Brazil and Spying: A Quiet Word, Part Two

A while ago I wrote  in response to French "outrage" that the NSA spied on them that,

For obvious reasons, I must and will be very cautious in what I say re spying. I note, however, that the French might want to hold their tongues on this matter. France has well-funded, active, and effective national intelligence organizations that operate around the world. The French services collect on many targets, private sector as well as government. Those targets are domestic and foreign, and when I say foreign, I mean, uh, well, foreign, you know, as in not French but maybe European and American, and, uh, those are allies of France . . . . whenever I was in France on official business or had contact with French officials, including dealing on Airbus vs. Boeing sales, I had to be very careful about where I put my laptop, and what I said or sent via any electronic device, n'est-ce pas?

I see now that the Brazilians and the Mexicans are "outraged" over Snowden's revelations that--Horrors!-- the NSA collected on them, and allegedly read their presidents' email traffic. This, again, shows a couple of things:

1) Snowden and his pals are not some sort of naive, good-natured crusaders for civil liberties and privacy rights. Snowden is a traitor, as I have noted before, and works with people out to harm the United States. He is giving away information on overseas operations that have nothing to do with the rights of Americans, but have everything to do with established practices by every government, to wit, conduct intelligence collection on foreign powers and citizens. Are you shocked that spy organizations spy?

2) As I noted about the French, the Brazilians, especially, should keep quiet about espionage. They have an active intel organization which collects on foreigners and Brazilians in touch with foreigners. Whenever I was in Brazil, we always assumed our phones were tapped and, on occasion, we were being followed.

Chill, my Latin brothers, chill.

WLA