Editorial do Washington Post sobre as tarifas contra o México por causa dos imigrantges ilegais

Trump’s tariffs on Mexico are the kind of erratic act the Constitution is meant to prevent

Editorial Board

The Washington Post, May 31 at 3:14 PM

THE MASSIVE influx of Central American migrants across the U.S.-Mexico border is a real problem, to which President Trump’s sudden threat of escalating tariffs against Mexico is a bizarre and wildly inappropriate response. Not only does it attribute, spuriously, all the blame for the migrant flow to Mexico, but it also takes that friendly country’s economy hostage — unless and until “the illegal migration crisis is alleviated through effective actions taken by Mexico, to be determined in our sole discretion and judgment,” as the president put it in a statement Thursday night. U.S. consumers and companies will suffer potentially major collateral damage, all for the sake of a dispute that has nothing to do with trade.

Mr. Trump undermines goodwill he had recently reestablished with Mexico by lifting steel and aluminum tariffs; this was done to promote ratification of the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement by Mexico and Canada. Now the treaty’s prospects for passage will again plummet, both in Mexico City and in Congress. Mr. Trump has just shown — again — why it is so hard for any counterpart, domestic or international, to work with him.

If Mr. Trump actually carries out the ultimatum by his self-imposed June 10 deadline, the American consumer will pay to the tune of a few hundred million dollars at first, and $3 billion if Mexico hasn’t satisfied him by October, thus triggering maximum tariffs of 25 percent. And that is for fresh produce alone; projected over the 2018 total of imports from Mexico of $372 billion, including the vast automotive supply chain, the maximum cost could be $93 billion. Mr. Trump is not thinking in cost-benefit terms but rather casts the “lawless chaos” and “mass incursion” as “an emergency and extraordinary threat to the national security and economy of the United States.”

The latter phrasing is necessary to trigger the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a law that has empowered presidents to act against adversaries such as Iran — and which Mr. Trump now stretches to threaten economic sanctions against our second-largest trading partner. He has apparently done so without the congressional consultation the statute calls for “in every possible instance.”

A tax increase imposed by sudden executive fiat, in pursuit of an irrational conflict with a neighbor and close ally, counterproductive for the White House’s own declared priorities — this epitomizes the kind of erratic presidential rule the Constitution intended to prevent. We are experiencing the downside of past legislation delegating “emergency” international economic power to the executive branch; Congress must, on a bipartisan basis, take it back.

That is a long-term project. In the near term, it’s up to more level-headed parties to try to thwart Mr. Trump. To his credit, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has responded with relative restraint, refusing to capitulate but also dispatching diplomats to Washington. The Republican chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, called Mr. Trump’s threat “a misuse of presidential tariff authority” and urged him to pursue alternatives. That’s a start, but reining in this latest fit of presidential pique may take more principled resistance from Republican lawmakers than they have previously shown.

Read more:

Catherine Rampell: Just a few of the reasons that Trump’s Mexico tariffs are deeply stupid

Greg Sargent: Three crazy things about Trump’s latest rage-threat

León Krauze: Trump’s Mexico tariffs show he has no interest in solving the immigration crisis

Henry Olsen: Trump needs to take Trade Strategy 101

Jennifer Rubin: Republicans are expert at hurting their own voters

1932: um partido fascista para os EUA?; Editorial do Herald Tribune

No meio da crise, em 1932, mesmo os mais democratas pensavam que o fascismo poderia ser uma solução, contra o que se acreditava serem os interesses nefastos da plutocracia do dinheiro.

A ilusão da ordem, de uma economia sem crises, sem as perturbações dos grupos de interesse.

Chocante? Talvez...

A matéria faz parte de uma série de reproduções que o NYTimes está fazendo em torno da história mais do que centenária do International Herald Tribune, mais conhecido como Paris Herald, primo do NYT, e que, nesta terça-feira 15 de Outubro, passa a se chamar International New York Times.

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Editorial International Herald Tribune

 Fascism for America

Paris, May 22, 1932 — The hour has struck for a fascist party to be born in the United States. In the face of the most critical financial situation in the history of the country, Washington presents the amazing spectacle of more special groups seeking to get their fingers in the national treasury than ever before. From every section and from every layer of our economic life, the embattled lobbies have descended upon the capital. Bills to appropriate millions for the aid of special classes or industries are tossed into the House of Representatives, at the moment when federal finances are strained to the breaking point. Congress has one plain duty, to balance the budget, and to refuse every subtle appeal for money that is not foreseen by that budget. In the cities, where authorities confess themselves unable to cope with the sinister enterprise arrayed against them; in state capitals and county towns, where special privilege is bought and sold; wherever patronage is distributed and crime protected, there is the rumble of indignation among householders, the anger and disgust of taxpayers, which presage the gathering of moral forces into overt movement.

How We Called It, Down Through the Years

A special section looks back at the sometimes quaint, sometimes wrongheaded, often prescient opinions we published in columns, essays and editorials over the last century.

Someone will give the signal. It may be a mechanic, coming out of his engine-room, wiping his hands upon oily waste, in despair at the insecurity of his home; it may be a veteran teacher — like Peter the Hermit preaching a crusade — shocked to find the holy sepulchre of our national liberty in the hands of vandals. It may be the clean youth and imagination of a Charles Lindbergh, calling upon men of goodwill to join him in a party of law and order. It may be the sagacity and experience of a Henry Ford, summoning men to match the organization of the underworld with a still more potent organization. In every part of the country men are waiting for the call, and when it is heard, there will be a roar of assent from a million throats. The elements are assembled for the formation of this kind of fascism in the United States, composed of householders, heads of families and taxpayers. The stage is set.

The Economist: feliz 170. aniversario; e continue assim que esta'; muitobem

Uma revista "velhinha"? Talvez.

Nem tudo o que é velho é ruim, eu inclusive (bem, mas eu considero ter eternos 19 anos).

O fato é que já fiz muita pesquisa histórica na The Economist, que eu acessava diretamente nas estantes da biblioteca do Instituto de Sociologia da Universidade de Bruxelas, onde eu passava longas horas no início dos anos 1970.

Fui consultar, por exemplo, como a revista tinha tratado do surgimento da República no Brasil, em 1889. Decepcionante: uma notinha ridícula mais de um mês depois do golpe dos militares.

Não seja, por isso: fui assinante irregular durante muitos anos (inclusive no Brasil, onde uma assinatura é bem cara), e sou um leitor regular, assíduo e constante, desde longos anos.

Sem hesitação eu a proclamo a melhor revista do mundo em todas as categorias que me interessam, que são as das humanidades em geral e da política econômica em particular.

Ponto, deixemos agora a revista se explicar ela mesma.

Well, happy birthday! Vou renovar minha assinatura...

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Is The Economist left- or right-wing?

Sep 2nd 2013, 23:50 by J.C.

Editor’s note: This week, to mark the 170th anniversary of the appearance of the first issue of The Economist on September 2nd 1843, this blog will answer some of the more frequently asked questions about The Economist itself.

SOME readers, particularly those used to the left-right split in most democratic legislatures, are bamboozled by The Economist’s political stance. We like free enterprise and tend to favour deregulation and privatisation. But we also like gay marriage, want tolegalise drugs and disapprove of monarchy. So is the newspaper right-wing or left-wing?

Neither, is the answer. The Economist was founded in 1843 by James Wilson, a British businessman who objected to heavy import duties on foreign corn. Mr Wilson and his friends in the Anti-Corn Law League were classical liberals in the tradition of Adam Smith and, later, the likes of John Stuart Mill and William Ewart Gladstone. This intellectual ancestry has guided the newspaper's instincts ever since: it opposes all undue curtailment of an individual’s economic or personal freedom. But like its founders, it is not dogmatic. Where there is a liberal case for government to do something, The Economistwill air it. Early in its life, its writers were keen supporters of the income tax, for example. Since then it has backed causes like universal health care and gun control. But its starting point is that government should only remove power and wealth from individuals when it has an excellent reason to do so.

The concepts of right- and left-wing predate The Economist's foundation by half a century. They first referred to seating arrangements in the National Assembly in Paris during the French Revolution. Monarchists sat on the right, revolutionaries on the left. To this day, the phrases distinguish conservatives from egalitarians. But they do a poor job of explaining The Economist’s liberalism, which reconciles the left’s impatience at an unsatisfactory status quo with the right’s scepticism about grandiose redistributive schemes. So although its credo and its history are as rich as that of any reactionary or revolutionary, The Economist has no permanent address on the left-right scale. In most countries, the political divide is conservative-egalitarian, not liberal-illiberal. So it has no party allegiance, either. When it covers elections, it gives its endorsement to the candidate or party most likely to pursue classically liberal policies. It has thrown its weight behind politicians on the right, like Margaret Thatcher, and on the left, like Barack Obama. It is often drawn to centrist politicians and parties who appear to combine the best of both sides, such as Tony Blair, whose combination of social and economic liberalism persuaded it to endorse him at the 2001 and the 2005 elections (though it criticised his government’s infringements of civil liberties).

When The Economist opines on new ideas and policies, it does so on the basis of their merits, not of who supports or opposes them. Last October, for example, it outlined a programme of reforms to combat inequality. Some, like attacking monopolies and targeting public spending on the poor and the young, had a leftish hue. Others, like raising retirement ages and introducing more choice in education, were more rightish. The result, "True Progressivism", was a blend of the two: neither right nor left, but all the better for it, and coming instead from what we like to call the radical centre. 

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The Economist explains itself

Why does The Economist call itself a newspaper?

Sep 1st 2013, 23:50 by T.S.

Editor’s note: This week, to mark the 170th anniversary of the appearance of the first issue of The Economist on September 2nd 1843, this blog will answer some of the more frequently asked questions about The Economist itself.

UNLIKE other weekly news magazines, The Economist refers to itself as a newspaper, and as “this newspaper” in its leaders (see, for example, the leaders on Syria and theFederal Reserve in the current issue). Why?

In August 1843 when James Wilson, a Scottish hatmaker, published the prospectus forThe Economist, a new periodical he planned to launch, he described it as “a weekly paper, to be published every Saturday”. The first issue, which appeared on September 2nd, described itself as a “political, commercial, agricultural, and free-trade journal” on its masthead (we used Oxford commas in those days). To modern eyes the 19th-century black-and-white incarnation of The Economist is clearly a newspaper, and it looked very similar until the middle of the 20th century. The red logo appeared for the first time in 1959, the first colour cover in 1971, and it was only in 2001 that full colour was introduced on all inside pages. By the time the transformation from newspaper to magazine format had been completed, the habit of referring to ourselves as “this newspaper” had stuck.

The Economist, moreover, still considers itself more of a newspaper than a magazine in spirit. Its aim is to be a comprehensive weekly newspaper for the world. If you are stranded on a desert island and can have only one periodical air-dropped to you to keep up with world news, our hope is that you would choose The Economist. That goal is arguably more in keeping with the approach of a newspaper than a magazine. The latter term derives from the French word for storehouse and implies a more specific publication devoted to a particular topic, rather than coverage of current affairs. Indeed, The Economist is produced on a newspaper rather than a magazine schedule. Just as a Sunday newspaper will cover news up to and including Saturday, events that happen on Thursday may be covered in the edition of The Economist that appears on newsstands on Fridays.

Just as people still talk of “dialling” phone numbers (even though phones no longer have dials) and CC (carbon copy) e-mails, some expressions outlive changes in technology. If the day ever comes when this newspaper is no longer published in paper form, but instead delivered digitally, it seems likely that it will still be calling itself “this newspaper”.

Clarification: This post was amended on September 2nd to reflect the fact, pointed out by a former executive editor, that The Economist's production schedule is more like that of a newspaper than a magazine.

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How does The Economist choose what to cover?

Sep 3rd 2013, 23:50 by E.H.

Editor’s note: This week, to mark the 170th anniversary of the appearance of the first issue of The Economist on September 2nd 1843, this blog will answer some of the more frequently asked questions about The Economist itself.

EVERY week a new issue of The Economist appears on news-stands (both actual and digital) and lands on doormats around the world. Each issue typically contains 70 or 80 stories, from the leaders to the obituary. Some provide reporting and analysis of that week's news; others examine longer-term trends. How does The Economist decide what to cover each week?

The process is both bottom-up and top-down. It begins on Friday morning. Just as readers are opening the latest issue, we begin the process of planning the next one. The editors in charge of the "front half" (the Britain, United States and the foreign department), the "back half" (the Business, Finance and Science sections) and the Books section (which is not classified as one of the two "halves") discuss with their writers what they have planned for the following week, and draw up rough story lists. The highlights of these lists are read out at a meeting in the editor-in-chief's office, which all editorial staff can attend, and provisional candidates for the following week's cover and leaders are identified. The main editorial meeting happens on Monday morning, again in the editor's office. Compared with the Friday meeting, this one can be quite a squeeze, with many attendees standing, perching on window sills or sitting on the floor. Section editors read out their story lists, traditionally starting with the obituary, and the editor resolves any overlaps or conflicts between sections.

The main business of the Monday meeting, and the most entertaining part for both participants and visitors, is the discussion of the leaders. Usually there is room in each issue for five or six leaders, but ten or more may be proposed. So there is an element of gladiatorial combat as each leader is proposed and debated in turn, and the journalists discuss what The Economist's position should be. At the end of the meeting the editor announces which leaders will be included in that week's issue, and which will go on the cover. In cases where there was not a clear consensus on what line the leader should take, the editor issues his ruling. The story list then issued on Monday afternoon is necessarily still provisional. At a smaller meeting on Wednesday morning, held once again in the editor's office, section editors explain how they have modified their story lists in response to news. At this point the leader list and cover choice may also be revised. Section editors then have to produce a reasonably final set of pages by Wednesday night. But everything can still be revised on Thursday morning before the pages close, shortly before noon. The London bombings on July 7th 2005, for example, took place on a Thursday morning, so a new leader was written and the cover changed.

The cover is not always news-driven, however; it may be pegged to a pre-planned special report or briefing, for example. In general we strive to produce a mixture of thematic and news-driven covers. Each section of the newspaper usually contains a similar mixture: reporting and analysis of the week's news, accompanied by trendspotting articles, data-driven pieces and "jolly boxes" (also known in Economist-speak as "canapés"). These days, of course, the web allows us to respond to news more quickly and provide additional items (blogs, video and debates) to complement the weekly edition. Yet even though the web has enabled us to expand our output, The Economist does not try to cover everything, but instead acts as a filter for our readers. Our aim is to select the topics that are most important or otherwise noteworthy and to provide a distinctive perspective on them, bundled up into a compact weekly package that you can actually get to the end of.

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(Continua outro dia...)

Brasil-Argentina:limites ao totalitarismo - editorial La Nacion

O editorial abaixo, do secular jornal argentino La Nación, nem fala do Brasil, mas ele tem tudo a ver. Aqui também, aloprados do Congresso, com o discreto beneplácito de alguns membros do Executivo, inclusive com o apoio ativo de criminosos parlamentares já condenados pela Suprema Corte, pretendem controlar e manipular a magistratura. Eles serão derrotados, por enquanto, pelo próprio STF, mas certamente continuarão tentando, conforme seus instintos totalitários.

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Límite al totalitarismo

Editorial La Nación, 19/06/2013

Al declarar inconstitucional la ley de reforma del Consejo de la Magistratura, la Corte Suprema brindó una lección de defensa del republicanismo

Hay pasos tan grandes que en un primer momento cuesta adquirir una cabal noción de su magnitud. Es lo que ocurre con el admirable fallo con el que ayer la Corte Suprema de Justicia de la Nación no sólo abortó el desenfrenado intento del Gobierno para subordinar por completo a la Justicia, sino que brindó una valiente lección de constitucionalidad, civismo y republicanismo al declarar inconstitucionales cuatro artículos fundamentales de la ley de reforma del Consejo de la Magistratura, impulsada por el oficialismo.

El máximo tribunal no resolvió sobre la totalidad del paquete de leyes con las que el kirchnerismo procura el sometimiento de los jueces. Lo hizo sólo respecto de la elección popular de los consejeros que iban a representar en el Consejo de la Magistratura a los jueces, abogados y académicos; la rechazó de plano y dejó sin efecto el decreto que convocaba a esas elecciones.

La medida, aclararon los jueces, de ninguna manera afectará el proceso electoral para los cargos de diputados y senadores nacionales. También sostuvieron que las modificaciones respecto del quórum del Consejo y la composición de las comisiones son "inaplicables" y mantuvieron la vigencia del régimen anterior.

Esa disposición que contenía la ley iba a permitirle al órgano seleccionar y disciplinar a los jueces mediante una simple mayoría de sus miembros, lo que hubiera obrado como un factor de amedrentamiento de los magistrados por parte del poder político.

Como sostuvimos en esta columna, de haber prosperado la iniciativa del Gobierno, la elección y remoción de los jueces habría quedado en manos de consejeros seleccionados por los partidos políticos y, cabe deducir, proclives a obedecer los lineamientos de sus respectivas fuerzas políticas. De esa manera, los jueces en ejercicio habrían quedado a merced de un consejo politizado y, obviamente, dominado por el oficialismo de turno.

Al plasmar su rechazo, el máximo tribunal del país ha hecho docencia mediante frases dirigidas al Poder Ejecutivo. Por ejemplo, destacó que el control de constitucionalidad que realizan los jueces "es legítimo". Agregó que la Constitución busca equilibrar el poder para limitarlo y, en una frase que no deja lugar a dudas acerca de sus destinatarios, afirmó que no es posible invocar la defensa de la voluntad popular con la finalidad de desconocer el orden jurídico, "puesto que nada contraría más los intereses del pueblo que la propia transgresión constitucional".

"El Poder Judicial -aclaró la Corte- tiene la legitimidad democrática que le da la Constitución Nacional, que no se deriva de la elección directa."

En esa línea, recordó que los integrantes del Consejo de la Magistratura "lo hacen en nombre y por mandato de cada uno de los estamentos indicados, lo que supone inexorablemente su elección por los integrantes de esos sectores". Añadió que, "en consecuencia, el precepto no contempla la posibilidad de que los consejeros puedan ser elegidos por el voto popular".

Por lo tanto, la Corte fundamentó la inconstitucionalidad de la ley en que ésta "rompe el equilibrio al disponer que la totalidad de los miembros del Consejo resulte directa o indirectamente emergente del sistema político-partidario; desconoce el principio de representación de los estamentos técnicos al establecer la elección directa de jueces, abogados, académicos y científicos; compromete la independencia judicial al obligar a los jueces a intervenir en la lucha partidaria, y vulnera el ejercicio de los derechos de los ciudadanos al distorsionar el proceso", con lo cual "directa o indirectamente, la totalidad de los integrantes del Consejo tendría un origen político-partidario".

Finalmente, el más alto tribunal consideró que la ley tachada de inconstitucional desconoce las garantías "que aseguran la independencia del Poder Judicial frente a los intereses del Poder Ejecutivo, del Congreso o de otros factores de poder, en la medida en que obliga al juez que aspira a ser consejero a optar por un partido político".

La Corte le ha puesto así un oportuno límite a un avance totalitario que, bajo el ropaje de una supuesta "democratización" de la Justicia tan sólo ha tratado de someterla al absoluto arbitrio del Poder Ejecutivo, para convertir al Consejo de la Magistratura en un apéndice del partido gobernante.

El fallo en cuestión ha impedido que el órgano encargado de seleccionar y remover a los magistrados pasara a depender íntegramente de la voluntad política de quien ejerza la presidencia de la Nación.

La salud de un régimen republicano y democrático se pone en evidencia cuando la cabeza del Poder Judicial, pese a los nada velados ataques del Poder Ejecutivo, es capaz de pronunciarse como lo hizo ayer.

Y al mismo tiempo, la enfermedad de un régimen enceguecido en su afán totalitario puede calibrarse en toda su gravedad cuando los ministros de la Corte se ven obligados a impartirle al Ejecutivo una lección elemental sobre la división de poderes.

Governo Obama invade a privacidade dos cidadaos - Foreign Policy, New York Times

Uma tendência preocupante, e potencialmente mais ofensiva do que as patifarias do Nixon e as arbitrariedades do Bush W.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

The PRISM through which the WH views privacy; An award for Mabus; An “out member” gets a second star; Five vet charities termed “the worst”; Sonenshine on public diplomacy; and a bit more.

By Gordon Lubold

Foreign Policy, June 7, 2013

After the Verizon story yesterday, new revelations about the Obama administration's tapping of Internet records. The WaPo obtained a top-secret document that shows that the National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the servers of nine American Internet companies, "extracting audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs that enable analysts to track foreign targets," according to the paper this morning. "The program, code-named PRISM, has not been made public until now. It may be the first of its kind. The NSA prides itself on stealing secrets and breaking codes, and it is accustomed to corporate partnerships that help it divert data traffic or sidestep barriers. But there has never been a Google or Facebook before, and it is unlikely that there are richer troves of valuable intelligence than the ones in Silicon Valley."

And: "Equally unusual is the way the NSA extracts what it wants, according to the document: 'Collection directly from the servers of these U.S. Service Providers: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple.' PRISM was launched from the ashes of President George W. Bush's secret program of warrantless domestic surveillance in 2007, after news media disclosures, lawsuits and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court forced the president to look for new authority."

The war ain't over.  Despite Obama's declaring that "all wars must end" in a recent speech at National Defense University, the revelations of Internet tapping and phone records show that at least behind that shadowy world, the administration is still very much on a war footing. The NYT's Peter Baker: "Whatever his ambivalence about what President George W. Bush called a global war, Mr. Obama has used some of the same aggressive powers in the name of guarding national security even, in the view of critics, at the expense of civil liberties. Rather than dismantling Mr. Bush's approach to national security, Mr. Obama has to some extent validated it and put it on a more sustainable footing."

Strange bed fellows: Baker notes how Dems like Al Gore and Tea Partiers like Rand Paul see the privacy issue in much the same way. "'Is it just me, or is secret blanket surveillance obscenely outrageous?' former Vice President Al Gore, the former Democratic presidential nominee, wrote in a Twitter message. On his own Twitter account, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, a possible Republican presidential candidate, condemned the surveillance as 'an astounding assault on the Constitution.'

WaPo published slides that describe the PRISM program, here.

Why you shouldn't be hyped about some of this. Writing on FP, Stewart Baker: "Does this mean the end of privacy, law, and the Constitution? Nope. There are a lot of reasons to be cautious about rushing to the conclusion that these "scandals" signal a massive, lawless new intrusion into Americans' civil liberties. Despite this apparent breadth, and even if we assume that the leaked FISA order is genuine, there are a lot of reasons to be cautious about rushing to the conclusion that it signals a massive, lawless new intrusion into Americans' civil liberties."

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EDITORIAL

President Obama’s Dragnet

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

The New York Times, June 6, 2013

Within hours of the disclosure that federal authorities routinely collect data on phone calls Americans make, regardless of whether they have any bearing on a counterterrorism investigation, the Obama administration issued the same platitude it has offered every time President Obama has been caught overreaching in the use of his powers: Terrorists are a real menace and you should just trust us to deal with them because we have internal mechanisms (that we are not going to tell you about) to make sure we do not violate your rights.

Those reassurances have never been persuasive — whether on secret warrants to scoop up a news agency’s phone records or secret orders to kill an American suspected of terrorism — especially coming from a president who once promised transparency and accountability.

The administration has now lost all credibility on this issue. Mr. Obama is proving the truism that the executive branch will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it. That is one reason we have long argued that the Patriot Act, enacted in the heat of fear after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by members of Congress who mostly had not even read it, was reckless in its assignment of unnecessary and overbroad surveillance powers.

Based on an article in The Guardian published Wednesday night, we now know that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency used the Patriot Act to obtain a secret warrant to compel Verizon’s business services division to turn over data on every single call that went through its system. We know that this particular order was a routine extension of surveillance that has been going on for years, and it seems very likely that it extends beyond Verizon’s business division. There is every reason to believe the federal government has been collecting every bit of information about every American’s phone calls except the words actually exchanged in those calls.

Articles in The Washington Post and The Guardian described a process by which the N.S.A. is also able to capture Internet communications directly from the servers of nine leading American companies. The articles raised questions about whether the N.S.A. separated foreign communications from domestic ones.

A senior administration official quoted in The Times online Thursday afternoon about the Verizon order offered the lame observation that the information does not include the name of any caller, as though there would be the slightest difficulty in matching numbers to names. He said the information “has been a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats,” because it allows the government “to discover whether known or suspected terrorists have been in contact with other persons who may be engaged in terrorist activities, particularly people located inside the United States.”

•

That is a vital goal, but how is it served by collecting everyone’s call data? The government can easily collect phone records (including the actual content of those calls) on “known or suspected terrorists” without logging every call made. In fact, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was expanded in 2008 for that very purpose.

Essentially, the administration is saying that without any individual suspicion of wrongdoing, the government is allowed to know whom Americans are calling every time they make a phone call, for how long they talk and from where.

This sort of tracking can reveal a lot of personal and intimate information about an individual. To casually permit this surveillance — with the American public having no idea that the executive branch is now exercising this power — fundamentally shifts power between the individual and the state, and it repudiates constitutional principles governing search, seizure and privacy.

The defense of this practice offered by Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, who as chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee is supposed to be preventing this sort of overreaching, was absurd. She said on Thursday that the authorities need this information in case someone might become a terrorist in the future. Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, the vice chairman of the committee, said the surveillance has “proved meritorious, because we have gathered significant information on bad guys and only on bad guys over the years.”

But what assurance do we have of that, especially since Ms. Feinstein went on to say that she actually did not know how the data being collected was used?

The senior administration official quoted in The Times said the executive branch internally reviews surveillance programs to ensure that they “comply with the Constitution and laws of the United States and appropriately protect privacy and civil liberties.”

That’s no longer good enough. Mr. Obama clearly had no intention of revealing this eavesdropping, just as he would not have acknowledged the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen, had it not been reported in the press. Even then, it took him more than a year and a half to acknowledge the killing, and he is still keeping secret the protocol by which he makes such decisions.

•

We are not questioning the legality under the Patriot Act of the court order disclosed by The Guardian. But we strongly object to using that power in this manner. It is the very sort of thing against which Mr. Obama once railed, when he said in 2007 that the surveillance policy of the George W. Bush administration “puts forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we provide.”

Two Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Ron Wyden of Oregon and Mark Udall of Colorado, have raised warnings about the government’s overbroad interpretation of its surveillance powers. “We believe most Americans would be stunned to learn the details of how these secret court opinions have interpreted Section 215 of the Patriot Act,” they wrote last year in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. “As we see it, there is now a significant gap between what most Americans think the law allows and what the government secretly claims the law allows. This is a problem, because it is impossible to have an informed public debate about what the law should say when the public doesn’t know what its government thinks the law says.”

On Thursday, Representative Jim Sensenbrenner, Republican of Wisconsin, who introduced the Patriot Act in 2001, said that the National Security Agency overstepped its bounds by obtaining a secret order to collect phone log records from millions of Americans.

“As the author of the Patriot Act, I am extremely troubled by the F.B.I.’s interpretation of this legislation,” he said in a statement. “While I believe the Patriot Act appropriately balanced national security concerns and civil rights, I have always worried about potential abuses.” He added: “Seizing phone records of millions of innocent people is excessive and un-American.”

Stunning use of the act shows, once again, why it needs to be sharply curtailed if not repealed.

The Economist: de volta ao tema da pobreza (Editorial)

Comecei pelo meio, ou seja, postando a matéria principal da Economist sobre o fim da pobreza, neste link:

terça-feira, 4 de junho de 2013

Acabando com a pobreza: os antiglobalizadores vao ficar decepcionados - The Economist

Agora coloco o começo, ou seja, o editorial:

The world’s next great leap forward

Towards the end of poverty

Nearly 1 billion people have been taken out of extreme poverty in 20 years. The world should aim to do the same again

Jun 1st 2013 |From the print edition

IN HIS inaugural address in 1949 Harry Truman said that “more than half the people in the world are living in conditions approaching misery. For the first time in history, humanity possesses the knowledge and skill to relieve the suffering of those people.” It has taken much longer than Truman hoped, but the world has lately been making extraordinary progress in lifting people out of extreme poverty. Between 1990 and 2010, their number fell by half as a share of the total population in developing countries, from 43% to 21%—a reduction of almost 1 billion people.

Now the world has a serious chance to redeem Truman’s pledge to lift the least fortunate. Of the 7 billion people alive on the planet, 1.1 billion subsist below the internationally accepted extreme-poverty line of $1.25 a day. Starting this week and continuing over the next year or so, the UN’s usual Who’s Who of politicians and officials from governments and international agencies will meet to draw up a new list of targets to replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which were set in September 2000 and expire in 2015. Governments should adopt as their main new goal the aim of reducing by another billion the number of people in extreme poverty by 2030.

In this section

• The strange rebirth of liberal England
• Towards the end of poverty
• Tougher love needed
• The price of peace
• Flat batteries

Reprints

Related topics

• India
• Africa
• Harry S. Truman
• China
• Business

Take a bow, capitalism

Nobody in the developed world comes remotely close to the poverty level that $1.25 a day represents. America’s poverty line is $63 a day for a family of four. In the richer parts of the emerging world $4 a day is the poverty barrier. But poverty’s scourge is fiercest below $1.25 (the average of the 15 poorest countries’ own poverty lines, measured in 2005 dollars and adjusted for differences in purchasing power): people below that level live lives that are poor, nasty, brutish and short. They lack not just education, health care, proper clothing and shelter—which most people in most of the world take for granted—but even enough food for physical and mental health. Raising people above that level of wretchedness is not a sufficient ambition for a prosperous planet, but it is a necessary one.

The world’s achievement in the field of poverty reduction is, by almost any measure, impressive. Although many of the original MDGs—such as cutting maternal mortality by three-quarters and child mortality by two-thirds—will not be met, the aim of halving global poverty between 1990 and 2015 was achieved five years early.

The MDGs may have helped marginally, by creating a yardstick for measuring progress, and by focusing minds on the evil of poverty. Most of the credit, however, must go to capitalism and free trade, for they enable economies to grow—and it was growth, principally, that has eased destitution.

Poverty rates started to collapse towards the end of the 20th century largely because developing-country growth accelerated, from an average annual rate of 4.3% in 1960-2000 to 6% in 2000-10. Around two-thirds of poverty reduction within a country comes from growth. Greater equality also helps, contributing the other third. A 1% increase in incomes in the most unequal countries produces a mere 0.6% reduction in poverty; in the most equal countries, it yields a 4.3% cut.

China (which has never shown any interest in MDGs) is responsible for three-quarters of the achievement. Its economy has been growing so fast that, even though inequality is rising fast, extreme poverty is disappearing. China pulled 680m people out of misery in 1981-2010, and reduced its extreme-poverty rate from 84% in 1980 to 10% now.

That is one reason why (as the briefing explains) it will be harder to take a billion more people out of extreme poverty in the next 20 years than it was to take almost a billion out in the past 20. Poorer governance in India and Africa, the next two targets, means that China’s experience is unlikely to be swiftly replicated there. Another reason is that the bare achievement of pulling people over the $1.25-a-day line has been relatively easy in the past few years because so many people were just below it. When growth makes them even slightly better off, it hauls them over the line. With fewer people just below the official misery limit, it will be more difficult to push large numbers over it.

So caution is justified, but the goal can still be achieved. If developing countries maintain the impressive growth they have managed since 2000; if the poorest countries are not left behind by faster-growing middle-income ones; and if inequality does not widen so that the rich lap up all the cream of growth—then developing countries would cut extreme poverty from 16% of their populations now to 3% by 2030. That would reduce the absolute numbers by 1 billion. If growth is a little faster and income more equal, extreme poverty could fall to just 1.5%—as near to zero as is realistically possible. The number of the destitute would then be about 100m, most of them in intractable countries in Africa. Misery’s billions would be consigned to the annals of history.

Markets v misery

That is a lot of ifs. But making those things happen is not as difficult as cynics profess. The world now knows how to reduce poverty. A lot of targeted policies—basic social safety nets and cash-transfer schemes, such as Brazil’s Bolsa Família—help. So does binning policies like fuel subsidies to Indonesia’s middle class and China’s hukou household-registration system (see article) that boost inequality. But the biggest poverty-reduction measure of all is liberalising markets to let poor people get richer. That means freeing trade between countries (Africa is still cruelly punished by tariffs) and within them (China’s real great leap forward occurred because it allowed private business to grow). Both India and Africa are crowded with monopolies and restrictive practices.

Many Westerners have reacted to recession by seeking to constrain markets and roll globalisation back in their own countries, and they want to export these ideas to the developing world, too. It does not need such advice. It is doing quite nicely, largely thanks to the same economic principles that helped the developed world grow rich and could pull the poorest of the poor out of destitution.

From the print edition: Leaders

Congresso: o chiqueiro da politica - Congresso em Foco

A expressão não é minha, mas deste boletim digital que segue a atividade congressual, sem nenhuma complacência com suas excelências os bandidos que maculam as duas casas supostamente do povo. O editorial é contundente, mas creio que suas excelências merecem todas as acusações e muitas outras mais...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

A rendição do Congresso ao chiqueiro da política

Com um terço de seus parlamentares acusados criminalmente, o Congresso de Renan e Henrique dá sinais de preferir a imundície ao asseio das normas impostas pela moralidade pública

por Congresso em Foco | 31/01/2013 18:15

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Agência Senado

Nossa opinião: no Congresso, cidadãos sob suspeita abusam da paciência de um povo tolerante demais com políticos bandidos

“chiqueiro (sentido figurado) – casa ou lugar imundo” Sintomático que o presidente do Senado, José Sarney, tenha proibido a manifestação contra o senador Renan Calheiros (PMDB-AL), convocada por várias entidades e apoiada pelo Congresso em Foco.
Os manifestantes pretendiam fazer ontem a lavagem simbólica da rampa do Senado para expressar a indignação que levou, até o momento em que é publicado este texto, mais de 250  mil brasileiros a subscrever o abaixo-assinado contra a volta de Renan à presidência do Senado.
O problema é que limpeza é algo que não combina muito com o Congresso. Nas  últimas duas décadas, ele proporcionou seguidas demonstrações de afronta aos cidadãos que custeiam suas bilionárias despesas (perto de R$ 8 bilhões no ano passado): escândalo do orçamento em 1993, compra de votos para aprovar a emenda da reeleição em 1997, violação do painel em 2001, mensalão em 2005, sanguessugas em 2006, farra das passagens e atos secretos em 2009… a lista é infindável.
Mas sempre pode ser enriquecida, aumentando o tamanho dos golpes contra a cidadania, prova agora o processo em curso de eleição das Mesas do Senado e da Câmara. Estamos diante de uma daquelas tristes situações que nos levam a constatar que, em se tratando do Congresso brasileiro, sempre é possível piorar.
Exemplar é o caso de Renan. Na iminência de receber a maioria folgada de votos dos seus pares, foi até agora incapaz de esclarecer as denúncias que, seis anos atrás, o obrigaram a renunciar à presidência do Senado para preservar o mandato de senador.
Reconduzir Renan ao posto, antes de eliminar todas as dúvidas quanto à sua conduta, põe sob suspeita todo o Legislativo. Um poder que já apresenta um gigantesco passivo no que se refere ao “controle interno” dos seus integrantes e das suas ações. E daí? O Congresso, que tem um terço de seus parlamentares às voltas com acusações criminais, continua a dar sinais de preferir a imundície dos chiqueiros ao asseio das normas impostas por aquilo que, algo pomposamente, poderíamos chamar de moralidade pública.
Com menos pompa, poderíamos dizer que se espera atenção a pelo menos duas normas básicas: não roubar o dinheiro dos contribuintes e investigar ou colaborar com a investigação de crimes contra a administração pública, sobretudo quando os acusados forem deputados e senadores.
Oposta é a regra que prevalece no Congresso. Ali, cidadãos sob suspeita gozam de proteção oficial, tapinhas solidários nas costas, carro e despesas pagas pelo erário, e abusam da paciência de um povo que demonstra excessiva complacência em relação a políticos bandidos.
Desfilam pelos corredores do Legislativo desde políticos condenados a prisão até a espantosa figura de Paulo Maluf, alvo de um mandado da Interpol que lhe impede de pisar em qualquer outro país do mundo, sem ir imediatamente para a cadeia, mas que pode, legalmente, ser deputado no Brasil.
A precária mobilização popular, muito aquém do tamanho dos desaforos que o Parlamento tem metido pela goela abaixo da sociedade, contribui para o escárnio não ter fim.
Apoiado por todos os grandes partidos, inclusive da oposição, é dado como favorito na disputa da presidência da Câmara outro político sob fortes suspeitas, o atual líder peemedebista, Henrique Eduardo Alves (RN).
Questionados sobre possíveis desvios de conduta, ele e Renan reagem de modo semelhante. Ignoram a denúncia, ao mesmo tempo em que instruem adversários a atribuir os graves questionamentos que lhes são feitos a meros preconceitos contra nordestinos. Esta, aliás, é uma das imbecilidades preferidas da meia dúzia de militantes pró-Renan que nos últimos dias tenta infestar este Congresso em Foco com centenas de comentários, invariavelmente usando nomes falsos e termos ofensivos.
Como não há limites para o abismo moral, o PMDB, outrora valente combatente da ditadura e hoje confortável abrigo para novos e velhos suspeitos, prepara-se para eleger como líder outro parlamentar sob investigação, Eduardo Cunha (RJ). Também deve explicações à Justiça seu rival na disputa, Sandro Mabel (GO).
Em comum a Renan, Henrique, Eduardo Cunha e Mabel, a facilidade com que se aliam aos governos de plantão, sempre multiplicando os instrumentos a serviço de um tipo de política que, definitivamente, não cheira bem.
O Congresso em Foco sente-se no dever de manifestar perplexidade diante de tudo isso e se colocar à disposição dos brasileiros que pretendem ver um Congresso radicalmente diferente. Afinal, fazemos jornalismo na esperança de contribuir para as coisas mudarem para melhor – não para pior.


Veja ainda:

Renan é denunciado no caso dos bois
Tudo sobre a eleição das Mesas da Câmara e do Senado