{"id":14626,"date":"2015-11-21T09:54:20","date_gmt":"2015-11-21T14:54:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=14626"},"modified":"2015-11-21T09:56:16","modified_gmt":"2015-11-21T14:56:16","slug":"venezuelan-president-calls-nsa-spying-on-state-oil-company-vulgar-orders-official-inquiry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=14626","title":{"rendered":"Venezuelan President Calls NSA Spying on State Oil Company ‘Vulgar,” Orders Official Inquiry"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Venezuelan President Calls NSA Spying on State Oil Company ‘Vulgar,” Orders Official Inquiry<\/a><\/h3>\n

Venezuela will conduct a \u201ccomprehensive review of relations with the United States\u201d and submitted a formal protest over new evidence that the National Security Agency spied on state-owned oil company Petr\u00f3leos de Venezuela, the country\u2019s president announced.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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President Nicolas Maduro spoke about the latest spying revelations at an\u00a0event<\/a>\u00a0late Wednesday night. Earlier in the day,\u00a0The Intercept\u00a0<\/em>and teleSUR jointly\u00a0published reports<\/a>, based on a top-secret document provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, detailing how the intelligence agency gained large-scale access to PDVSA\u2019s internal computer network and successfully targeted top executives for electronic surveillance.<\/p>\n

One named NSA target was Rafael Ram\u00edrez, PDVSA\u2019s president from 2004 to 2014, now serving as Venezuela\u2019s ambassador to the United Nations. Last month the\u00a0Wall Street Journal\u00a0<\/em>reported<\/a>that Ram\u00edrez has been the subject of a U.S. Justice Department investigation for alleged corruption during his time at the oil company.<\/p>\n

Maduro\u00a0called<\/a>\u00a0the U.S. espionage, conducted in part from its embassy in Caracas, \u201cvulgar\u201d and an \u201cillegal action in light of international law.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Thursday, U.S. charge d\u2019affaires in Caracas, Lee McClenny, was summoned to receive an official letter of protest from Alejandro Fleming, Venezuela\u2019s deputy foreign minister.<\/p>\n

In a\u00a0press briefing<\/a>, U.S. State Department spokesperson John Kirby declined to address the allegations directly, saying the State Department would instead \u201crespond through diplomatic channels to the Venezuelan Government.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kirby added, \u201cThere\u2019s no intent to use electronic surveillance to benefit commercial gain. That\u2019s not changed,\u201d echoing previous statements from President Barack Obama and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.<\/p>\n

After Brazilian network TV Globo revealed NSA spying on Brazil\u2019s state-owned oil company\u00a0Petrobr\u00e1s<\/a>\u00a0in 2013, Clapper\u00a0issued<\/a>\u00a0a statement affirming that the U.S. \u201ccollects information about economic and financial matters,\u201d but does not use its \u201cforeign intelligence capabilities to steal the trade secrets of foreign companies on behalf of \u2014 or give intelligence we collect to \u2014 U.S. companies to enhance their international competitiveness or increase their bottom line.\u201d<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Venezuelan President Calls NSA Spying on State Oil Company ‘Vulgar,” Orders Official Inquiry Venezuela will conduct a \u201ccomprehensive review of relations with the United States\u201d and submitted a formal protest over new evidence that the National Security Agency spied on state-owned oil company Petr\u00f3leos de Venezuela, the country\u2019s president announced. President Nicolas Maduro spoke about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[90,249,10694,4885,577,10695,746,5567,827,851],"class_list":["post-14626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","category-liberty","tag-brazil","tag-edward-snowden","tag-industrial-espionage","tag-james-clapper","tag-nsa","tag-petroleos-de-venezuela","tag-spying","tag-the-intercept","tag-united-states","tag-venezuela"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14626"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14628,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14626\/revisions\/14628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}