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US Spying Costs Boeing Military Jet Deal With Brazil
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from a Reuters report shedding light on one consequence of increasing knowledge of the extent of U.S. government spying: "Brazil awarded a $4.5 billion contract to Saab AB on Wednesday to replace its aging fleet of fighter jets, a surprise coup for the Swedish company after news of U.S. spying on Brazilians helped derail Boeing's chances for the deal. ... The timing of the announcement, after more than a decade of off-and-on negotiations, appeared to catch the companies involved by surprise. Even Juniti Saito, Brazil's top air force commander, said on Wednesday that he only heard of the decision a day earlier in a meeting with President Dilma Rousseff. Until earlier this year, Boeing's F/A-18 Super Hornet had been considered the front runner. But revelations of spying by the U.S. National Security Agency in Brazil, including personal communication by Rousseff, led Brazil to believe it could not trust a U.S. company."
While I agree, it seems Europe is in this mess as deep as the US. In point of fact, the data trading between countries has allowed the US to circumvent our 4th Amendment by subcontracting domestic spying to our allies.
BRIC is the future world power, my friends. And we are powerless to stop it. But hey, at least we'll all have shitty health insurance that we're forced to buy!
The larger impact of all of this NSA spying is going to be pushing countries like Colombia and Brazil over the edge, where they will distance themselves from the US and align instead with Bolivarian Socialist states in SA.
Brazil has already been moving that way for some time, but this may be the final nail in the coffin for any hope of avoiding becoming another despotic socialist state.
Where is your source that the US engages in industrial espionage? I keep seeing this with (Score:5, Informative), but as yet, no proof has been given. Did I miss something?