Lula suspends Brazil spy chiefs over phone taps

[DogPoundPup]

Source: Reuters UK

BRASILIA (Reuters) - President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva suspended the entire leadership of Brazil's intelligence agency on Monday after it was accused of spying on the Supreme Court chief and members of Congress.

The presidential office said in a statement that Lula had decided to suspend the top officials until an investigation into the allegations was complete.

Opposition leaders had earlier demanded an inquiry into a magazine report about the spying, the latest scandal to hit Lula's government.

The scandal is unlikely to dent Lula's strong approval ratings buoyed by a booming economy, and his government said the alleged spying was "abominable," but it could sour his relations with Congress and the judiciary.

Veja, the country's leading news magazine, reported on the weekend that the Brazilian Intelligence Agency, or Abin, spied on Supreme Court President Gilmar Mendes and tapped his telephones. It published what it said was a transcript of a private telephone conversation Mendes had with a member of Congress.

Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKN0131550620080902

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. Man...

It sure must be nice to have a functioning Democracy, with rule of law, respect for rights and privacy and all that stuff.

[superconnected]

2. See what happens when the president isn't the corrupt one ordering the spying

it becomes very illegal.

[Selatius]

3. When Brazil was still ruled by the pro-US military dictatorship, spying on citizens was the norm.

Left wingers and people who opposed the established power structure were routinely spied upon and eliminated or "disappeared." In those days, Latin America kneeled to Washington and Wall Street.

[bluesmail]

4. Makes me yearn for the good ol days of democracy. n/t

[Festivito]

5. What a difference having a mature human makes. /nt

[Peace Patriot]

6. Here's an intriguing Bushite/Corpo 'news' psyops mystery...

First of all, compare and contrast this Rotters article with the BBC version. See
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=405x7416

The two most redflaggy omissions by Rotters (included by the BBC) are, 1) that Lulu da Silva's chief aide was also a target of the intel agency's wiretapping; and 2) the Supreme Court justice wasn't just talking on the telephone to "a member of Congress," he was having long conversations with the (rightwing/fascist) opposition.

I identified it as a possible Bushite/Corpo psyops-disinformation 'sting' on the basis of the BBC article, because of the hints of Associated Pukes/Rotters kind of writing in the BBC article (see my analysis at the above post), and on my knowledge of the reasons that the dark lords would want to sully Lula da Silva. I said this may be the beginning of one of their dirty rotten campaigns to "divide and conquer" the South American left, and distract and (better yet) destabilize leftist governments. Where there is trouble in South America--especially in a government allied with the Bolivarians (Lulu is a strong ally and defender of Chavez and the others), look first to Bushite motives and possible dirty tricks. The Bushites are not behind every anti-left 'news' story or incident, of course, but they and their Corpo 'news' operatives have done so much of this kind of crap re South America, it's safe, and often productive, to make that assumption, up front. Bushites are guilty until proven innocent wherever the South American left and oil are involved.

Major new oil find in Brazil recently--Lulu said he's going to use the profits for education (a very Chavezy thing to do--benefit the poor; makes Bushites gnash their teeth and pull chunks of hair out of their heads).

Brazil about to challenge the U.S. at the WTO on subsidized U.S. cornfuel vs. imported Brazilian sugarcane fuel. (Brazil was the leader of the 20-country walkout at WTO-Cancun, over brutal U.S./first world unfairness to third world economies.)

Lulu recently said, of Chavez, "You can criticize Chavez on a lot of things, but not on democracy," contradicting billions of dollars worth of Bushite/Corpo media psyops calling Chavez "a dictator."

Lulu is a key leader, in accord with Chavez and the rest of the left, on moving swiftly to a South American "Common Market," not including the U.S., and Brazil further proposed a common defense, not including the U.S.

Lulu was a key regional player in the astonishing election of a leftist in neighboring Paraguay this year (overturning 61 years of rightwing rule)--a big loss for the Bushites in their dirty rotten efforts to stem the blue tide that has swept South America (and is now beginning to roll through Central America--Honduras--HONDURAS!--being the latest defector).

Lulu's alliance with the Bolivarians is not just strategic/economic and smart, it is warm and affectionate, and real--the kinds of connections that are difficult to break, and why psyops are needed to try to break them, and/or damage leftist leaders in other ways. Thus, we have the ridiculous "suitcase full of money" caper out of Miami run by a Bushbot U.S. attorney (trying to 'divide and conquer' Venezuela-Argentina), the recent Big Ag strike against Argentina's leftist government, the clearly Bush-backed white separatist movement in Bolivia (against its leftist, indigenous president), and this incident in Brazil which appears to be aimed at causing confusion, conflict, finger-pointing and division between Lulu and Brazil's legislature (which has a lot of rightwing/Corpo operatives), and to sully Lulu's administration with suspicions of wiretapping. (The rightwing immediately--you might say, on cue--got all huffy and puffy about the threat to Brazil's "democracy." They are a lot like our Bushites--profoundly anti-democratic, and utter lying hypocrites.)

The Rotters version of this story is much more anti-Lulu than the BBC version (which already showed signs of psyops). The Rotters version is an escalation--dropping out facts that tend to exonerate Lulu from any part in the wiretapping. The leftist president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, recently had to purge Ecuador's military/intel of U.S./Bush operatives (after a U.S.-Bush/Colombia bombing/raid on Ecuador this year). Lulu may have to do the same with Brazil's intel agency. (This could be a matter of Bushite moles/paid operatives.)

The old CIA tactics (Reagan, Bush I) of destabilization, assassination and installing brutal dictatorships, haven't worked in South America, this time around. Democracy has too firm a hold. And there is plenty of evidence that, after trying the former (notably in Venezuela), Bush II is trying new and subtler tactics, including using their near total control of Corpo media, here and there. They've obviously been running an op on "Chavez the dictator," but that hasn't succeeded in South America (cuz South Americans know the truth), so they are trying to switch to "Chavez the corrupt" (with the Miami caper). Their current methods in South America resemble what they do here, except that, in South America, they don't have rightwing Corpo control of the voting machines with 'TRADE SECRET' code and virtually no audit/recount controls, as they do here. They have to actually convince South Americans that Chavez is bad, or Lulu is bad, and they have to try to distract, confuse, disable and divide leftist governments, within the country, and also as to the strong leftist alliances between countries.

There is not enough evidence yet for me to call this one--strictly local dispute, or Bushite psyops. I'm struck, though, by how swiftly it was edited into an anti-Lulu story, by the Bushwhacks at Rotters (omitting pro-Lulu facts). It'll be interesting to see the Associated Pukes version.

[Peace Patriot]

7. Okay, the Associated Pukes have now weighted in--and it's a hoot!

I tell you, friends, it's my strong feeling that we are looking at a Bushite/Corpo psyops campaign as it happens, and for once we have caught it in progress, as it unfolds in the Corpo media.

Here's the AP version: (note the "ap" buried in the url)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080902/ap_on_re_ca/brazil_wiretap_scandal_6

The BBC told us that wiretapping is "common" in Brazil, but provided zero evidence, other than the word of the BBC reporter and that of an anonymous 'agent' apparently quoted in some magazine. I identified this as possibly the beginnings of cover story for the Bushite operatives (or other rightwing/Corpo parties) who have engineered this 'sting' (against leftwing Lugo, whom the Bushwhacks are very displeased with, for many reasons).

The Rotters 'news' article then pretty much parrots the BBC article, but omits anything that is pro-Lugo (that points to his innocence of wiretapping)--for instance, the fact that his chief aide was a wiretap target.

Now, the Associated Pukes chimes in. While they include the information that Lulu's aides were targets, they go way, way off the cliff in smearing Lulu with some of their most scurrilous psyops techniques, as follows:

"The case prompted some lawmakers to talk of impeachment proceedings, but such a step appeared unlikely at this point. // The fast-developing scandal is the latest of several to hit Silva's administration. // The president took office in 2003 with bold promises to clean up government. But by 2005, his chief of staff was forced to resign after being accused of orchestrating a scheme to buy votes from lawmakers. // Silva has nevertheless managed to insulate himself, and his approval ratings hover around 70 percent." (emphasis added)

This AP article is so full of devious crap, I don't know where to begin. Let me start with the word "but" (boldfaced and underlined by me above). Lulu took office promising to clean up government. Two years later ONE PERSON on his team is accused--not convicted, accused--of corruption, and Lulu promptly fires him. This Associated Pukes "but" tries to connect the promise of clean government to Lulu's discovery of, and immediate firing of, a corrupt official in his own ranks, in such a way as to make Lulu seem like a liar, and also corrupt. Then they cap off this dirty pool writing with the suggestion that Lulu needs to "insulate" himself (from what? one corrupt guy, whom he instantly fired three years ago?), and does so--"insulates" himself from all this scandal and corruption (one guy, three years ago), with a seventy percent approval rating!

:rofl:

It would be funny, if it were not so evil. I swear, they've got Karl Roves-in-training at AP. Or AP is Karl Rove. (Or is it Mark Penn?)

This is so bad that a freshman high school English student could spot the putridly smelling disinformation. It does not take a lot of smarts to write this way, or to spot it (if you're looking for it). The trouble is that not a lot of readers possess the skeptical gene, or have consciously studied AP reporting (got a burr up their saddle, like I did, because of some crap AP did about Chavez, early on, that got me alerted to their heavily slanted and very unreliable reporting). So toxic garbage like this washes over peoples' brains, and they hardly notice that it is killing lots of brain cells. And the next time they have occasion to think of Lulu da Silva, the next words that come to their minds are "scandal" and "corruption."

ONE scandal. Three years ago. How many scandals are there in the Bush junta--that AP never mentions? Thousands! Involving billions and billions of dollars, mass murder, torture, secret prisons, no-bid contracts, a trillion dollar deficit, shredding 5,000 emails. Do they ever say this about Bush? "The fast-developing scandal" (of thousands)? "Some" legislators talking of "impeachment"? Bush "insulating" himself with a 20% approval rating?

:rofl:

Really, you gotta laugh.

"Some legislators...". And where did they dig him up from--the Vatican basement (where they found a guy called "his critics," who said that Chavez was "increasingly authoritarian")?