December 26, 2013 -- Updated 1513 GMT (2313 HKT)
NSA leaker Edward Snowden writes an "open letter to the people of Brazil" offering to help probe U.S. surveillance on them. FULL STORY
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VIDEO
Snowden's open letter offers to help Brazil investigate NSA surveillance
December 18, 2013 -- Updated 0145 GMT (0945 HKT)
Snowden to Brazil: Help me, I'll help you
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- NEW: The Brazilian government does not plan to respond to open letter, an official says
- Snowden has agreed to testify via video to a European Parliament panel, sources say
- His open letter was posted online in two places, according to journalist Glenn Greenwald
- Snowden mentions the need for asylum
The letter was posted on the website pastebin and on the Facebook page of David Michael Miranda, partner of journalist Glenn Greenwald, according to a tweet from Greenwald.
In the letter, Snowden
says he has told Brazilian lawmakers that he is willing to help
investigate "suspected crimes against Brazilian citizens."
"I have expressed my
willingness to assist wherever appropriate and lawful, but unfortunately
the United States government has worked very hard to limit my ability
to do so -- going so far as to force down the Presidential Plane of Evo
Morales to prevent me from traveling to Latin America!
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"Until a country grants permanent political asylum, the U.S. government will continue to interfere with my ability to speak."
The Brazilian government
does not plan to respond to Snowden's letter, according to an official
in the press office of the Foreign Ministry.
At this point, no new
request for asylum has been received, so authorities also will have have
no comment on speculation surrounding the possibility one could be
forthcoming, the official said.
An initial request was
received in July, but it was a letter sent not by Snowden himself, but
by Amnesty International to several countries. Brazil said then that it
was not going to respond to the generic letter.
Consternation in South America
Brazil has been in an uproar over reports of U.S. spying.
In September, Brazilian
lawmakers said they planned to send a commission to Russia to speak with
Snowden, who had allegedly leaked information about U.S. spying against
the country's president.
Foreign Minister Luiz Alberto Figueiredo called the situation "an inadmissible and unacceptable violation of Brazilian sovereignty."
Last month, Brazil acknowledged its own past snooping.
The newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo revealed that Brazil spied on foreign
diplomats inside Brazil in 2003 and 2004. Its targets included officials
from Russia, Iran and the United States.
"I see the situations as completely different," Brazilian Justice Minister Jose Eduardo Cardozo told the paper.
In his letter, Snowden, a
former NSA contractor, writes, "Today, if you carry a cell phone in Sao
Paolo, the NSA can and does keep track of your location: they do this 5
billion times a day to people around the world. When someone in
Florianopolis visits a website, the NSA keeps a record of when it
happened and what you did there. If a mother in Porto Alegre calls her
son to wish him luck on his university exam, NSA can keep that call log
for five years or more. They even keep track of who is having an affair
or looking at pornography, in case they need to damage their target's
reputation.
"American Senators tell
us that Brazil should not worry, because this is not 'surveillance,'
it's 'data collection.' They say it is done to keep you safe. They're
wrong. There is a huge difference between legal programs, legitimate
spying, legitimate law enforcement -- where individuals are targeted
based on a reasonable, individualized suspicion -- and these programs of
dragnet mass surveillance that put entire populations under an
all-seeing eye and save copies forever. These programs were never about
terrorism: they're about economic spying, social control, and diplomatic
manipulation. They're about power."
Snowden to testify to panel of European Parliament
Snowden has agreed to
testify, via teleconference, before a civil liberties committee of the
European Parliament, sources in the Parliament say.
Some within the
Parliament opposed the invitation, but the majority supported the idea,
the sources said. The testimony may take place in January, they said.
It's unsure whether
Snowden would testify live or would be pre-recorded, the sources said,
adding that his testimony is expected to cover all aspects of NSA
surveillance internationally.
CNN's Shasta Darlington, Marilia Brocchetto and Jim Sciutto contributed to this report.
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