by international law, as long as these agents do not (officially, atleast) do something which is prohibited by our internal laws.--- DOnot think, however, that countries like ours do not do the same thing. We alsosend our intelligence agents to our embassies and consulates abroad to act asour spies. Just like the U.S. and other countries do.--- INthe case of US embassies abroad, there is a joke that their work is so secretthat these agents themselves do not know what they (known as spooks) aredoing... A curious fact is that even the humblest US embassy employee in Brazilknows who they are... Their official cars, houses, accounting and administrative services,etc. are separate and distinct from those of the real diplomats. Moreover,these agents never converse with the Brazilian embassy employees, only withtheir "contacts" outside their diplomatic and consular missions.--- INsummary, the secrets revealed by Edward Snowden (a former employee of the USintelligence services) are not real secrets at all. US authorities have said(officially...) that the millions of telephone numbers and addresses they havestored are not normally used, except in security cases and as authorized bycourts. A proof that this habit is common is that the President of Russia, VladimirPutin, has said that the Snowden episode will not harm Russian/Americanrelations.... Of course, for obvious reaons.--- NATURALLY,the Offended countries have to pretend they are shocked ...because they do the same thing, only someto a greater and others to a lesser degree. Of course, they have to protestvigorously.., but such protestations are just for external consumption and togive their people some satisfaction, pretending that they cannot accept these horrible actions...--- OURinternational specialists in intelligence and espionage matters, Ms. EudoxiaMaria and her grand-daughter , Euphrasia Nemorosa, are laughing here at my sideand getting a good kick over all this. She wants to recommend, however, thatyou do not get excited and relax... because these so called "secretagent" intelligence activites have aways been like this from timeimmemorial and will continue to be so...--- SHEreminds you, by coincidence, that the great war hero of all times, the greatchinese general, SUN TZU, in his book The Art of War, said about 2,500 yearsago, that spies are of extreme importance for the existence of States and towin a war.--- AMONGthe 5 special types of spies mentioned by SUN TZU, Edward Snowden does not fitinto any of them because he is a traitor and not really a spy, according to hismanual.---NOTWITHSTANDING this, Snowden is being considered as a hero by many and astrong candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize by a few... Should a person like himwho violated his duties and ethics principles be glamorized???--- WHYis it that the Brazilian government is sending a committee to Washington to getexplanations for this issue? To hear what they already know very well? Purehypocrisy... --- Theyadvise you to stay calm, but to be careful with your phone conversations and pornochats on the internet... They know exactly where you are now and who are youtalking with and what you are saying...Untilnext time...O7/20/2013