Joe Biden, Dilma Roussef Meeting: Brazil's President and American VP Have First Meeting Since NSA Scandal

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said today that he had a "very frank and sincere" conversation with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, on the first meeting that the Brazilian president held with a senior representative from Washington since allegations of espionage froze bilateral relations. "We discusse the American surveillance plan and how this issue is very important, very important not only here in Brazil, but also very important for the United States and its people. The President and I had a very frank and honest conversation about it." Biden said after meeting with Rousseff in Brasilia.

Following complaints, based on information leaked by a former agent of the National Security Agency (NSA) Edward Snowden, Rousseff canceled a planned visit to Washington last October, where she would have been received with the highest state honors. In addition, the president used her speech at the UN General Assembly to strongly condemn American espionage practices which have also affected other heads of state, and promoted the first international meeting on global Internet governance, carried out last March in Sao Paulo.

Biden said that during the meeting he assured Rousseff that U.S. President Barack Obama made changes to monitoring procedures used by his country, after the allegations broke. "I told her that President Obama, when he learned of the revelations, decided to do a complete analysis, we changed our procedures and we are taking a new approach to these issues," he said. He exxpl;ained that with this in mind, in January the United States announced a "major reform" which consisted of, among other things, applying the same privacy protections enjoyed by Americans to citizens all over the world.