NSA Spied on Brazil Oil Company, Petrobras—What WikiLeaks Cables Reveal About Possible Motivation

WHISTLEBLOWING - SURVEILLANCE, 23 Sep 2013

WikiLeaks Press – TRANSCEND Media Service

This article is published on The dissenter/ Firedoglake, by Kevin Gosztola on September 9, 2013. We give here a short summary:

The article recalls the recent revelation of NSA espionage on internal and private computer networks of the Brazilian oil company, Petrobras. This company is partly state-owned.

The Brazilian Globo TV program Fantastico reported on secret NSA documents from Edward Snowden, which were provided to the program by Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald.

The NSA had previously stated that they never “engage in economic espionage in any domain, including cyber.” The motivations for such espionage have been analyzed by Brazilian authorities. The article explains that Brazil recently discovered large offshore, pre-salt oil deposits.

“Brazilian officials have suggested that NSA spying must be motivated by the US government’s interest in this massive discovery of oil and natural gas. Minister of Communications for Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, Paulo Bernardo, stated, “The spying is of a commercial, industrial character. It is the interest [of the US] to know about issues of the pre-salt [offshore oil finds] and other issues of economic and commercial weight.”

But the article also highlights several cables, released by WikiLeaks, showing the very high interest with which the US State Department looked at the Brazilian oil potential, particularly  in terms of oil deposits.

According to the article, the cables

show a focus on the operations of Petrobras and an overt willingness [by US Departement of State]  to fight for the interests of US oil companies while conducting meetings with Brazilian officials.

The article quotes a large number of cables which suggest that, for a number of years, the US government has been very interested in helping US companies to win contracts to make investments in Brazil, against Petrobras.

See the  Full Article

Go to Original – wikileaks-press.org

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