NSA Intercepts 98% Of South American Communications: Assange

The NSA is gathering and eavesdropping on practically all communications emerging from South America, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told Chilean publication El Mostrador Tuesday.

“Ninety-eight percent of Latin American communications are intercepted by the NSA while passing through the United States to the world,” Assange said in an interview with the publication.

A large focus of Assange was related to the large swaths of information being collected by American tech companies, specifically Google and Facebook, and their relationship with the U.S. intelligence communities.

“They are physically in the United States and therefore under their legal jurisdiction, with punitive laws used to force them to deliver the information they are collecting,” Assange said.

WikiLeaks seems to be in the midst of a major information push regarding Latin America. Over the weekend, Wikileaks released a variety of documents related to NSA spying in Brazil on the Rousseff administration.

The leaked information included partial phone numbers and identifying information relating to 29 Brazilian government officials whose activities were being monitored.

These documents add to a growing list of American allies, including France and Germany, that are being spied on by the NSA.