As with most other statements related to the NSA made by the Obama Administration over the past several months, claims that they never used the surveillance behemoth to conduct industrial espionage has proven to be a lie, with the revelation that they conducted surveillance of Brazil’s largest oil company, Petroleo Brasileiro, also known as Petrobras (NYSE: PBR-A).
Brazilian media reported that a new round of leaks of NSA training material showed the agency bragged repeatedly about monitoring Petrobras, though the exact extent of the surveillance is not yet clear.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff confirmed the report, saying the NSA had been spying on the company for “economic” reasons, adding that there was no way for the US to paint Petrobras as a “threat” to American national security.
But it’s an economic power, with $144 billion in revenue last year and access to several offshore “mega fields” that could make them one of the world’s largest oil suppliers. Though the data is still lacking, most market speculation is that the NSA surveillance principally targeted the company’s data on offshore drilling.
The spying is inexcusable, but has anyone been able to establish a link between the spying and any economic or competitive advantage gained from it in that time period? Is that too complex to go after? If it is, then is there any other way to estimate the damage done as a result from any illegal competitive advantage via the NSA?
There is actually a good case that corporations that operate under government charters granting, among other privileges, limited liability ought to be more transparent than they are — maintaining information of so much of what they do as proprietary and secret. Spying is being used as an illegitimate means of addressing this deficiency.
When one remembers that the CIA activities in the overthrow of Iran in the early 1950s was directly attributable to BRITISH PETROLEUM aka Anglo Iranian oil requesting the US to overthrow the elected nationalistic Government of Iran to control the oil coming from that country any US espionage of foreign Oil companies is very suspect!