Brazil speech at UN lashes out at US spy program

UNITED NATIONS - Brazil's president delivered a stinging rebuke yesterday to the United States over its surveillance program that has swept up data from billions of telephone calls and emails that have passed through Brazil —including her own.

Addressing the UN General Assembly on the first day of its annual meeting, President Dilma Rousseff accused the US of violating Brazil's sovereignty with what she called a "grave violation of human rights and of civil liberties."

"In the absence of the respect for sovereignty, there is no basis for the relationship among nations," Rousseff said. "Friendly governments and societies that seek to build a true strategic partnership, as in our case, cannot allow recurring illegal actions to take place as if they were normal. They are unacceptable."

Last week, she shelved an upcoming state trip to the US in a show of anger over the US National Security Agency program.

Brazil is an important hub for trans-Atlantic fiber optic cables. The NSA, tasked with intercepting potential terror communications, also reportedly hacked into the computer network of state-run oil company Petrobras.

Rousseff said the NSA also collected economic and strategic corporate data, as well as messages by Brazilian diplomats, including to the United Nations, and from her own office.

She said Brazilian citizens' personal data "was intercepted indiscriminately."

"The arguments that the illegal interception of information and data aims at protecting nations against terrorism cannot be sustained," Rousseff said. Brazil "knows how to protect itself. We reject, fight and do not harbor terrorist groups," she added.

Rousseff said she has demanded an apology from the US and assurances that the electronic snooping will stop.

The Obama administration has said its surveillance program does not examine the context of the intercepted messages without evidence they are suspicious.