Brazil says spying activities `completely different` from US’

London – Brazil’s Justice Minister, Jose Eduardo Cardoso has reportedly defended the country’s spying activities and said that they were ‘completely different’ from those carried by the US’ National Security Agency.

Cardoso said that the agents who photographed US, Russian, Iranian and other diplomats in Brazil were acting lawfully.

The remarks come amidst claims about the Brazilian agents’ activities being leaked in the national press, while President Dilma Rousseff postponed a visit to the US, in a protest move against the alleged snoop-ops, the BBC reports.

Cardoso said that any attempt to compare Brazilian and US activities was a mistake, explaining that what happened in relation to Brazil and other countries was a violation.

He explained that the alleged Brazilian spying activities were ‘counter-intelligence’ operations, intended to verify whether other countries were spying on Brazil.

Meanwhile, the US State Department called Brazil’s activities as routine and said that all nations gather foreign intelligence, which also sought to reinforce the countries’ partnership.

The report said that Brazil was angered by revelations that the NSA had hacked the computer network of state-run oil company Petrobras to collect data on emails and telephone calls, pointed by the highly classified revelations made by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.