Nova declaracao dos direitos das criancas brasileiras - Dr. Milton Pires

Meu comentário inicial: não estou de acordo com todos os argumentos, posições, frases e até preconceitos do autor desta espécie de manifesto; certamente não adotaria certo tom panfletário, ou ofensivo a certas sensibilidades, como as prevenções regionais, sociais ou políticas expressas em alguns dos dispositivos abaixo transcritos. Isso precisa ficar claro.
Mas se não concordo com partes dos "artigos", por que colocar aqui?
Por considerar que muitos, senão a maioria das questões aqui abordadas expressam problemas reais, com os quais nos confrontamos todos os dias, na vida privada, nas atividades públicas, na avaliação de políticas públicas, etc.
E concordo com diversos dispositivos, e mesmo em relação àqueles com os quais não concordo, reconheço que eles colocam os problemas reais, que temos de equacionar, se é que pretendemos fazer do Brasil um país digno, não assaltado por corporações fascistas e enxames de totalitários potenciais.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

DECLARAÇÃO  “UNIVERSAL”  DOS DIREITOS DA CRIANÇA  BRASILEIRA

Porto Alegre, 7 de junho de 2013  -  Dr.Milton Pires  

Toda criança brasileira tem Direitos:

Princípio I – a criança tem direito a saber que a “raça” humana é uma só e que não existe  distinção de cor de pele, religião ou nacionalidade que depois possa lhe dar algum direito à qualquer tipo de “cota” na Universidade Pública.

Princípio II – a criança tem direito à especial proteção para seu desenvolvimento físico, mental e social inclusive quando a ameaça é representada pelo governo criminoso do país em que  vive.

Princípio III – a criança tem direito a um nome que seja compatível com o seu gênero e tem direito a aprender a cantar o Hino Brasileiro nas escolas.

Princípio IV – a criança tem direito a ter pais com emprego com renda suficiente para lhe oferecer casa, assistência médica e educação sem necessidade alguma de Bolsa Família.

Princípio V – a criança com deficiência física ou mental tem o direito de não ter o seu sofrimento explorado por um governo corrupto com fins eleitorais.

Princípio VI – a criança tem direito a saber que um pai de verdade tem “pipi” e a mãe de verdade tem “pepeca” e deve viver numa sociedade que se importa mais com ela do que com as árvores e os animais da Floresta Amazônica.

Princípio VII – a criança tem direito a uma escola onde lhe ensinem português correto e onde seja feita a devida diferença entre Jesus Cristo e um assassino como Che Guevara. 

Princípio VIII – a criança tem sempre direito a ser socorrida em primeiro lugar, em caso de catástrofes e a NÃO ser levada para um hospital imundo do SUS onde não existe um pediatra brasileiro; mas sim um agente cubano.

Princípio IX – a criança tem direito a NÃO trabalhar e não pode gastar sua infância se prostituindo á beira de uma estrada no Nordeste ou num quarto com um turista europeu.

Princípio X – a criança tem direito a crescer dentro uma sociedade que preserve seu patrimônio cultural cristão, tem direito a não ser abortada, a não ser criada por gays ou viciados sustentados pelo governo federal, tem o direito de acreditar em Deus e acima de tudo conhecer o significado da palavra VERDADE!

Porto Alegre, 7 de junho de 2013  -  Dr.Milton Pires 

Governo cobra das privadas, mas nao das empresas publicas: eis o Brasil, minha gente...

“Da série ‘não tem nada de mais’

Carlos Alberto Sardenberg

O Globo, 6/06/2013

Vamos imaginar que uma dessas companhias de telecomunicações colocasse em seu site, num belo dia, sem prévio aviso, a seguinte informação: “o serviço de call center, incluindo atendimento telefônico ao cliente, está suspenso por tempo indeterminado; o contrato com a terceirizada prestadora desse serviço não foi renovado; estamos providenciando um outro; enquanto isso, o cliente pode se comunicar via site.”Já pensaram? Imediatamente desabariam sobre a empresa todos os Procons, Ministério Público e delegacias do consumidor, sem contar a Polícia Federal. Os ministros das Comunicações e da Justiça prometeriam punições rigorosas à empresa. A Anatel já aplicaria as primeiras multas e exigiria a reabertura imediata do call center.

Pois bem, foi mais ou menos o que fez a Secretaria da Receita Federal no último dia 31. Anunciou a suspensão do seu call center, por problemas na renovação do contrato com a terceirizada, e informou que todos os esforços estavam sendo feitos para a contratação de uma outra empresa. Enquanto isso, o contribuinte pode se virar no site da Receita, para fazer agendamentos, acertar parcelamentos ou tirar informações.

E está tudo bem. Não tem nada de mais.

As regras para atendimento telefônico ao consumidor são muito rigorosas. Você sabia, por exemplo, que o call center de empresa privada tem apenas um minuto para transferir a ligação para o setor que resolva o problema? E que o atendimento deve funcionar 24 horas por dia, sete dias por semana?

Nenhum órgão público cumpre essas regras, nem mesmo os Procons. Tente, por exemplo, reclamar do atendimento em alguma unidade do SUS. Já os hospitais e planos de saúde privados têm cada vez mais obrigações e sofrem severa vigilância.

Pode-se dizer que são contratos diferentes. No caso de uma empresa de celular, o consumidor escolhe e compra o produto e o serviço, de modo que se trata de um contrato privado entre duas partes. Tanto que o cliente pode, por exemplo, cancelar tudo. Aliás, a lei é muito precisa nisso. Se o consumidor ligar para o call center e disser logo de cara que deseja cancelar o serviço, isso tem que ser feito imediatamente, sem transferência de ligação e mesmo que o cliente esteja devendo.

Já com a Receita, ninguém pode ligar lá — muito menos nestes dias — e pedir o cancelamento dos serviços do órgão. Muitos até sonham com isso. Já pensou? Você ao telefone: “É, isso mesmo, quero cancelar tudo, declaração, pagamento e fiscalização, e não me transfira a ligação, nem coloque a musiquinha!”

Pois é, mas não pode. O contrato com a Receita é, digamos, obrigatório.

Mas por isso mesmo o cliente/cidadão deveria ser mais bem atendido. Entre outras coisas, porque é ele mesmo, com seus impostos, que está pagando o serviço e os funcionários que o prestam.

Isso vale para o SUS, para os Detrans, as delegacias de polícia, as prefeituras (tente obter em um minuto a resposta para seu projeto de reforma do banheiro) e, no limite, para a Presidência da República. Todo cidadão deveria ter o direito de ligar para o Palácio do Planalto, ser atendido em menos de um minuto, ter seu pleito (ou elogio, tudo bem) anotado e respondido em tempo determinado.

Agora, o que surpreendeu mesmo nesse caso do call center da Receita foi ter ocorrido com esse órgão, conhecido e premiado por sua eficiência tecnológica. Que a Valec, a estatal encarregada da construir ferrovias, tenha ficado sem trilhos, por falhas nos contratos, a gente entende e até espera por isso. Mas logo a Receita se atrapalhar com um contrato…

Imposto sobre aluguel
Sabia o leitor que está em curso no Senado um projeto para que as prefeituras possam cobrar o Imposto sobre Serviços (ISS) sobre aluguéis residenciais e comerciais?

É isso mesmo. Num aluguel de mil reais, o inquilino pagaria mais cinquentinha, 5% de ISS.

Tem mais. Sabe baixar música via streaming? Pois é, mais 5%. Computação na nuvem, hospedagem de dados, audio, video, etc. — mais 5% para a prefeitura.

Trata-se do projeto de lei do Senado, número 386/2012. Além de mais uma garfada, se aprovado, vai gerar confusão na Justiça.

Ocorre que o Supremo Tribunal Federal, pela Súmula Vinculante 31, declarou inconstitucional a cobrança de ISS sobre locação de bens móveis. Disse que locação não é serviço. Logo a Súmula deve se aplicar também a bens imóveis, dizem advogados.

E o que dizem senadores? Que as prefeituras, especialmente das capitais, precisam de dinheiro.

O projeto de lei tem outra curiosidade. Diz que cometerá crime o prefeito que conceder desoneração de imposto.

O "custo Argentina" se acrescenta ao "custo Brasil" - Editorial O Globo

O cada vez mais elevado ‘custo Argentina'

Editorial O Globo, 6/06/2013

De “aliada estratégica”, a Argentina de Cristina Kirchner se converte em fonte imprevisível de problemas para o Brasil. Depois de tornar impossível a permanência da Vale no país, à frente de um projeto de potássio ─ apesar da opinião em contrário do companheiro Marco Aurélio Garcia, jejuno em minérios e negócios ─, a Casa Rosada acaba de estatizar ferrovias exploradas pela brasileira América Latina Logística (ALL). Mesmo que se confirme a má prestação de serviço, por certo há formas menos beligerantes de se enfrentar a questão.

O contencioso entre Buenos Aires e Brasília não para de crescer, e sempre por iniciativa do kirchnerismo. Vale e ALL são apenas os fatos mais recentes. Já existe um extenso histórico de medidas protecionistas arbitrárias, em desrespeito a normas do Mercosul, baixadas pela Casa Rosada contra os interesses brasileiros. E virão mais problemas, pois o governo de Cristina K. é acometido de um ativismo compulsivo, à medida que a crise econômica, política e institucional avança no país.

Não se sabe até quando Brasília ficará passiva, em nome de um projeto ideológico de montagem de uma barreira na América Latina contra o “imperialismo ianque”, um delírio. Afinal, Juan Domingo Perón e Getúlio Vargas tentaram, na década de 50, e já não deu certo. Com a globalização da economia mundial, aí que se tornou mesmo impossível o projeto. Mesmo porque os líderes nesta trincheira, Venezuela e a Argentina recém-convertida ao chavismo, precisam primeiro resolver os grandes problemas internos antes de atacar o “Império”: inflação, desabastecimento (falta de papel higiênico), recessão, crise cambial.

A passividade do governo Dilma pelo menos parece ter levado a indústria de São Paulo a agir, a mais prejudicada pelo protecionismo argentino e, por tabela, pela crise do Mercosul. Segundo o jornal O Estado de S.Paulo, o Instituto de Estudos para o Desenvolvimento Industrial (Iedi), a Fiesp e a própria Confederação Nacional da Indústria formalizarão ao governo a preocupação com a camisa de força que passou a representar o Mercosul. Impedido de fazer acordos bilaterais com outros países e blocos, o Brasil, tolhido pela ideologia, afunda abraçado à Argentina. No período de 2008 a 2011, o Brasil deixou de exportar US$ 5,4 bilhões para Argentina, México, Peru, Colômbia, Chile, Equador, Venezuela, Paraguai e Bolívia. O dinheiro foi redistribuído entre China, Estados Unidos, União Europeia e México.

Isso porque o Brasil está ficando para trás no rearranjo do comércio mundial. Exemplo é a criação recente da Aliança do Pacífico (Colômbia, Chile, Peru e México), mais aberta que o Mercosul para acordos com o mundo. Se Roberto Carvalho de Azevedo conseguir, na OMC, fechar com êxito a Rodada de Doha, muito bem. Mas até lá o Brasil precisa agir, se livrar do “custo Argentina”, para deixar de perder espaço no comércio global. O que passa pela conversão do Mercosul, de uma união aduaneira, numa área de livre comércio, mais flexível. Esta mudança já está atrasada.

Brasil em estado de (des)graca (2): reversao de expectativas (The Economist)

Brazil's disappointing economy: Stuck in the mud

The Economist, June 7, 2013

Failing to meet low expectations is becoming a habit for Brazil's economy. Figures published on May 29th showed that in the first quarter of this year it grew by just 0.6% (2.4% annualised), well short of the recovery analysts had expected. For the first time in years the country is running a trade deficit. Its primary fiscal surplus (ie, before interest payments) is shrinking and government debt is growing. Other emerging economies are also cutting growth forecasts, as China slows and the euro zone slumps. But Brazil's woes started earlier than most and seem to be home-grown. Inflation close to 6.5% despite low growth suggests domestic rigidities are the main problem, rather than weak foreign demand.

After becoming president in 2011, Dilma Rousseff sought to stimulate growth by hiking public spending and the minimum wage, and forcing state-run banks to lend more. The resulting inflation was tackled not by raising interest rates but by cutting sales taxes and holding down the price of items with a big impact on the inflation index, including food, petrol and bus fares. Until recently voters reacted favourably, though the economy did not. Polls in March gave Ms Rousseff a record-breaking 79% approval rating, making her the clear favourite to win next year's presidential election and allowing her to put off economic adjustments until a second term.

But stagnant growth is now hitting Brazilians in their pockets. After successive wage rises, this year's pay deals barely outpace inflation. Already indebted, households are reining in their spending. Consumer confidence is falling and more people say rising prices are their biggest economic worry.

The swift deterioration in the economic data and public sentiment seems to have forced the government's hand. Despite the weak growth figures, the Central Bank surprised markets by raising the base interest rate from 7.5% to 8%, making Brazil the only big economy currently tightening monetary policy. The bank's governor, Alexandre Tombini, said the move had Ms Rousseff's "full support". It went some way to restoring the institution's inflation-fighting credentials, badly dented by the president's determination to push down rates even as inflation rose.

The bank will have to raise rates again to bring inflation nearer its 4.5% target. On June 4th the government scrapped a tax on foreign purchases of bonds, in order to encourage currency inflows and slow the weakening of the real, which has fuelled inflation by making imports pricier. The finance ministry will be scrutinised for signs of a return to rectitude, after using creative accounting to hit its primary-surplus target last year. The departure of Nelson Barbosa, a senior official who reportedly opposed the fiscal fiddles, worries many analysts.

Most keenly awaited is evidence that the government is serious about its promise to stop trying to boost consumption and instead encourage investment, currently just 18.4% of GDP. During the first quarter investment picked up, but mostly because of a recovery in sales of heavy-goods vehicles, which were depressed last year by stricter rules on emissions.

Ms Rousseff has exhorted businesses to invest more. But the government's own actions are one reason they have failed to heed her call. Holding down petrol prices to slow the rise in inflation weakened the balance-sheet of Petrobras, the state-controlled oil giant, and played havoc with the sugarcane-ethanol industry, which competes directly with petrol at the pump. A delay in introducing new mining laws and a row about how to share oil royalties have put exploration and development on hold in both industries.

In August the government said that early in 2013 it would start to auction road and railway concessions to the private sector. But its unwillingness to allow a competitive return put investors off, and the auctions were delayed. Clumsy interventions in the electricity and banking industries completed the picture of a heavy-handed, anti-business administration.

Pork and persuasion

Engineering an investment boom will mean breaking at least some of these logjams. A successful drilling-rights auction last month and plans to sell a vast new field off the coast of Rio de Janeiro in October have raised hopes that investment in the oil industry will soon pick up. And in recent weeks the government has accepted that it must offer juicier returns to lure bidders to its road and rail concessions. A string of successful sales would go a long way to boosting business confidence and private-sector investment—and to providing the upgrades Brazil's outdated infrastructure needs if growth is to pick up.

But just as the room for economic manoeuvre is diminishing, the political landscape is becoming harder to navigate. Though the governing coalition controls 80% of Congress, its members include everyone from communists to evangelical Christians, and many unprincipled power-seekers. A former bureaucrat with no previous experience of elected office, Ms Rousseff has proved ill-suited to the shuttle diplomacy required to coax her so-called allies into backing her plans. Brusque and impatient, she rarely talks to congressmen. They regard the proxies she sends as arrogant and sometimes incompetent.

Last month a truculent Congress nearly blocked a much-needed new law that will increase competition and private investment in the country's crowded, outdated ports. Passing the bill took all-night sessions in the lower house, arm-twisting in the Senate, and the promise of a billion reais ($500m) in pork-barrel spending. The Party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement, Ms Rousseff's largest coalition partner, is now threatening to support the party of Eduardo Campos, a likely presidential challenger, in some state races next year and to field its own candidates in others. This is probably just a bargaining ploy. But it suggests that Ms Rousseff will have to pay a high price for getting her infrastructure plans off the drawing board.

Brasil em estado de (des)graca (1): reversao de expectativas (The Economist)

Brazil's mediocre economy: A fall from grace

Editorial The Economist, June 6, 2013

Almost exactly 20 years ago, in May 1993, Fernando Henrique Cardoso was named as Brazil's 13th finance minister in as many years, a seemingly hopeless job in a country trapped in hyperinflation, debt and an anachronistic economic statism. Mr Cardoso's Real Plan swiftly tamed inflation and took him to the presidency. There he laid the foundations for a new Brazil, of stability and liberal economic reform. This success was reinforced by his successor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a left-wing former union leader, whose government saw 30m Brazilians get out of poverty.

The trouble is that in Lula's second term (2007-10) and especially under his chosen successor, Dilma Rousseff, the formula behind Brazil's success has been slowly abandoned. The policy secret was simple: inflation targeting by a Central Bank operating with de facto independence; transparent public accounts; a rigorous fiscal target, which brought down the public debt; and a much more open attitude to foreign trade and private investment.

But the global recession of 2008-09 prompted Lula and Ms Rousseff to shrug at decadent liberal economics and ape Chinese state capitalism. The finance ministry wrote vast cheques to boost lending by state banks. The government gave up on market reform, and spent remorselessly. When overheating turned to stagnation (the economy grew by a paltry 0.9% last year), Ms Rousseff publicly chivvied the Central Bank to slash interest rates. When inflation neared the top of its target range (6.5%), she said she cared more about growth. She unleashed a bewildering and ever-shifting barrage of tax breaks (and tariff rises) for favoured industries but failed to balance these with spending cuts. And instead of a clear fiscal target, there are some worryingly Argentine accounting fudges (see article).

The upshot is that investors have become confused about Brazil's economic policies. This uncertainty has contributed to a mediocre performance: since 2011 growth has been lower and inflation higher than in most Latin American countries.

Fortunately, Brazil still has some big strengths, including its farming and energy industries, more science and innovation than you might think and a huge, albeit less fizzy, domestic market. And whatever Ms Rousseff's mistakes, they are small compared with those of, say, Argentina's Cristina Fernández. But in any event, the going for Brazil is getting harder. A consumption and credit boom has run out of steam, the trade account has moved into deficit as Chinese demand for Brazilian iron ore slows and the imminent end of cheap money in the rich world is prompting a slide in the real. Though that will help Brazilian manufacturers, it will push up inflation.

Stay, Mr Mantega, stay

So incipient signs of a return to clearer policy in the past few weeks are welcome. To curb inflation, Alexandre Tombini, the Central Bank governor, has pushed up the benchmark interest rate (though more increases will be needed to restore lost credibility). Guido Mantega, the finance minister, has said he will no longer use fiscal policy to stimulate the economy; on June 4th he lifted a tax on capital inflows. But more change is needed if Brazil is to return to the path set by the Real Plan. Above all, Ms Rousseff's team need to curb spending and get the state out of the business of micromanaging investment decisions.

In December, when we last urged Brazil's government to stop meddling and let animal spirits roar, we called for Ms Rousseff to sack Mr Mantega. It was widely reported in Brazil that our impertinence had the effect of making the finance minister unsackable. Now we will try a new tack. We urge the president to hang on to him at all costs: he is such a success.

Washington Post revela invasao de privacidade do Governo Obama

Primeira parte de uma matéria que se estende por diversas outras, a partir deste link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-intelligence-mining-data-from-nine-us-internet-companies-in-broad-secret-program/2013/06/06/3a0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html?hpid=z1
Por outro lado, o Washington Post revela as diversas facetas do programa numa série de slides, neste link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism-collection-documents/
Preocupante, deveras.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Documents: U.S. mining data from 9 leading Internet firms; companies deny knowledge

By Barton Gellman and Laura Poitras

The Washington Post, June 6

The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs that enable analysts to track foreign targets, according to a top-secret document obtained by The Washington Post.

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.

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.

Congress obliged with the Protect America Act in 2007 and the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which immunized private companies that cooperated voluntarily with U.S. intelligence collection. PRISM recruited its first partner, Microsoft, and began six years of rapidly growing data collection beneath the surface of a roiling national debate on surveillance and privacy. Late last year, when critics in Congress sought changes in the FISA Amendments Act, the only lawmakers who knew about PRISM were bound by oaths of office to hold their tongues.

The court-approved program is focused on foreign communications traffic, which often flows through U.S. servers even when sent from one overseas location to another. Between 2004 and 2007, Bush administration lawyers persuaded federal FISA judges to issue surveillance orders in a fundamentally new form. Until then the government had to show probable cause that a particular “target” and “facility” were both connected to terrorism or espionage.

In four new orders, which remain classified, the court defined massive data sets as “facilities” and agreed to certify periodically that the government had reasonable procedures in place to minimize collection of “U.S. persons” data without a warrant.

In a statement issue late Thursday, Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper said “information collected under this program is among the most important and valuable foreign intelligence information we collect, and is used to protect our nation from a wide variety of threats. The unauthorized disclosure of information about this important and entirely legal program is reprehensible and risks important protections for the security of Americans.”

Clapper added that there were numerous inaccuracies in reports about PRISM by The Post and the Guardian newspaper, but he did not specify any.

(...)

Continua aqui: http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-intelligence-mining-data-from-nine-us-internet-companies-in-broad-secret-program/2013/06/06/3a0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html?hpid=z1

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."

=======

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.

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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.