Obama Promised Answers on Spying by Wednesday: Brazil

BRASÍLIA – US President Barack Obama has promised answers by Wednesday to allegations of US spying on Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff, her government said Friday.

Obama made the commitment to Rousseff, who met with the US president on Thursday on the sidelines of a G20 meeting in Russia, the Brazilian presidency said in a statement.

“According to Dilma, Obama assumed direct and personal responsibility for the investigation of the allegations of espionage,” it said.

Brazilian Foreign Minister Luiz Alberto Figueiredo is to meet next Wednesday with US National Security Adviser Susan Rice to discuss the matter, it said.

Rousseff also said at a news conference after the G20 summit that she will propose at the United Nations new rules concerning invasion of privacy.

Brazil and Mexico were angered by disclosures this week by US journalist Glenn Greenwald that the US National Security Agency had spied electronically on Rousseff and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto.

Moving to defuse a growing crisis, US officials said Obama would address the concerns of the two Latin American leaders.

Rousseff had halted preparations for an October 23 state visit to Washington, while Pena Nieto had stressed in telephone call with Obama that the allegations needed to be investigated and any wrongdoing punished.

Greenwald, who is based in Rio de Janeiro, reported Sunday that the NSA was using a program to access all Internet content Rousseff visited online.

He told Globo television that the NSA was trying to better understand Rousseff’s methods of communication and interlocutors.

The NSA program allegedly allowed agents to access the entire communications network of the president and her staff, including telephone, Internet and social network exchanges.

Greenwald also said some of Pena Nieto’s email, phone calls and text messages were intercepted, including communications in which he discussed potential cabinet members before he was elected in July 2012. 

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