicated interest in granting asylum to Snowden.
 

The activities revealed by the former CIA analyst include espionage on Latin American leaders such as Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who cancelled a visit to Washington, scheduled for October 23, since she considered the explanations offered by her counterpart Barack Obama insufficient.
 

According to these leaks, U.S. secret services also spied on Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto. (EFE)

 

October 17, 2013

 

Granma.cu

Latin America in U.S. line of fire

By Laura Bécquer Paseiro

Revelations made by former CIA analyst Edward Snowden have opened a Pandora’s box and created an international scandal which could easily continue for some time. The United States government’s vast espionage network has not only focused on U.S. citizens, but various countries around the world as well, including many in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The Brazilian daily O Globo recently published documents describing in detail the U.S. surveillance program in the region, which apparently was not only devoted to gathering military information, but commercial secrets as well.

The newspaper reported that U.S. espionage targeted the oil and energy industries in Venezuela and Mexico, and that the most spied-upon country in Latin America was Brazil. The documents indicated that another priority target was Colombia, where surveillance focused on the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces-Army of the People (FARC-EP). Other countries which were continually monitored, albeit to a lesser degree, were Argentina, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Paraguay, Chile, Peru and El Salvador.

According to the documents obtained by O Globo, between January and March this year, U.S. National Security Agency personnel monitored the region using at least two programs: Prism - which allows access to e-mail, online conversations and internet voice communication provided by companies such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft and YouTube - and X-Keyscore which can identify the presence of a foreign visitor in the country based on the language used in e-mail messages.

Demands made by Latin American countries that the Obama administration provide an explanation of its participation in the incident with Bolivian President Evo Morales’ airplane, reflect regional indignation. Statements from a variety of leaders described the events as unacceptable violations of international law.

SNOWDEN’S REQUESTS FOR ASYLUM

Speaking with Granma, Cuban professor Alzugaray commented on offers of asylum made to Snowden by Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia, saying that no other region in the world is in a better position to take such a stance vis-à-vis the United States. Latin America and the Caribbean, he emphasized, have been a primary target of U.S. intelligence operations and have suffered first hand the consequences of this policy for some time. Although Snowden’s revelations surprised no one, denouncing such espionage is a way of letting the U.S. know that it cannot act with impunity in the region.

The professor pointed out that the Snowden case has brought attention to the expansion of ‘national security’ operations both within the U.S. and internationally, and to the practically unlimited power intelligence organizations have acquired. Some sectors within the U.S. government have reacted with panic, concerned with what more Snowden could reveal, while others have attempted to distance themselves from the phenomenon, he said.

The 29-year-old technician who leaked details of the government’s secret surveillance of telephone calls and internet messages is for Dr. Alzugaray "a time bomb that could explode at any moment and oblige the administration and Congress to review and reduce the autonomy of these intelligence organizations, from Homeland Security to the NSA, the CIA, the FBI and others.

Snowden is not, however, the only concern. The list includes Bradley Manning, the soldier who sent Wikileaks thousands of diplomatic e-mails and other documents about the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, who is currently being prosecuted in military court.

U.S: spying around the world is nothing new. The Spanish daily La voz de Galicia recently summarized the numerous precedents, going back to the Civil War (1861-1865) when Abraham Lincoln authorized supervision of information transmitted by telegraph. His Secretary of War Edwin Stanton invaded the privacy of citizens, detained journalists and decided what messages could be sent.

Professor Alzugaray recalled the warnings issued by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961) about the power of the military-industrial complex and the Church Committee hearings after the Watergate case and the war in Vietnam.

He commented that the Snowden case appears very similar to that of Daniel Ellsberg who revealed the Pentagon Papers in the 1970’s, "Ellsberg himself commented to the Washington Post that the U.S. is not the same as it was in his time and that Snowden’s flight was totally legitimate. It is no surprise that many governments and progressive political forces are sympathetic to the young man and are wiling to offer him asylum."

Given the situation, an unrepentant U.S. government continues to keep an eye on its southern neighbors, putting them in its line of fire. 

July 23, 2013

Grama.cu