Resentment has festered in Brazil since revelations of the surveillance practices emerged in July, detailing how the agency established a data collection center in Brasília and prioritized Brazil, with its vast telecommunications hubs and large population of 200 million, as among the agency’s most spied-upon countries. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/14/world/americas/in-brazil-kerry-is-told-spying-sows-distrust.html?ref=world Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota issued the unusual expression of indignation over the National Security Agency’s spying programs while standing next to John Kerry at a news conference in Brasília, the capital, where the secretary of state had stopped on a two-day trip to South America, largely in an attempt to allay concerns in Brazil over the N.S.A.’s spying.
Mr. Patriota, a former ambassador to the United States, said that the surveillance practices “cast a shadow of distrust” over bilateral relations and that “listening to explanations doesn’t mean accepting the status quo.”
