Last week, foreign ministers from Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay, and Venezuela expressed their anger to the United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon. Venezuela’s Elias Jaua spoke for the group.

He called the spy programs illegal. And, he said the programs threatened the trust and security of the international community.

Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos says he wants more information about American intelligence gathering. Brazil’s president Dilma Rousseff says her country does not agree at all with the intervention.

Carl Meachem is the director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He says Brazilians’ concerns grow out of the Cold War era. At that time, the United States supported repressive governments in Latin America.

“What they attach this whole issue of surveillance to is the United States acting as a big brother. They would say, ‘On the one hand, you have the president of the United States that wants to reach out and be nice and develop a closer relationship,’ but on the hand, they would say that, ‘If you’re trying to develop a closer relationship with us, why are you spying on us?’”

Mr. Meacham says the real issue is that the United States was caught spying. American computer specialist Edward Snowden told the press about the surveillance programs last May. But Mr. Meacham says America is not doing anything different than other countries, including Brazil.