WikiLeaks: U.S. wiretapped Brazilian presidents

Yamiche Alcindor | USA TODAY

The U.S. National Security Agency wiretapped several key Brazilian government officials including President Dilma Rousseff, her secretary and her chief of staff, according to WikiLeaks documents disclosed Saturday.

The group says the NSA eavesdropped on 29 key Brazilian government phone numbers, listening in on conversations taking place on Rousseff's palace office line and her presidential jet phone as well as on phones of Brazil's foreign minister, ambassadors and military chiefs.

The United States also waged an "economic espionage campaign" against Brazil by spying on those responsible for managing Brazil's economy, including the head of its Central Bank, WikiLeaks says.

"Our publication today shows the U.S. has a long way to go to prove its dragnet surveillance on 'friendly' governments is over," WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said in a statement. "The U.S. has not just (been) targeting President Rousseff but the key figures she talks to every day."

He added that any U.S. assurances of ceasing its targeting of Rousseff cannot be trusted, and Rousseff herself must guarantee that the spying has stopped on her and on all Brazilian issues.

WikiLeaks further detailed the NSA's "intensive interception" of Brazilian phones, saying the agency targeted Brazil's diplomacy by spying on the country's ambassadors to the United States, Germany, France, the European Union and Geneva.

Other targets included the cellphone of Luiz Alberto Figueiredo Machado, former minister of foreign affairs from 2013 to 2015 and current Brazilian ambassador to the United States, as well as army Gen. Jose Elito Carvalho Siqueira, who is the director of the institutional security cabinet, an executive cabinet office responsible for the direct and immediate assistance to the president on matters of national security and defense policy.

Several Brazilian officials expressed anger over the latest revelations, reported The Intercept, a journalism group that reports on leaked NSA documents. Gilberto Carvalho, former chief of staff to former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and a top aide to Rouseff, harshly denounced the spying in an interview with the publication.

Carvalho described his reaction to The Intercept as "maximum indignation," declaring it a "violation of Brazilian sovereignty," which the U.S. "does not have the right to do." He added the fact that Brazil "is trying to repair our relationship with the U.S. does not in any way diminish the gravity of these new revelations."

Last month, documents released by WikiLeaks revealed the United States wiretapped the past three presidents of France, including current leader Francois Hollande as recently as 2012. The documents said the United States eavesdropped on presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac as well as Hollande on issues that included the French positions on eurozone economic policy, United Nations appointments, Middle East peace talks and the financial crisis of 2008.

France rejected an asylum request by Julian Assange on Friday. The Australian has been holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London since 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden for questioning about alleged sexual assaults.

Ecuador has said Assange can stay indefinitely in the embassy. He was granted asylum by Ecuador in the first place based on reasonable fear of prosecution by the United States, which is pursuing a national security case against him.