In June, ex-defence contractor Edward Snowden leaked classified documents from the US National Security Agency (NSA) to the Washington Post and to Glenn Greenwald of the Guardian. Since then, Greenwald has published a series of scoops revealing the troubling reach of US surveillance.
A story in July showed that US intelligence has monitored millions of emails and phone calls from Brazilian citizens. According to The Guardian, this makes Brazil – ostensibly a US ally – ‘among the most heavily data-mined nations, alongside China, Russia and Pakistan’. In the wake of the revelations, shame-faced US Vice-President Joe Biden was left to call Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff to convince her not to cancel a visit to Washington in October.
