http://rt.com/news/brazil-argentina-cyber-defense-879/
To smother the scandal, US President Barack Obama pledged to work with Brazil and Mexico to address their concerns over US spying.
Obama “committed himself to responding to the Brazilian government,” Rousseff said at the G-20 summit in Russia and whether she makes a planned state visit to Washington next month depends on his response.
US spying was not driven by security or anti-terrorism concerns, but by "economic and strategic interests," Rousseff said this week, demanding that the US take "concrete measures” to stop such espionage.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-09-14/dare-question-argentinas-inflation-data-prepare-go-jail
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 09/14/2013 17:59 -0400
Defense ministers of Brazil and Argentina have pledged to cooperate closely to improve cyber defense capabilities following revelations of the scale of US spying on Latin American countries.
“We need to reflect on how we cooperate to face these new forms of attack,” Brazil's defense minister, Celso Amorim, said at a conference in Buenos Aires.
“We have established that we will hold a meeting in Brasilia before the end of the year to intensify our complementarity in the matter of cyber defense,” Argentine defense minister Agustin Rossi said after talks with his Brazilian counterpart.
The ministers signed a broader military cooperation agreement on Friday.
The countries have agreed that later this year, Brazil will host a bilateral cyber security meeting. And starting in 2014 Brazil will provide cyber warfare training to Argentine officers.
The combined efforts will allow Brazil and Argentina to “diminish situations of vulnerability,” Rossi said.
Amorim noted the countries’ software industries have “great capacity” that could support any initiatives in the cyber defense area.
The scandal that prompted the countries to boost their cyber security broke after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA’s spy program encompasses most countries in Latin America.
Early September, Brazil’s TV Globo reported that the NSA intercepted telephone calls and e-mails of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and Mexican leader Enrique Pena Nieto. A week later is was revealed that the US government also retrieved key data on a number of issues including the oil market, drugs trade and political movements in the Latin American countries
“We have established that we will hold a meeting in Brasilia before the end of the year to intensify our complementarity in the matter of cyber defense,” Argentine defense minister Agustin Rossi said after talks with his Brazilian counterpart.
The ministers signed a broader military cooperation agreement on Friday.
The countries have agreed that later this year, Brazil will host a bilateral cyber security meeting. And starting in 2014 Brazil will provide cyber warfare training to Argentine officers.
The combined efforts will allow Brazil and Argentina to “diminish situations of vulnerability,” Rossi said.
Amorim noted the countries’ software industries have “great capacity” that could support any initiatives in the cyber defense area.
The scandal that prompted the countries to boost their cyber security broke after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA’s spy program encompasses most countries in Latin America.
Early September, Brazil’s TV Globo reported that the NSA intercepted telephone calls and e-mails of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and Mexican leader Enrique Pena Nieto. A week later is was revealed that the US government also retrieved key data on a number of issues including the oil market, drugs trade and political movements in the Latin American countries
To smother the scandal, US President Barack Obama pledged to work with Brazil and Mexico to address their concerns over US spying.
Obama “committed himself to responding to the Brazilian government,” Rousseff said at the G-20 summit in Russia and whether she makes a planned state visit to Washington next month depends on his response.
US spying was not driven by security or anti-terrorism concerns, but by "economic and strategic interests," Rousseff said this week, demanding that the US take "concrete measures” to stop such espionage.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-09-14/dare-question-argentinas-inflation-data-prepare-go-jail
Dare To Question Argentina's Inflation Data, Prepare To Go To Jail
Back in April, we saw that merely asking the local economy minister what Argentina's rate of inflation is, was enough to prematurely terminate any interview and result in a mocking, viral twitter meme. Since then, things for Argentina haven't exactly worked out too well: a recent Appeals court ruling found in favor of Elliott and the holdout bondholders, resulting in a downgrade of the country to CCC+, and leaving it with the possibility of having to fund billions in deferred obligations. "The lawsuit could result in the interruption of payments on bonds currently under New York jurisdiction, or it could prompt Argentina to undertake a debt exchange that we could view as distressed," S&P said in the statement. "There is at least a one-in-three chance of either occurring within the coming 12 months."
Of course, to many the fact that Argentina has still not re-defaulted is even more surprising. The reason for that is that despite president Fernandez ongoing rose-colored glasses PR campaign, the domestic economy has been deteriorating at an accelerating pace with runaway inflation destroying local purchasing power for years. As a result of the ongoing authoritarian crackdown on not only individual liberties, but economic data, it has gotten to the point that the government is criminally prosecuting anyone who dares to publish independent inflation data.
Because when the truth conflicts with propaganda, either the "truth" is made up, as the BLS showed last week, or it becomes a crime to report the truth.
AP attempts to explain this surreal turn of events:
Argentina is trying again to criminally prosecute people who publish independent inflation data, just as Congress opens debate on a 2014 budget that assumes economic good times next year.The government is predicting strong annual economic growth of 6.2 percent, inflation of just 10.4 percent and a peso dropping only 10 percent against the dollar.Independent economists call these numbers wildly optimistic, and say that Argentina's growth prospects are troubling and inflation is actually running more than twice as high. They maintain that illegal currency trading reflects much greater pressure to formally devalue the currency than the government has acknowledged.
So what is a country on the precipice of a full "faith and credit" collapse to do? Since there is no downside, just take it to the next level.
As Economy Minister Hernan Lorenzino proposed the budget to Congress, Commerce Secretary Guillermo Moreno went to court, accusing four different consulting firms of criminal "speculation" for publishing inflation data that contradicts official reports.Among those Moreno targeted Thursday was economist Orlando Ferreres, who estimates inflation is rising by 23.8 percent annually. He called the accusations against him "ridiculous" in an interview with Radio La Red on Friday, and said they only make sense in "an upside-down world."Moreno also asked the judge to approve similar charges against economists with M&S, Buenos Aires City and Finsoport SA consultancies. If charged, tried and convicted of "speculation," they could face two years in prison.But Moreno also faces potential charges himself that carry a two-year prison term. He's accused of abusing his authority as a public official by levying fines of $500,000 pesos (roughly $87,700 at today's official rate) against these economists for publishing independent data. Courts annulled the fines on appeal, but the legal battle is headed for the Supreme Court.
That Argentina has had a long-running tradition of lying about its economy is no secret:
Argentina's inflation numbers have been in doubt since 2007, when President Cristina Fernandez's late husband and predecessor, Nestor Kirchner, had political appointees change the methodology of the official statistics agency, INDEC.To protect themselves from Moreno, the private economists have been giving their monthly estimates to opposition lawmakers, who announce an average inflation rate each month in Congress. That rate has consistently shown prices increasing at least twice as fast as official numbers, which are in such disrepute that the International Monetary Fund no longer reports them."INDEC is the real fraud," Ferreres said. "That's the only one the judges should consider, because it is easily proven."
Something tells us the Billion Prices Projectwould not flourish in Argentina. And since the "judges" in this particular Banana republic belong to the administration, they will only do what they are told from above, which is the diametrical opposite of actual justice. Finally, speaking of Banana republics, at least for now, the BLS merely endorses the "computer upgrade" of its systems on weeks when the data does not comply with the fiction, or simply dumps a massive one-time adjustment in one month and hopes it will all be forgotten. The good news, is that reporting the truth is still not punishable by jail. At least not yet.
and.....
S&P sues US government over alleged retaliation for AAA credit downgrade
Credit rating agency claims Justice Department lawsuit was a revenge move for US credit rating downgrade in August 2011
Email
Standard & Poor's attracted ire in Washington when it downgraded the US's credit rating in August 2011. Photograph: Alamy
Standard & Poor's has accused the US Justice Department of filing its $5bn lawsuit against the ratings agency in retaliation for the company's downgrade of America's debt in 2011.
In its defence against the suit filed on Tuesday S&P claims: "Plaintiff [Justice Department] commenced this action in retaliation for [S&P's] exercise of their free speech rights with respect to the creditworthiness of the United States of America."
S&P attracted considerable ire in Washington in August 2011 when it downgraded the US's credit rating from AAA for the first time. The agency's lawyers said only S&P had downgraded the US's debt rating "and only S&P Ratings has been sued by the United States". In a statement, the Justice Department said S&P's allegations were "preposterous".
In February, the US sued S&P, claiming that federally insured banks and credit unions had purchased mortgage-backed assets rated highly by S&P in the belief that those ratings indicated the assets were less risky than lower-rated securities. They subsequently lost fortunes when the housing market collapsed.
Attorney general Eric Holder claimed S&P knew some $4bn of mortgage-backed securities were risky and was engaged in a scheme to defraud investors. Holder claimed S&P gave its seal of approval to assets that it knew were high risk in order to please the banks that issued them and to drum up new business.
The complaint alleged that "S&P falsely represented that its ratings were objective, independent, and uninfluenced by S&P's relationships with investment banks when, in actuality, S&P's desire for increased revenue and market share led it to favor the interests of these banks over investors."
S&P has called the claims "meritless". In the latest court filing the agency's lawyers state the "ratings opinions were independent and based upon a good faith assessment". The legal papers point out that "senior officials of the United States who were reviewing the same data that S&P Ratings was reviewing throughout 2007 proved no more prescient than S&P Ratings."
S&P's lawyers quote Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, who said in March 2007 that "the central scenario that housing will stabilise sometime during the middle of the year remains intact." Treasury secretary Hank Paulson is also quoted in the legal brief stating that the subprime loan issue was "largely contained".
S&P downgraded the US's AAA debt rating to AA+ in August 2011 following a knife-edge political fight over raising the US's debt ceiling. The unprecedented move caused investors to panic worldwide. Treasury officials attacked S&P claiming it had made a $2tn error in its calculations.
In June S&P upgraded its rating on US debt from stable to negative citing the improving economy. But the agency has stuck with its AA+ long-term rating, a notch below its top grade.
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