As expected, President Dilma Rousseff, who recently canceled a planned state visit to Washington over reports of U.S. spying on the Brazilian government, took advantage of her speech to the U.N. General Assembly to respond to the allegations. She laid out a vision of cybersecurity and net neutrality that is probably at odds with how those concepts are usually understood by privacy advocates in the United States:

As many other Latin Americans, I fought against authoritarianism and censorship, and I cannot but defend, in an uncompromising fashion, the right to privacy of individuals and the sovereignty of my country. In the absence of the right to privacy, there can be no true freedom of expression and opinion, and therefore no effective democracy. In the absence of the respect for sovereignty, there is no basis for the relationship among Nations.

We face, Mr. President, a situation of grave violation of human rights and of civil liberties; of invasion and capture of confidential information concerning corporate activities, and especially of disrespect to national sovereignty.

We expressed to the Government of the United States our disapproval, and demanded explanations, apologies and guarantees that […]