De Obama a Trump: uma transicao civilizada (ao menos pensamos) - BIC

De Obama a Trump: a transição presidencial nos EUA

A vitória do candidato republicano Donald Trump marca o início de um processo de transição presidencial  que se estende até 20 de janeiro de 2017

Highlights
O período de transição presidencial deve durar cerca de 75 dias, contados a partir da data das eleições.
Mais de 4.000 cargos comissionados do Executivo e outros 1.000 cargos que dependem de aprovação posterior do Senado serão renomeados nesse período.
Esta é a primeira transição realizada de acordo com o Edward "Ted" Kaufman and Michael Leavitt Presidential Transitions Improvements Act of 2015, legislação que uniformiza o processo de transição da Casa Branca e das agências federais.

O plano de transição da Casa Branca
Por ordem executiva, Obama estabeleceu o Conselho de Coordenação da Transição da Casa Branca (WHTCC) e  o Conselho de Diretores de Transição das Agências (ATDC).

Os conselhos são responsáveis por coordenar a transição de administrações. O ATDC é composto por representantes das principais agências federais dos EUA e o WHTCC é formado por assessores diretos do Presidente, diretores administrativos, um coordenador federal da transição e um representante da nova administração.

Pela primeira vez, a atual administração também promoveu reuniões acerca da transição com 200 agências e comissões federais de menor porte não representadas pelos conselhos.

Quem é quem no time de transição de Donald Trump
O Time de Transição do Presidente-Eleito (PTT, sigla em inglês), começa a ser formado antes dos resultados eleitorais, mas pode sofrer modificações durante o processo de transição.

A formação da equipe de transição de Donald Trump pode ser acompanhada através do site da nova administração, embora ainda não tenha sido disponibilizada nenhuma lista oficial, final ou provisória.

OBS: Lista abaixo atualizada até 16/11 e sujeita a modificações no decorrer do período de transição.

PRESIDENTE
Mike Pence - vice-presidente eleito, ex-governador de Indiana.
VICE-PRESIDENTES
Jeff Sessions - senador republicano do Alabama, era, até então, chefe do time de Segurança Nacional de Trump.
Chris Christie - atual governador do estado de New Jersey, ex-candidato na campanha presidencial de 2016.
Michael Flynn - ex-oficial da Inteligência Militar.
Newt Gingrich - ex-Presidente da Câmara de Representantes no Congresso Americano, já concorreu mais de uma vez à Presidência.
Ben Carson - ex-cirurgião, sem experiência política prévia, concorreu às primárias presidenciais pelo partido republicano.
Rudy Giuliani - ex-prefeito da cidade de Nova Iorque.
 
COMITÊ EXECUTIVO
Lou Barletta - deputado republicano pela Pennsylvania.
Marsha Blackburn - deputada republicana pelo Tennessee.
Chris Collins - deputado republicano por Nova Iorque.
Tom Marino - deputado republicano pela Pennsylvania.
Jared Kushner - genro de Trump e dono do jornal New York Observer.
Pam Bondi - advogada do Estado da Flórida desde 2011.
Peter Thiel - co-fundador e ex-CEO da PayPal.
Rebekah Mercer - filha de Robert Mercer, milionário, co-CEO da Renaissance Technology.
Steven Mnuchin - ex-banqueiro do Goldman Sachs, co-chairman da produtora cinematográfica Relativity Media.
Anthony Scaramucci - fundador e sócio-administrador da SkyBridge Capital.
Donald Trump Jr. - filho de Donald Trump, vice-presidente executivo da Trump Organization.
Eric Trump - filho de Trump, vice-presidente executivo em desenvolvimento e aquisições da Trump Organization.
Ivanka Trump - filha de Trump, vice-presidente executivo em desenvolvimento e aquisições da Trump Organization.
Devin Nunes - deputado republicano pela Califórnia, Presidente do Comitê de Inteligência da Câmara, Membro e ex-CoPresidente do Brazil Caucus (grupo parlamentar).
Chefe de Gabinete
Reince Priebus - advogado e político americano, Presidente do Comitê Nacional do Partido Republicano.
Chefe Estrategista / Conselheiro Sênior
Stephen Bannon - ex-diretor executivo da campanha eleitoral de Trump, ex-banqueiro do Goldman Sachs e presidente-executivo do site alt-right de notícias Breitbart.
Diretor Executivo
Rick Dearborn - parte do time do Senador Jeff Sessions, foi o líder das operações de políticas públicas de Trump durante a campanha.

Conselheiros
William Hargerty - ex-conselheiro na área de Economia do governo de George H. W. Bush e ex-membro do time de transição de Mitch Romney.
Jamie Burke - foi Principal Manager Statecraft Staffing LLC, fez parte do time de transição de Mitch Romney. Trabalhou na administração Bush e na Comitê Nacional Republicano.

TIME DE REVISÃO DAS AGÊNCIAS FEDERAIS
Diretor
Ron Nicol - ex-oficial da Marinha, ex-conselheiro do The Boston Consulting Group, trabalhou na Babcock and Wilcox, companhia de energia e tecnologias ambientais.

DEFESA
- Departamento de Defesa
Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg - tenente-general aposentado, veterano do Vietnã.
Michael Meese - trabalhando com Kellogg na questão referente aos veteranos. É um general aposentado que serviu como conselheiro do general David Petraeus no Iraque e no Afeganistão.

SEGURANÇA NACIONAL
- Departamento de Segurança Doméstica
Cindy Hayden - lobista para Altria, companhia de tabaco.

- Departamento do Estado
Jim Carafano - vice-presidente da Heritage Foundation.

- Inteligência
Ronald Burgess - tenente-general aposentado, serviu como diretor de inteligência nacional entre 2005 e 2007 durante a administração de George W. Bush.

ASSUNTOS ECONÔMICOS
Bill Walton - chairman da Rappahannock Ventures, sociedade de capitais de investimento, e Rush River Entertainment, produtora de filmes.

- Departamento do Comércio
Ray Washburne - investidor, trabalhou com captação de recursos na campanha eleitoral de Trump.

- Departamento do Tesouro
David Malpass - presidente da Encima Global, firma de consultoria e pesquisa econômica.

ASSUNTOS DOMÉSTICOS
Ken Blackwell - associado sênior na área de direitos humanos e governança constitucional no Family Research Council. Ex-prefeito de Cincinnati e ex-Secretário de Estado e Tesoureiro de Ohio.

- Departamento de Energia
Mike McKenna - presidente da MWR Strategies, uma firma de lobby.

- Agência de Proteção do Meio Ambiente (EPA)
Myron Ebell -  diretor do Global Warming and International Environmental Policy do Competitive Enterprise Institute, fortemente cético quanto ao aquecimento global e contrário ao Clean Power Plan.

- Departamento do Trabalho
Steve Hart - chairman da Williams & Jensen, firma de lobby em  Washington.

ORÇAMENTO
Edwin Meese - ex-associado da Heritage Foundation, serviu o Presidente Reagan em diversas posições, como advogado geral da União e como membro do Conselho de Segurança Nacional. Liderou o time de transição de Reagan em 1980.

DEMAIS AGÊNCIAS FEDERAIS
- Escritório do Representante de Comércio dos EUA (USTR)
Dan DiMicco - ex-CEO e chairman da companhia metalúrgica Nucor.

- Departamento de Transporte
Shirley Ybarra - ex analista sênior de políticas em transporte na Reason Foundation.

- Departamento do Interior
David Bernhardt - co-chair do Departamento de Recursos Naturais da firma Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck.
Atribuições da equipe de transição

 Nomeações
Apontar os novos nomes para os quatro mil cargos comissionados do Executivo e mil outros cargos cuja aprovação requer confirmação no Senado.
Definir a nova equipe de funcionários da Casa Branca e do Escritório Executivo do Presidente, desenvolvendo uma estrutura funcional de tomada de decisões.
 Revisão das políticas públicas anteriores
Definir as plataformas de políticas públicas prioritárias e desenvolver uma agenda de ações executivas e um plano de implementação, incluindo propostas de orçamento e propostas legislativas.
Revisão das atividades das agências executivas
Revisar as competências e responsabilidades de cada uma das grandes agências e departamentos do Poder Executivo. Inclui a revisão do trabalho desenvolvido pela última administração para identificar as questões relevantes e prioridades de cada uma das mais de 100 agências federais e o treinamento de times de liderança.
Suporte ao Presidente-Eleito
Planejar agenda dos 75 dias compreendidos entre o resultado eleitoral e a posse do Presidente-Eleito.
Preparar um plano de 100-200 dias para executar as políticas definidas pelo Presidente durante a campanha eleitoral.
Desenvolver uma estratégia de comunicação com o povo americano, Congresso, mídia, funcionários federais e outros stakeholders.

Calendário de transição

ABRIL/2016
Definição provisória de posições do time de transição.

MAIO
Estabelecimento das prioridades estratégicas e planos de trabalho e desenvolvimento do orçamento e dos planos de captação de recursos.

JUNHO
Fixação das datas-limite para apontamentos presidenciais e para a identificação de posições prioritárias.

JULHO a OUTUBRO
Início da coordenação dos recursos financeiros, serviços de TI e uso dos escritórios com o General Services Administration (GSA).
Criação dos modelos-padrão de relatórios para as agências de governo.
Identificação das políticas públicas prioritárias e definição das principais propostas de campanha.
Autorização do acesso dos candidatos à Presidência dos Estados Unidos a documentos do governo americano que os permitem desenvolver rascunhos de seus planos de trabalho.
Identificação dos nomes de pessoal autorizado para receber credenciais de segurança e ter acesso a briefings confidenciais pós-eleições
Finalização da lista com os principais candidatos às nomeções presidenciais de maior prioridade.

NOVEMBRO
08/11 - Election Day
09/11 - Início oficial da transição
Finalização dos briefings das agências.
Início da seleção das novas nomeações.
Times de Revisão das Agências começam a trabalhar.
Definição dos nomes e posições da equipe de transição.

DEZEMBRO
19/12 - Votos oficiais dos colégios eleitorais
Envio dos votos dos colégios eleitorais dos 50 estados americanos ao Congresso.

JANEIRO/2017
06/01 - O Congresso americano realiza sessão conjunta entre Senado e Câmara para declarar o vencedor oficial.

20/01 - Inauguration Day
Cerimônias inaugurais com o presidente e o presidente-eleito no Congresso.
O novo presidente nomeia formalmente os membros de seu Gabinete, e é empossado, iniciando seu mandato.
Término oficial da administração Obama.

Para saber mais
- Transition Overview - 2016 Presidential Transition
- FACT SHEET: Facilitating a Smooth Transition to the Next Administration
- Presidential Transition Directory
- Center for Presidential Transition
- Great Again.gov: Presidential Transition (site da nova administração)

Colaboração: Clara Nogueira e Caio Lopes
Brazil Industries Coalition

Brazil Industries Coalition (BIC) is a non-profit and independent business association
representing the Brazilian private sector in the United States.

Existiu uma Doutrina Truman (e ela fez bem ao mundo); existe uma Doutrina Obama? - Iain Martin

Um artigo excelente deste cronista do "capitalismo popular", aqui analisando retrospectivamente o que foi a chamada "Doutrina Truman", ou seja, a contenção do comunismo, a defesa das democracias fragilizadas por problemas econômicos e fraturas políticas (quando o comunismo tinha triunfado na Europa central e ameaçava duas ou três grandes democracias da Europa ocidental). Foi quando alguém, com alguma visão histórica (e Harry Truman tinha isso), precisou decidir quando e onde intervir, ou seja, colocar a força econômica, diplomática e militar dos EUA a serviço da defesa da democracia e do então chamado "mundo livre", ou seha, as democracias de mercado ocidentais.
O autor, Iain Martin, editor of CapX (capitalismo popular), se debruça então sobre uma suposta "doutrina Obama" e só vê inconsistência, muito intelectualismo e pouca ação. Não que o mundo ocidental esteja crucialmente ameaçado, hoje, por um inimigo tão poderoso quanto foi o comunismo soviético no passado da Guerra Fria, mas é que o islamofascismo ameaça a vida de milhares, talvez milhões, de cidadãos pacíficos de Estados falidos no Oriente Médio, e isso causou um enorme problema "demográfico" na Europa, ou seja, as imigrações maciças de refugiados (além dos refugiados econômicos da África).
Tempo para um novo Harry Truman?
Infelizmente não vai dar: com Trump ou com Hillary, os EUA estão singularmente desprovidos de estadistas. Como o Brasil, aliás, mas não precisamos salvar o mundo, não é mesmo? Já temos problemas suficientes para salvar o próprio país...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Iain Martin's weekly newsletter
Barack Obama is no Harry Truman
Iain Martin
Editor of CapX, March 11, 2016
link: http://capx.co/barack-obama-is-no-harry-truman/

Sixty nine years ago this weekend, President Harry Truman made a speech to a joint session of Congress in which he mapped out the anti-Communist doctrine that henceforth bore his name. The choice of timing was down to the British being bust after the War. Contemplating a vast debt mountain, partly owed to the US, Clement Attlee's administration in the UK was unwilling to continue supporting the Greeks against their homegrown Communists. With some reluctance, Truman prepared to step in to financially assist Greece and Turkey, potentially not a particularly popular move in an America that had had enough of abroad.

Yet in that landmark address, in eighteen minutes on Wednesday March 12th 1947, Harry Truman delivered a crisp and clear enunciation of what would become the core of American foreign policy until at least the Vietnam War. Later, a doctrine rooted in the idea of preventing states falling to the Soviets as "dominoes" was recalibrated and successfully updated by Ronald Reagan during his attempts to bring down the Soviet Union. What Truman did that day in 1947 was not only right  in the sense of the Western way of life being worth defending, it was strategically right in that it offered a rallying point and defined a clearly understandable framework for the pursuit of vital policy goals. This matters in a democracy, not because the future destination is predictable, but because people like to know that the person in the highest office has some idea of the direction and means of travel.

Almost seven decades later, "The Obama doctrine" is the headline this week on a much discussed article in the latest issue of The Atlantic. It is based on extensive conversations between the President and the author Jeffrey Goldberg. Although the text is at points fascinating, and in others a little like listening in to a seminar or a windy tutorial, the article is extremely long. It is much, much longer than Harry Truman's clear-sighted speech, yet even so by the end of Goldberg's article I was not much the wiser on what the Obama doctrine actually is.

Of course there is something to be said for the way in which he declines to follow the Washington "playbook". Following the hot-headedness and poor planning of the George W Bush era, a little reservation and canny cautiousness at moments of danger was surely welcome, which is one of the reasons many of us had high hopes that he might develop into a Truman. Only those who detest Obama - and in the US that seems to be about 40% of the population - could possibly regard thinking before action as being a failing in a leader.

That said, introspection only gets a President of the United States so far. And there has been a deeply disappointing hollowness at the heart of the Obama Presidency. It as though he has examined foreign policy from every conceivable angle, ten times, and then decided that it's all very complex, so in that case... what?

The problem is rooted, it appears, in his relentlessly academic, cool as a cucumber approach. In that regard, Obama's supporters are forever extolling the supposedly deep quality of his thinking and his grasp of history. Despite this, he consistently makes an elementary error when it comes to referencing the past. The implied suggestion - sometimes stated - is that decisions now are especially difficult and the world was a lot simpler back then. It was clear. You had Nazis and anti-Nazis and then you had Communists and anti-Communists. Even that omits the reality that for the first stage of the Second World War the Nazis had the Soviets as effectively allies.

The "it's all so complex now" defence is not really a defence; it's a cop-out. Post-war Europe and Asia were not straightforward either and the participants such as Truman were not confronted with simple choices. They did not know then that a devastated Europe would be rebuilt successfully thanks to Truman's Marshall Plan under the cover of what became the Nato umbrella, or that Britain closed down its Empire (with bloodshed along the way, but nothing like on the scale that might have been involved) and that the spread of totalitarian Communism was, eventually, going to be driven back. To us, hindsight means that the contours are clear. The memoirs of those involved sit on our bookshelves. But Truman and his team could not know any of this. Even so, they did something bold and decisive for which those of us who savour freedom should be eternally grateful.

Surveying the tail end of the Obama presidency, and his antiseptic analysis of the problems, it is impossible to say that he has achieved anything remotely comparable to Truman. The best one can say is that he has kept his country out of a few trouble spots, which is something, but that amounts to technocratic managerialism, not great leadership. Rather than galvanising the West, he will leave office with it badly divided, facing Islamofascism and without any rallying point equivalent to the Truman Doctrine. What would that rallying point look like, asks Obama? That's partly what you get paid the big bucks for, to try and find out and then utilise those famed rhetorical skills to convince us. That's your job, Mr President, or it should be.

Many years after the end of Truman's Presidency, one of his closest aides gave an interview in which he reflected on how the occupant of the White House should wield power. Clark Clifford had been White House Counsel at the time of the Truman doctrine speech and later Defense Secretary under Lyndon Johnson, succeeding Robert McNamara. Clifford had originally opposed the Vietnam incursion. In office he tried to win the war and then realised scaling back was essential. He had this to say about Truman's style:

"There is, you know, such a thing as being too intellectual in your approach to a problem. The man who insists on seeing all sides of it often can't make up his mind where to take hold... We'd been through the greatest war in which the world was ever involved... There was every reason for Harry Truman to say, 'This is not for us'... And yet he decided that it had to be done... Harry Truman looks at this, and he just steps up to it."

When the history is written of what will be a very long struggle against Islamofascism, will it be possible to echo Clark's words in relation to Obama? No, it will not.

Iain Martin
Editor of CapX

Um governo de mentirosos? Obama na berlinda - Bob Bauman

A Congregation of Liars

By Bob Bauman JD, Asset Protection and Offshore Editor

Dear Paulo Roberto,

Parliament of Whores is the title of P.J. O’Rourke’s 1991 classic political humor book. Subtitled A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government, it is a scathing critique of the American system of government from a conservative perspective.

If O’Rourke wrote a companion volume describing the current administration, I think an apt title might be A Congregation of Liars.

Rarely, in so short a span of time, have so many officials of an American administration engaged in so many blatant deceptions, distortions, fables, falsehoods, outright fraudulence … and even perjury.

Prevarication seems endemic in this administration, from the president and the attorney general down to the White House press secretary and national security officials.

And the sheer audacity of the deception on display is breathtaking…

Asked during a U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee hearing in March whether the National Security Agency (NSA) collected data on millions of Americans, James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence, replied: “No, sir.”

This blatant falsehood was committed in front of one of the congressional committees charged with oversight of surveillance programs — oversight President Obama and other NSA defenders falsely claim is one of the “safeguards” against NSA abuse.

So obvious was his lie after the revelations of NSA domestic-snooping whistleblower Edward Snowden, Clapper was forced to admit that his statement was, in his words, "clearly erroneous" and he apologized.

As Glen Greenwald of The Guardian points out: “Intentionally deceiving Congress is a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison for each offense. Reagan administration officials were convicted of misleading Congress as part of the Iran-contra scandal and other controversies, and sports stars have been prosecuted by the Obama DOJ based on allegations they have [lied]”.

Yet, put aside for a moment that this massive, secret surveillance of all of our emails, phone calls and financial records violates our constitutional rights. I have commented about that before.

I want you to consider what a government of lies means to each of us, and to America’s future, when our government officials, led by the president of the United States, routinely lie to us, intentionally and repeatedly. At worst, this destroys whatever trust we have in a government that now controls much of our lives. It engenders fear, disrupting our personal ability to plan our lives, our businesses and to move forward. Living under lies means we can never be certain about our future and what the government will do to us.

But We Are Not Naïve

Now, I’m not naïve enough to believe that outrageous statements and charges made during presidential and other election campaigns haven’t become standard fare. Many of us have recognized these are phony and meant to mislead.

What I am referring to are the repeated false or evasive statements over the last five years by President Obama and officials of his administration about critical national and foreign policy issues. To wit:

• “What I can say unequivocally is that if you are a U.S. person, the NSA cannot listen to your telephone calls and the NSA cannot target your e-mails,” Obama said in a June 17 interview on PBS’s Charlie Rose Show.” That was a lie.
  
• Such lies are not new. A Washington Post article by Greg Miller states: "Details that have emerged from the exposure of hundreds of pages of previously classified NSA documents indicate that public assertions about these programs by senior US officials have also often been misleading, erroneous or simply false."
  
• And what about the pack of official lies concerning ObamaCare and the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi? And don’t forget about the fast and furious gun running in Mexico by the Justice Department and Attorney General Holder’s lies to Congress about his role in wiretapping members of the press.

We, no doubt, like to think that we are superior to the Depression-ravaged Germans who were duped by Adolf Hitler and his “Big Lie” technique. We won’t fall for the Big Lie, we think. But ask yourself this: Aren’t most Americans being deceived by this multitude of government lies, unwitting victims of planned deception in which a lazy media is complicit? When we knowingly or in ignorance accept a government of falsehood, we allow those who lie to expand their power over our lives, to consolidate that power and expand their control. Unless we have the truth, we are unable to challenge the deceivers and end their domination – something we must do to reassert our freedoms and save our country.

As chairman of the Freedom Alliance, I have been consistently providing my readers with reliable, hard facts they can use to make personal and financial decisions in the midst of this cauldron of lies. Based on my public service and research, as well as my travels and contacts worldwide, I have endeavored to provide unvarnished truth in my essays, monthly reports, special alerts and interviews.

There was a time when a government official habitually lying to constituents about matters of great import was unthinkable. Times have changed. I not only truly believe in the old saying “the truth will not only set you free,” but also that it will keep you free. And the need for it has never been greater.

The hour is late for America. We must all do whatever is in our power to resist the Big Lie.

Faithfully yours,

Bob Bauman, J.D.
Chairman, Freedom Alliance

1984, versao 2013; patrocinio: Governo Obama - The Huffington Post

George Orwell's '1984' Book Sales Skyrocket In Wake Of NSA Surveillance Scandal

The Huffington Post  |  By Dominique Mosbergen Posted: 06/11/2013 5:25 pm EDT  |  Updated: 06/11/2013 5:29 pm EDT

On June 8, 1949, George Orwell published a novel describing a fictitious world gripped in the vise of constant war and a society held captive by the ever-watchful gaze of a shadowy totalitarian dictator known as "Big Brother." The book has since found relevance again and again in our modern world.

This week, in the wake of the ongoing National Security Administration surveillance scandal, dystopian classic 1984 is again experiencing a resurgence in popularity.

Sales of at least three editions of 1984 have skyrocketed in recent days, according toAmazon's Movers & Shakers page, which tracks items with the biggest positive sales change over the past 24 hours. Sales of the Centennial Edition of the book, for instance, had increased by more than 4,000 percent as of Tuesday afternoon. The book was ranked fifth on the Movers & Shakers list at press time.

(Orwell's Animal Farm, another dystopian classic, has also seen an increase in popularity of more than 250 percent.)

As the Los Angeles Times points out, President Obama even referenced 1984 last week as he defended the NSA's broad and controversial Internet surveillance program, details of which recently leaked to the public.

"In the abstract, you can complain about Big Brother and how this is a potential program run amok, but when you actually look at the details, then I think we've struck the right balance," Obama said.

Google searches for the novel, oft cited as one of the 20th century's best works of fiction, have also increased in recent days, notes Andrew Kaczynski of Buzzfeed

Guerra ao Terror 2.0: versao Obama - Opinião Eugene Robinson

Eugene Robinson

Opinion Writer

The end of the ‘war on terror’

• 
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By Eugene Robinson, Washington Post Blogs, May 27 

President Obama wisely avoided the phrase “mission accomplished” in his major speech last weekabout the “war on terror,” but columnists aren’t obliged to be so circumspect: It is time to declare victory and get on with our lives.

Obama could never say this, of course, because there will surely be future terrorist attacks that kill Americans both at home and abroad. But he came close when he said that “the scale of this threat closely resembles the types of attacks we faced before 9/11” — in other words, before we rashly declared war on a tactic rather than an enemy.

“We must define the nature and scope of this struggle, or else it will define us,” Obama said. “We must make decisions based not on fear, but on hard-earned wisdom. And that begins with understanding the current threat that we face.”

Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda, the organization that flew airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, is decimated and on the run. But franchise groups, some bearing the al-Qaeda name, in Yemen, Somalia, Iraq and Mali pose a lesser but real threat to the United States. Meanwhile, the Arab Spring empowered — and armed to the teeth — ad hoc groups across the region that share al-Qaeda’s zeal for Islamist jihad and can mount deadly local attacks, such as in Benghazi. And individuals here in the “homeland” — still, to my ear, an off-key word — can commit mayhem in the name of jihad, as we saw in Boston.

“Lethal yet less capable al-Qaeda affiliates. Threats to diplomatic facilities and businesses abroad. Homegrown extremists. This is the future of terrorism,” the president told his audience at the National Defense University in Washington. “If dealt with smartly and proportionally, these threats need not rise to the level that we saw on the eve of 9/11.”

This attempt to enumerate real and potential enemies was the heart of Obama’s speech, in my view. A “war on terror” must endure forever because, as Obama said, “we will never erase the evil that lies in the hearts of some human beings, nor stamp out every danger to our open society.” A war against identifiable foes, however, can be won — and, for the most part, has been.

He could have gone further in talking about the nature of the threat from “radicalized” individuals. What distinguishes their crimes from other senseless acts of violence? Put another way, what would the reaction have been if Adam Lanza, as he murdered 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School, had yelled, “Allahu akbar”?

Was there really any meaningful connection between the bloody Boston rampage and international jihadism? It seems likely that an al-Qaeda Web site taught the Boston bombers how to build their pressure-cooker bombs, but what about the alienation they obviously felt? What about their mental health? Was jihad anything more than a label, an affinity-group logo like the Red Sox insignia on a baseball cap?

Obama has been saying for years that he intends to leave behind a sound legal and administrative framework for counterterrorism operations against groups or individuals who pose a threat. The long, dense, well-written speech he delivered Thursday was a start. Rather, it was a restart; upon taking office in 2009 he immediately banned torture and secret detentions overseas, but he let pass his best opportunity to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay.

He announced that he will resume transferring some prisoners, especially to Yemen. But despite Obama’s impassioned plea, I think it is highly unlikely that Congress will remove the many restrictions that keep the president from just shutting the place down. Some detainees may still be there when Obama leaves office in 2017.

The president gave the clearest explanation to date of how he decides to use pilotless drone aircraft to kill suspected terrorists overseas. As I’ve written before, the age of drone warfare is here whether we like it or not. I really don’t like it at all. I realize, however, that any president faced with a choice between risking American lives and dispatching a few robots is going to send in the drones.

But armed drones are weapons of assassination, not of war as we know it. They are designed to snuff out a specific human being and those unfortunately nearby, halfway around the globe, like a thunderbolt from a cloudless sky. No amount of judicial or congressional oversight should make us feel great about that.

Read more from Eugene Robinson’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. You can also join him Tuesdays at 1 p.m. for a live Q&A.

Read more in Opinions:

David Ignatius: The covert commander in chief

The Post’s View: Obama renews his anti-terrorism strategy

John Podesta: Obama should lift secrecy on drones

Charles Krauthammer: In defense of Obama’s drone war

Richard Cohen: The Obama Doctrine — look the other way

Governo Obama intimida jornalistas e seus proprios funcionarios - NYT

Leak Inquiries Show How Wide a Net U.S. Cast

By ETHAN BRONNER, CHARLIE SAVAGE and SCOTT SHANE
THE NEW YORK TIMES , May 25, 2013

WASHINGTON — Even before the F.B.I. conducted 550 interviews of officials and seized the phone records of Associated Press reporters in a leak investigation connected to a 2012 article about a Yemen bomb plot, agents had sought the same reporters’ sources for two other articles about terrorism.

In a separate case last year, F.B.I. agents asked the White House, the Defense Department and intelligence agencies for phone and e-mail logs showing exchanges with a New York Times reporter writing about computer attacks on Iran. Agents grilled officials about their contacts with him, two people familiar with the investigation said.

And agents tracing the leak of a highly classified C.I.A. report on North Korea to a Fox News reporter pulled electronic archives showing which officials had gained access to the report and had contact with the reporter on the day of the leak.

The emerging details of these and other cases show just how wide a net the Obama administration has cast in its investigations into disclosures of government secrets, querying hundreds of officials across the federal government and even some of their foreign counterparts.

The result has been an unprecedented six prosecutions and many more inquiries using aggressive legal and technical tactics. A vast majority of those questioned were cleared of any leaking.

On Thursday, President Obama ordered a review of Justice Department procedures for leak investigations, saying he was concerned that such inquiries chilled journalists’ ability to hold the government accountable. But he made no apology for the scrutiny of the many officials whose records were searched or who had been questioned by the F.B.I.

“He makes the case that we have 18-year-olds out fighting wars and acting like adults, and we have senior administration officials quoted in stories acting like children,” said Tommy Vietor, a former National Security Council spokesman. Mr. Obama and top administration officials say some leaks put Americans at risk, disrupted intelligence operations and strained alliances.

Some officials are now declining to take calls from certain reporters, concerned that any contact may lead to investigation. Some complain of being taken from their offices to endure uncomfortable questioning. And the government officials typically must pay for lawyers themselves, unlike reporters for large news organizations whose companies provide legal representation.

“For every reporter that is dealing with this, there are hundreds of national security officials who feel under siege — without benefit of a corporate legal department or a media megaphone for support,” said a former Obama administration official. “There are lots of people in the government spending lots of money on legal fees.”

When an agency spots classified information in the news, officials file what is called a “Crimes Report” with the Department of Justice answering 11 standard questions about the leak, including the effect of the disclosure “on the national defense.”

F.B.I. agents then set out to find the leaker, a process that has become far easier in recent years as e-mail and other electronic records have proliferated.

Officials who have been questioned in the current investigations are reluctant to describe their experiences. But the account of William E. Binney, who spent more than 30 years at the National Security Agency, shows what can happen.

Mr. Binney, 69, who retired from the N.S.A. in 2001, was one of several people investigated in an inquiry into a 2005 Times article on the spy agency’s warrantless wiretapping program.

He was cleared of any wrongdoing, but the investigation derailed his career and changed his life. Starting in March 2007, Mr. Binney said, he was interviewed by the F.B.I. three times and felt he had cooperated fully.

But in July 2007, a dozen agents appeared at his house in Severn, Md. One of them ran upstairs and entered the bathroom where Mr. Binney was toweling off after a shower, pointing a gun at him.

Agents carried away a computer, disks and personal and business records. Last year, he and three former N.S.A. colleagues went to federal court to get the confiscated items back; he is still waiting for some of them.

Mr. Binney spent more than $7,000 on legal fees. But far more devastating, he said, was the N.S.A.’s decision to strip his security clearance, forcing him to close the business he ran with former colleagues, costing him an annual income of $300,000.

“After a raid like that, you’re always sitting here wondering if they’re coming back,” Mr. Binney said. “This did not feel like the America we grew up in.”

One of the most striking recent revelations about the Obama administration’s pursuit of leakers was the disclosure that the Justice Department had obtained e-mails from the Google account of James Rosen of Fox News, in which he corresponded with a State Department analyst suspected of leaking classified information about North Korea. Investigators routinely search the e-mails of suspected leakers, but Congress has forbidden search warrants for journalists’ work product materialsunless the reporter committed a crime.

A 2010 affidavit seeking the warrant — necessary, an F.B.I. agent wrote, because the analyst had deleted e-mails in his own accounts — said Mr. Rosen qualified for that exception because he violated the Espionage Act by seeking secrets to report.

No American journalist has been prosecuted for publishing classified information, and the administration insisted it has no intention of doing so. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. signed off on the warrant request.

Of the thousands of leaks that have played a crucial role in the ebb and flow of public discourse over the years, only about a dozen resulted in criminal charges against those accused of disclosing the information, according to David Pozen, a law professor at Columbia University.

But the government’s willingness to go after journalists’ e-mail and phone records without warning their news organizations — a practice that allows them to challenge the demand in court — appears to be increasing.

“There seems to have been a shift in attitude,” said Steven Aftergood, who directs a project on government secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists. “The latest revelations indicate that reporters’ communications are now fair game.”

By contrast with the secret subpoena for A.P. and Fox News records, prosecutors openly demanded phone records from two Times journalists nine years ago — and set off a court battle.

A prosecutor sought the reporters’ phone records to see whether anyone had tipped them off about a planned seizure of assets from an Islamic charity in Illinois suspected of helping to finance Al Qaeda. Prosecutors argued that a call from one of the reporters to charity officials had led them to shred documents before a federal raid on their offices.

The Times balked, saying the work of the reporters, Philip Shenon and Judith Miller, was protected under the First Amendment. After a federal judge ruled for the newspaper, the Bush administration appealed, eventually winning the case and obtaining the records — two years after the subpoena. No charges resulted.

It is not clear how often the government has obtained reporters’ communications records. In the North Korea case, the F.B.I. obtained call logs for five lines related to Mr. Rosen, and — as in the A.P. investigation — notified the news organization only afterward. That was nearly three years ago, a law enforcement official said. But the subpoena’s existence became public only this month, when unsealed court papers also showed the government had obtained the warrant for Mr. Rosen’s e-mails. F.B.I. agents also studied one official’s entrances and exits from the State Department, obtained his Yahoo e-mail information and even searched his hard drive for deleted files, documents unsealed this month showed.

On Saturday, a Fox News executive said that the notice had gone to News Corp., its parent company, on Aug. 27, 2010, but that Fox News was not told until Friday. The executive said they were still trying to sort out how the notice fell through the cracks.

Erin Madigan, an A.P. spokeswoman, also said The A.P. was not contacted by the government about leak investigations into two 2010 articles. One, by the reporters Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman, published on June 30, 2010, contained extensive details from an indictment, then still sealed, against Adnan Shukrijumah, accused of being a Qaeda operative.

The other, published on July 8, 2010, written in part by the same reporters, was about the arrest of terrorism suspects in Norway.

In both the Norway article and the more recent one about Yemen, The A.P. disclosed that it had delayed publication at government officials’ request. But law enforcement officials said the leaks werealarming because someone had shared information while overseas intelligence operations were still under way.

The investigation into reporting by David E. Sanger of The Times, about efforts to sabotage the Iranian nuclear program, appears to be one of the most active inquiries. Mr. Holder publicly announced the investigation last June, the same day he took similar action in the A.P. Yemen case.

Mr. Obama, responding to criticism that his administration has gone too far in pursuing leakers, has also now revived support for enacting a federal media shield law. It would put the decision about whether to subpoena a journalist’s phone records before a judge rather than leaving it to the Justice Department, although the decision would be heavily weighted toward the government in national security cases.

Separately, more than a year ago, a federal judge ruled that the First Amendment already gave her the power to quash a subpoena for testimony by a Times journalist, James Risen, in the prosecution of a former C.I.A. official accused of leaking about an earlier effort to disrupt the Iranian nuclear program. The Obama administration has appealed.