US spying on President Lula ‘affront to national sovereignty’, says Brazil’s ruling party

Sao Paulo, July 19 (IANS) The President of Brazil’s ruling Workers’ Party, Gleisi Hoffmann, has said that over five decades of spying by the United States on President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was an “affront to national sovereignty”.”Very serious revelations by journalist Fernando Morais about United States espionage in Brazil,” Hoffmann said in a post on X, adding that Lula da Silva was closely monitored throughout his career as a union leader and political activist by numerous US government agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA).Morais is the author of ‘Lula’, a biography about the founder of the Workers’ Party and Brazil’s three-time President, Xinhua news agency reported.Meanwhile, leading daily Folha de Sao Paulo reported on Thursday that the US law firm Pogust Goodhead, which works pro bono for Morais in the United States, had access to US documents produced on Lula da Silva, including intelligence reports.–IANSint/sd/arm