Punching Holes in Internet Walls On one side are the governments that have restricted Web access. In some countries, like Singapore, most of the banned sites are pornographic. Many of these countries also block the sites of political dissidents, but the censorship may be much broader than that. In the Middle East, for example, anti- Islamic sites and gay sites are often off- limits. In China, the prohibition includes the sites of Western publications, human rights organizations and Falun Gong, the banned spiritual movement. And Saudi Arabia also blocks sites for financial reasons: its ban on Internet telephony favors its own state-run telephone monopoly. Countering such government restrictions are services, some free, that are provided by companies like SafeWeb (www.safeweb.com), Anonymizer (www.anonymizer.com), SilentSurf.com (www.silentsurf.com) and the Cloak (www.the-cloak.com). During the conflict in Kosovo in 1999, for example, Anonymizer, based in San Diego, set up free services so that Kosovo residents could communicate with less fear. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/26/technology/26SAFE.html?pagewanted=all

Supreme Court Limits Scope of a Main Civil Rights Law The Supreme Court today substantially limited the effectiveness of one of the most important civil rights laws as a weapon against discrimination in the way federal grant money is used. The case before the court was a class-action lawsuit contending that the State of Alabama violated federal law by requiring applicants for drivers' licenses to take the written examination in English. Alabama, which like all states receives federal law enforcement and highway money, is the only state to limit its drivers' license exams to English. Two lower federal courts ruled that the policy had the prohibited effect of discriminating on the basis of national origin. But the Supreme Court said today that private lawsuits were not authorized under the law at issue, Title VI, which itself prohibits only intentional discrimination. The law authorizes federal agencies to issue regulations that bring their own programs into compliance with Title VI, and many regulations go beyond intentional discrimination to also bar the use of federal money in programs with discriminatory effects. The court said today that the "private right of action," the ability of private plaintiffs to go to court to enforce Title VI, extended no further than the law itself and did not apply to the regulations. The decision reflected a major battle on the court, and the hard feelings were evident in the courtroom today. In a dissenting opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens said "it makes no sense" to differentiate for the purposes of private Title VI lawsuits between intentional discrimination and discriminatory impact. "There is but one private action to enforce Title VI, and we already know that such an action exists," he said. Justice Stevens read portions of his dissent from the bench, a step justices take only rarely to call attention to developments they regard as particularly wrongheaded. He criticized the majority not only for its decision, but also for reaching out to take the case in the first place in the absence of any conflict among the lower federal courts on the issue. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/25/national/25DISC.html?pagewanted=all

Back in Texas, Bush's Legacy Comes Under Fire �George W. Bush is having an unusually tough time with the Texas Legislature. Many of the same lawmakers who passed tax cuts championed by Mr. Bush are now talking about future tax increases. Legislators in both parties agree that the state's charter schools, one of Mr. Bush's pet programs, need to be fixed. His signature environmental initiative is regarded as weak, and legislators are debating how much it should be toughened. Lawmakers also are considering easing enrollment requirements in Medicaid � a move resisted during Mr. Bush's tenure � so more poor children can be covered. And lawmakers are moving forward on several death penalty fronts, including a bill similar to one Mr. Bush vetoed two years ago that sponsors say would help provide better lawyers for indigent defendants. Just today, the Texas House of Representatives gave preliminary approval to a bill that would ban the execution of mentally retarded inmates, a measure that failed in the House two years ago after Mr. Bush spoke out against it. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/24/politics/24TEXA.html?pagewanted=all

U.S. Crew Says It Tried to Block Attack in Peru The unarmed American tracking plane � a Cessna Citation jet owned by the Air Force � was flown by a crew of three Americans under a C.I.A. contract; they were a pilot, a co-pilot and a technician, officials said. Also on board was the Peruvian officer, whose job was to direct Peru's military interceptors to suspicious planes. The tracking aircraft, one of many United States planes that are used in a longstanding program to help Peru and Colombia choke off the cocaine trade, played a crucial role in spotting the missionaries' plane and raising suspicions about its flight, according to the American officials. But they insisted that Peru's military was in command and control of drug interceptions, despite considerable support from the American military, anti-drug and intelligence agencies. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/23/world/23PLAN.html?pagewanted=all

Despite Sub Inquiry, Navy Still Sees Need for Guests on Ships Two targets of the inquiry � the Greeneville's captain and a sailor who failed to manually plot the location of the Japanese ship � have reversed their accounts on whether the presence of civilians in the control room was a factor in the crash. "In my opinion the investigation is not complete," said Eugene R. Fidell, the president of the National Institute of Military Justice, in Washington. "Never to summon 16 witnesses jammed into that control room is bizarre. "The Navy, I think, is collectively desperately concerned not to give up the distinguished visitor program," Mr. Fidell added. "They don't even want to talk about this. This is a real big deal to the Navy. To some people here, it seemed an implied threat that, if Commander Waddle were to go to a court-martial, Mr. Gittins would raise the presence of civilians as part of his defense and might produce embarrassing material about the visitor program. Commander Waddle, in his testimony � given voluntarily after he had been denied immunity � said the 16 civilians crowded into the control room did not interfere with operations. Asked twice by different admirals if the civilians were a factor in the accident, Commander Waddle each time replied, "No, sir." But last Monday, the main article on the front page of The Honolulu Advertiser quoted Mr. Gittins as saying that Commander Waddle had changed his mind and now believed that the presence of the civilians broke the crew's concentration at a crucial time. The article also noted that the visitors program "could figure prominently in the unlikely event of a court-martial and prove an embarrassment for the Navy." That same day, Time magazine published an interview with Commander Waddle that said the skipper had "reversed his previously benign view of the presence of civilians on board." Time quoted Commander Waddle as saying, "Having them in the control room at least interfered with our concentration." But Petty Officer First Class Patrick T. Seacrest changed his account in the opposite way. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/23/national/23VISI.html?pagewanted=all

U.S. Identified Baptists' Plane as Drug Carrier The United States Customs Service flies surveillance planes into what it calls the "source zone" for drugs, but a spokesman, Dennis Murphy, said today that his agency's planes were not involved in tracking the missionaries' plane on Friday. A Customs Service radar plane based in the Caribbean was flying in Colombia on Friday, but it was far north of the path taken by the Cessna 185 and did not observe it, Mr. Murphy said. The Customs Service has a P-3, a four-engine turboprop, the same kind of plane that the Navy uses to track enemy submarines, based in the Caribbean. Normal practice for the Customs Service is that once a radar plane locates a suspicious plane in flight, it radios for a Citation, a smaller plane that can fly at low speeds, to observe the target visually. Both the radar plane and the observation plane carry a representative from the host country, said Mr. Murphy, who communicates directly with the air force of the country involved. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/22/world/22PLAN.html?pagewanted=all

Opposition Builds to Spending Cuts in Bush's Budget The White House says the cuts are needed to put federal spending on a more sustainable path after several years of rapid growth. But some members of Congress from both parties have objected that the cuts are compelled mainly to pay for the large tax cuts Mr. Bush has been seeking. Mr. Bush says he can save billions of dollars by reducing "corporate subsidies," eliminating "duplicative and ineffective programs" and wiping out pork barrel projects approved at the behest of individual lawmakers. But the reality is often more complex than the White House suggests. The National Association of Children's Hospitals and the American Academy of Pediatrics have joined members of Congress trying to prevent cuts in children's programs. The administration wants to trim $35 million from a $235 million program for training doctors at children's hospitals. The National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials is fighting other proposed cuts, including one to slice $700 million from a program for construction and repair of public housing. Congress provided $3 billion for the public housing capital fund last year. Likewise, a wide range of businesses are scrambling to protect the Export-Import Bank from cuts that will be proposed by Mr. Bush. Defenders of the bank include the United States Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and exporters of all sizes. Mr. Bush is expected to propose a 24 percent reduction in the bank's budget, below the current level of $927 million. Representative Jim Kolbe, the Arizona Republican who is chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee responsible for the bank, said, "We need to be expanding, not reducing, the amount the bank gets." Mr. Bush will also propose eliminating federal subsidies for loans made under the main lending program of the Small Business Administration. He would raise fees charged to borrowers and to lenders. Mr. Bush also plans to reduce the budget for one of President Bill Clinton's favorite programs, Community Oriented Policing Services, to $855 million next year, from $1 billion this year, administration officials said. Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of Delaware, said this would be a serious mistake, "a misguided retreat from our commitment to keep crime down." Mr. Bush wants to save $25 million by eliminating a disaster preparedness program known as Project Impact. He said the program, run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, "has not proved effective." Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, has won support from the Senate for her efforts to save the program, which shores up buildings to minimize damage. The project, Ms. Murray said, saved lives in the earthquake that jolted the Pacific Northwest on Feb. 28. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/09/politics/09BUDG.html?pagewanted=all

Fears on Privacy Law Spur Warning by Armey � to help business evade regulation and to prevent House Republicans from trying to bring new privacy bills forward. Few issues have risen to prominence as quickly as privacy. As Americans have gone online by the millions, they have become increasingly concerned over ways that their digital footprints can be traced, especially by companies that use personal data for marketing. The Federal Trade Commission recommended that Congress legislate privacy standards for Web sites, and a number of lawmakers have filed bills intended to fill in the patchwork of privacy laws on the books. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/09/technology/09PRIV.html?pagewanted=all

Focus on Farms Masks Estate Tax Confusion Harlyn Riekena worried that his success would cost him when he died. Thirty-seven years ago he quit teaching to farm and over the years bought more and more of the rich black soil here in central Iowa. Now he and his wife, Karen, own 950 gently rolling acres planted in soybeans and corn. The farmland alone is worth more than $2.5 million, and so Mr. Riekena, 61, fretted that estate taxes would take a big chunk of his three grown daughters' inheritance.

Almost no working farmers do, according to data from an Internal Revenue Service analysis of 1999 returns that has not yet been published.

That might seem a reasonable assumption, what with all the talk in Washington about the need to repeal the estate tax to save the family farm. "To keep farms in the family, we are going to get rid of the death tax," President Bush vowed a month ago; he and many others have made the point repeatedly. But in fact the Riekenas will owe nothing in estate taxes. Almost no working farmers do, according to data from an Internal Revenue Service analysis of 1999 returns that has not yet been published. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/08/business/08ESTA.html?pagewanted=all

Bush Budget on Health Care Would Cut Aid to Uninsured Budget documents from the Department of Health and Human Services show that these programs, providing "health care access for the uninsured," would be reduced 86 percent, to $20 million, from $140 million in the current fiscal year. The programs received $40 million in 2000. So far the White House has not disclosed many details of Mr. Bush's budget, which would cut taxes by $1.6 trillion over the next 10 years. But today's disclosure provides the second example of significant cuts in domestic programs. Earlier, administration officials acknowledged that the budget would include cuts in some programs for children and children's hospitals. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/04/politics/04HEAL.html?pagewanted=all

BW Online | March 15, 2001 | Coming Soon, the Smaller Business Administration President Bush's proposed budget would slash outlays to the Small Business Administration by a huge 40% -- and a good chunk of the shortfall will be borne by the SBA's clientele: small companies in need of loans. Under the Administration's plan, the SBA would get approximately $539 million next year, down from this year's $899 million. But the agency doesn't sound terribly concerned. "There are substantial savings to be found in the SBA's programs that allow us to operate with a lower appropriation, but at the same level," of services as last year, says SBA spokesman Mike Stamler. "We're on board." Why so sanguine? Some cost savings -- about $74 million worth -- can be found by eliminating programs that have been declared redundant. These include the New Markets Venture Capital Initiative, which was designed to help bring venture capital to small companies in low-income areas; BusinessLINC, a mentoring program that aims to bring together small and large companies; and Prime, a technical-assistance program for disadvantaged entrepreneurs. The big money to compensate for the budget shortfall -- $235 million -- will come from fee hikes. The 7(a) loan program will collect an additional $114.7 million by raising the guarantee fee paid by borrowers by half a percentage point on loans over $150,000. On loans for amounts between $150,000 and $700,000, borrowers will now pay a 3.5% guarantee fee, up from 3%. For larger loans, the fee goes to 4% from 3.5%. http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/mar2001/sb20010315_323.htm

Bush's Budget Would Cut 3 Programs to Aid Children President Bush intends next month to propose cuts in programs to provide child care, to prevent child abuse and to train doctors at children's hospitals, administration officials said today. State officials contend that stable child care for low-income families has been a major ingredient of successful programs to move people from welfare to work. Congress provided $2 billion last year for the Child Care and Development Block Grant. That included an increase of $817 million, or 69 percent, so that states could provide day care to 241,000 additional children. Budget documents from the Department of Health and Human Services show that Mr. Bush plans to cut child care grants by $200 million, to $1.8 billion, as part of the budget he will send Congress early next month. The documents also show that spending for programs dealing with child abuse would be reduced by $15.7 million, or 18 percent. That would leave $71.8 million for federal grants to the states to prevent and investigate child abuse and neglect. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/23/politics/23SPEN.html?pagewanted=all

News Analysis: Bush Faces Quandaries of Economy and Energy Under the proposal he sent to Congress just a few weeks ago, there was no tax cut for the current year at all, a fact that seemed to undercut the president's repeated claim that the combination of the Fed's rate cuts and his own tax plan would pull the country out of what appears to be a cyclical downturn. Even the cut passed by the House earlier this month � and heartily endorsed by the White House � provides only $5.6 billion in tax relief this year. In a $10 trillion economy, that is, in the words of Robert Litan, an economist at the Brookings Institution, "something so tiny that you won't even notice it." On that point, Democrats and Republicans seem to agree. But each side is using that fact to bolster the case for substantial change in Mr. Bush's plan. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/21/politics/21ASSE.html?pagewanted=all

Washington Memo: For Bush, a Chronicle of Bad News Foretold Normally, presidents are cheerleaders for the nation's economy. On Oct. 19, 1987, the day the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 508 points, or 22.6 percent, President Ronald Reagan said the historic fall was simply investors taking profits. The next day, he blamed Democrats in Congress. The day after that, Mr. Reagan proclaimed that the crisis "appears to be over." In 1991, when the economy was last in a recession, President George Bush told Congress in his State of the Union address that there were "reasons to be optimistic about our economy." He predicted, accurately, that "we will get on our way to a new record of expansion and achieve the competitive strength that will carry us into the next American century." For President Bill Clinton, touting the economy posed no problem, since he presided over a period of unremittingly good economic news. Now comes George W. Bush, who is presenting what an analysis in The Financial Times last week called "the novel spectacle" of a president "urging citizens to ignore good economic news and focus on the bad." http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/19/politics/19MEMO.html?pagewanted=all

A Bill to Wall Off Medicare Revenue Fails In a preview of what is likely to be a recurring budget battle this year, the Senate today blocked an attempt by Democrats to restrict Congress's use of surplus Medicare revenues for a tax cut or general government spending. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/14/politics/14MEDI.html?pagewanted=all

Political Memo: Resurrecting Ghosts of Pardons Past His testimony revealed little about how Mr. Rich won his pardon, and Republicans had worked behind the scenes to spare him from appearing at all. But by calling him, Representative Henry A. Waxman, the committee's ranking Democrat, sought to make a point: Mr. Clinton may have been irresponsible in issuing his final sheaf of pardons, but Republicans do not have completely clean hands on the issue. During the hearing, Mr. Waxman cited the case of Orlando Borsch, suspected of being a terrorist from Cuba, who was released from jail in 1990 by the administration of former President George Bush. Jeb Bush, the former president's son who is now the governor of Florida, had lobbied for Mr. Borsch's release, which had become a cause c�l�bre among Cuban-Americans in South Florida. The Borsch case was not the only one that Mr. Waxman raised as he sought to turn the tables on Republican investigators in what has become the Democrats' tried-and-true technique for trying to trip up the many inquiries started by Mr. Burton, Republican of Indiana. Mr. Waxman said he found the pardon of Armand Hammer just as suspicious as that of Mr. Rich. In 1989, former President Bush pardoned Mr. Hammer, the former head of Occidental Petroleum who had pleaded guilty to making illegal campaign contributions. Mr. Hammer was a major donor to Republicans. Shortly before he received the pardon, he gave more than $100,000 to the Republican Party and $100,000 to the Bush-Quayle Inaugural Committee. "The appearance of a quid pro quo is just as strong in the Hammer case as in the Rich case, if not stronger, since Mr. Hammer himself gave the contribution," Mr. Waxman said. In the case of Mr. Rich, it was his former wife, Denise, who was both a pardon advocate and major donor � she gave $450,000 to the Clinton presidential library. Mr. Waxman called on Mr. Burton to subpoena the library records of the Republican administrations to look into potential abuses. Mr. Burton did not take him up on his offer. "I was turned down," Mr. Waxman said. "It seems we can pursue President Clinton's library, but not President Bush's or President Reagan's." http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/04/politics/04MEMO.html?pagewanted=allt

Doing the Math on Bush's Tax Cut In all of Washington, there are three computer models built to produce what are called distributional tables � showing how any particular tax increase or tax cut would be distributed among various income levels. One model is at the Treasury Department, one is at Congress's Joint Tax Committee and one is at Citizens for Tax Justice, a research institute sponsored by labor unions. The methods are slightly different. But in the end, the analyses differ only at the margins. In the past, Democrats ran either the Treasury Department or the Joint Tax Committee � depending on which party controlled the White House and which controlled Congress � and whenever a tax proposal was made, the computer the Democrats were in charge of would instantly produce a distributional table. But Republicans have never liked that kind of measurement, saying it contributed to class warfare. So this year, with Republicans in charge of the White House and both houses of Congress for the first time in almost 50 years, neither the Treasury nor Congress has provided distributional tables on President Bush's tax plan. � Tax analysts from both parties who have worked at the Congressional Joint Tax Committee and the Office of Tax Analysis in the Treasury say the relevant information on how the Bush plan would affect people with different incomes is already in the computers. All it would take to produce the distributional tables would be for someone to push a button, the analysts said. But that may not happen. At a press briefing on Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill said that figuring out what the tax benefits of the president plan would be at various income levels resulted only in "a nonsense set of statistics." http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/04/politics/04CONG.html?pagewanted=all

Doing the Math on Bush's Tax Cut If the entire plan becomes law, the richest 1 percent of taxpayers would get between 22 percent and 45 percent of the tax benefits, depending on how the calculations are done. These are the 1.3 million taxpayers with annual incomes of more than about $370,000. Because some of them are fabulously wealthy, the average income of these taxpayers is more than $1 million. The poorest 60 percent of taxpayers, those with incomes below $44,000, would receive less than 13 percent of the money from lower taxes in the Bush proposals. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/04/politics/04CONG.html?pagewanted=all

Chicago Tribune | News - Columnists - Clarence Page Yet there he was portraying himself as the crusading victim as he gave his pep talk to the right-wing's troops. "Today, no one can honestly be surprised by the venomous attacks" unleashed on anyone who strays from the conventional wisdom, Thomas said. Right. Republicans control both houses of Congress and the White House--helped along, as I recall, by a fortuitous Supreme Court decision in which Thomas helped end the recount of Florida's presidential votes. Thomas had Vice President Dick Cheney and several Cabinet members sitting in the audience while he spun his tale of woe and delivered his defiant closing to robust applause: "Be not afraid!" Afraid? Excuse me? Afraid of what? Too much power?� Echoes of his speech have come to mind as I have been reading a book that has critics of America's civil rights leadership all abuzz this season. It is called "Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America," by John H. McWhorter, a black associate professor of linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley. It's the best among the latest of what I call "black self-flagellation" books. Since at least 1990, when Shelby Steele's seminal "Content of Our Character: A New Vision of Race in America" came out, it seems that no black writer has gone broke by portraying black people as our own worst enemy. Quite the opposite, one can win instant fame, high-priced speaking engagements, warm praise from conservative talk-show hosts and perhaps even a lucrative fellowship or two. (The same is true, by the way, of many so-called "post-feminist" books that describe feminism as a betrayal of women, but that's a topic for another day.) http://chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/page/0,1122,SAV-0103040059,00.html

News Analysis: Surplus Feast - Will Tax-Cut Appetizer Leave Room for Debt-Slice Dessert? But very little in Washington is exactly what it seems, and this is no exception. Paying down the debt and "saving Social Security first" became, in the Clinton years, Democratic ideas, which Mr. Bush is now paying homage to in an effort to win over Democrats and secure quick passage of his tax cut. The details released today, however, suggest something a bit more subtle. Mr. Bush has now redefined the national debt, so that it looks more manageable. And Mr. Bush's aides are arguing that it does not need to be paid off so fast � which, conveniently, leaves them a bit more room for their own favorite programs, like a national missile defense, new spending on education and creating private Social Security accounts. All of this raises two questions: Which party is pursuing the more conservative course? And what does it say about the ideology of George W. Bush, whose "compassionate conservatism" seemed at times an effort to dress up the philosophy of Ronald Reagan in the moderate poll- tested oratory of Bill Clinton? http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/01/politics/01ASSE.html?pagewanted=all