小编今天为大家准备了15号的几篇美文，寓教于乐，大家慢慢欣赏吧。
一、目录
[2013.06.01] Urbanisation: Some are more equal than others
[2013.06.01] Drawing the battle lines 保守派vs.改革派：划分战线
[2013.06.01] The strange rebirth of liberal England自由主义怪异重生
[2013.06.01] Martian space flight: Red dreams 火星之旅
[2013.06.01] Killer drones: Out of the shadows 无人机杀手
[2013.06.06] Why so little Chinese in English? 英语的汉语借词太少
[2013.06.08] Lexington: The China syndrome 中国综合症
[2013.06.08] Too much of a good thing 领导人优势过多
[2013.06.08] America’s non-banks: The anointed美国金融机构封神榜
[2013.06.08] Palaeontology: A heroic find 古生物学史诗般的发现
[2013.06.08]Democrat or sultan? 土耳其的抉择：民主还是王权?
[2013.06.08] Luxury in the Arab world 阿拉伯奢侈品市场
[2013.06.08]Turkey's troubles:Democrat or sultan?土耳其受难记
[2013.06.08] Turkey erupts: The new young Turks 土耳其新一代的年轻人
[2013.06.15]Secrets, lies and America's spies 监控网络错在哪
[2013.06.15] Surveillance: Look who’s listening 揭开监控黑幕
[2013.06.15] AIDS in India: The cost of living 生命的价值
[2013.06.15] Europe’s reluctant hegemon 心不甘情不愿的欧洲盟主
[2013.06.15] Energy: Tilting atwindmills 德国能源：无的放矢
[2013.06.15] Online privacy: How to disappear 如何抹去线上痕迹
[2013.06.22] Persian power: Can Iran be stopped? 难道伊朗已经无人能挡
[2013.06.22] China's Bank: the Shibor Shock 中国央行坐视钱荒加剧
[2013.06.22] The start of history 中日战争，历史的开篇
[2013.06.22] Cement industry: Ready-mixed fortunes 水泥业复苏在望
[2013.06.20] The Big Mac Index goes to North Korea 巨无霸指数走进朝鲜
[2013.06.22] Henry Cecil 悼～传奇驯马师亨利·塞西尔
[2013.06.22] Money and happiness: Buy buy love 买来的“爱”
[2013.06.29] Mediobanca: A little less tangled 意大利中期银行
[2013.06.29] Defining financial bigotry: Disparate times 金融偏执的认定
二、文章内容
[2013.06.15]Secrets, lies and America's spies 监控网络错在哪?
Surveillance
监视
Secrets, lies and America's spies
秘密、谎言和美国的间谍们
A government's first job is to protect its citizens. But that should be based on informed consent, not blind trust
对于政府来说，他们的首要任务是保护公民。对于公民来说，当他们把手中的权力授予政府时，应该以知情同意为基础，而不是盲目地相信政府能正确地行使权力
Jun 15th 2013 |From the print edition
CONSTANT vigilance: that is the task of the people who protect society from enemies intent on using subterfuge and violence to get their way. It is also the watchword of those who fear that the protectors will pursue the collective interest at untold cost to individual rights. Edward Snowden, a young security contractor, has come down on one side of that tussle by leaking documents showing that the National Security Agency (NSA) spied on millions of Americans' phone records and on the internet activity of hundreds of millions of foreigners.
“时刻警惕着!”——这是一项任务，也是一句口号。以此为任务的人正在做着保护社会的工作，他们要让社会远离那些蓄意利用阴谋诡计和暴力来达到目的的人;把它当做口号的人，是因为他们担心某些人会为了自己的集团利益去牺牲民众的个人权利。最新加入这场争论的是人是一位年轻的安全合同承包商，他叫爱德华·斯诺登。他披露的机密文件显示，美国国家安全局窃取了数百万美国人的手机通话记录和数亿外国人的网络活动纪录。
The documents, published by the Guardian and the Washington Post, include two big secrets (see article). One is a court order telling Verizon, a telecoms company, to hand over “metadata”, such as the duration, direction and location of subscribers' calls. The other gives some clues about a programme called PRISM, which collects e-mails, files and social-networking data from firms such as Google, Apple and Facebook. Much of this eavesdropping has long been surmised, and none of it is necessarily illegal. America gives wide powers to its law-enforcement and spy agencies. They are overseen by Congress and courts, which issue orders to internet firms.
这些刊登在《卫报》和《华盛顿邮报》上的文件让我们知道了两个秘密：一，韦里孙通讯公司被迫向某法庭交出了含有用户通话时长、地点以及打往何方等内容的“元数据”;二，政府为了获得网络用户的电子邮件、文件以及他们提交给社交网站的数据，专门设立了一个名为“棱镜”的计划，该计划从谷歌、苹果和脸谱等公司那里收集了大量的数据。其实，人们早就对大多数此类行为产生了怀疑，但始终未能发现它们的违法证据。在美国，执法部门和情报机构是拥有广泛权力的部门，而能够监督他们的除国会之外，就要数那些给互联网公司签发命令的法庭。
Barack Obama has responded to the leaks by saying that he “welcomes” a debate on the trade-off between privacy, security and convenience. Despite the president's words, however, the administration and much of Congress seem unwilling to talk about the programmes they oversee; and the politicians and executives who do want to speak out are gagged by secrecy laws. Opinion polls show that Americans are divided about the merits of surveillance—which is partly because they know so little about what is going on. But spying in a democracy depends for its legitimacy on informed consent, not blind trust.
此次泄密事件发生后，隐私、安全和便利成为人们关注的焦点。如何才能在三者之间达成妥协，各方议论纷纷。贝拉克·奥巴马说，他“欢迎”人们就此展开讨论，而政府工作人员和大部分国会议员似乎都不愿意谈及这些由他们负责监督的计划。相比之下，那些想谈论这一问题的政客和高级官员，却因为保密法的规定而想说又不敢说。调查显示，美国民众对监控行为的功与过存在很大的分歧，造成这种情况的部分原因，在于他们对政府到底在利用监控做什么所知甚少。但是，在民主制度下，政府监控行为的合法性取决于民众的知情同意，而不是不加辨别地把权力托付给政府。
Guarding the guards
国家的卫兵应当得到保护
You might argue that the spies are doing only what is necessary. Al-Qaeda's assaults on September 11th 2001 demonstrated to politicians everywhere that their first duty is to ensure their own citizens' safety—a lesson reinforced recently by the attack on the Boston marathon in April and last month's gruesome murder of Lee Rigby, a British soldier, in London. With Islamist bombers, there is a good case for using electronic surveillance: they come from a population that is still hard for Western security services to penetrate, and they make wide use of mobile phones and the internet. The NSA's boss, Keith Alexander, says the ploys revealed by Mr Snowden have stopped dozens of plots. The burden on society of sweeping up information about them has been modest compared with the wars launched against Afghanistan and Iraq. And the public seems happy: if there were another attack on America, Mr Snowden would soon be forgotten.
有人认为，情报部门的作为无非就是在尽他们的职责而已。各国政客从“9·11”事件中明白，他们的首要任务是确保公民的安全。最近发生的两起事件(四月份的波士顿马拉松赛遭袭案和上个月英国士兵李·拉格比在伦敦被血腥谋杀)又强化了他们的这种认识。政客们明白，在对付穆斯林炸弹袭击者这件事上，只要弹袭击者的生活圈还未被自己的安全机构渗透，只要这些些人还在大量地使用手机和互联网，那么他们就一定能为大范围地使用电子窃听找到一个必然的理由。美国国家安全局局长基斯·亚历山大说，他们已经利用被斯诺登曝光的手段阻止了数十起阴谋。他还说，同阿富汗战争和伊拉克战争的花销相比，国家为大规模收集社会信息所承担的费用并不算多。另外，公众似乎也对感到满意。由此可见，如果美国再次遭到袭击，斯诺登很快就会被人们忘记。
Yet because the spies choose what to reveal about their work, nobody can judge if the cost and intrusion are proportionate to the threat. One concern is the size, scope and cost of the security bureaucracy: some 1.4m people have “top secret” clearances of the kind held by Mr Snowden. Is that sensible? The WikiLeaks saga also exposed weaknesses in the system.
然而，由于披露监控内容的选择权掌握在监控者的手中，因此，没有人能对成本和入侵是否同威胁成正比做出正确的判断。人们会对监控的规模、范围和安全机构的费用产生疑问。当拥有斯诺登那种“绝密”许可的人数达到140万左右时，这还能说合情合理吗?维基解密事件也将这种体系的弱点暴露无遗。
A second worry is the effect on America's ties with other countries. The administration's immediate response to the PRISM revelation was that Americans have nothing to fear: it touched only foreigners. That adds insult to injury in countries that count themselves as close American allies: the European Union, in particular, fastidiously protects its citizens' data. Fears abound that the spy agencies practise a cynical swap, in which each respects the letter of the law protecting the rights of its own people—but lets its allies do the snooping instead.
人们的第二个担心在于，这次事件会影响美国与其他国家的之间的关系。当“棱镜”曝光后，美国官员在第一时间回应说：美国人完全可以放心，因为这一计划所针对的只是外国人。但是，对于那些把自己当做美国盟友的国家来说，尤其是对保护公民隐私相当敏感的欧盟来说，美国的这种做法无异于在他们的伤口上又撒了一把盐。一时间，各国忧心忡忡。他们怀疑这是美国情报机构经常采用的一种情报互换协议。这种协议自私自利，毫不顾忌别人的感受，参与其中的每一个情报机构似乎都在保护他们民众，都对相关的法律条文表示出尊重——但真正替他们实施监控反而是一些盟国。
Lawyerly official denials of such machinations fail to reassure because of the third worry: that governments acting outside public scrutiny are not to be trusted. James Clapper, America's director of national intelligence, told Congress in March that the NSA does not gather data on “millions of Americans”. He now says he answered in “the least untruthful manner” possible. Trawls through big databases may produce interesting clues—but also life-ruining false alarms, especially when the resulting decisions are cloaked in secrecy. Those on “no-fly lists”, which ban an unknown number of people from most air travel, are not told what they have done wrong and cannot clear their names. In desperation, 13 American citizens, including some who were exiled from their own country by the travel ban, are suing the government.
美国官员说，他们并没有此等见不得人的伎俩。但是，官方的否认没能挽回已经失去的信任。这是因为人们心里还存在着第三个担忧：超出公众监督的政府行为是不值得信任的。今年3月，美国国家情报总监詹姆斯·克拉帕曾在国会听证会上说，国家安全局没有在“数百万美国人”身上收集数据。但是，前几天他又改口说，他当时的回答是以“尽可能诚实的方式”做出的。对海量的数据进行筛选既可能会带来令人感兴趣的线索，也可能产生毁掉某些人一生的错误警告，尤其是当这种结论披上了保密外衣的时候。例如，禁止了无数人乘坐大多数航班的“禁飞名单”就是这样一个例子。在这份名单的上的人既没有被告知自己做错了什么，也无法向政府讨还清白之身。绝望之下，13名美国公民对美国政府提出诉讼，其中就包括被旅行禁令禁止入境的几个人。
Furthermore, governments tend to be opportunistic. After September 11th Dick Cheney, then vice-president, and his staff exploited the rules to gain important new powers that they then kept secret. Even Congress did not know of this. Today's spooks are supposedly more closely constrained. Yet America's system involves judges sitting in a secret court who issue secret data-collection orders which bind the recipients to secrecy. A handful of secretly briefed lawmakers oversee the process. The legal opinions that govern the process are secret, too. Attempts to cast light on this verge on the farcical: the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a lobby group, is fighting a legal battle to get the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to release a secret opinion issued in 2011, which (unusually) blocked a secret NSA programme. Perhaps the ends justify the means—we do not know—but that was not the case with extraordinary rendition, “black jails”, waterboarding and the other ventures Mr Cheney's mob led America into.
除此之外，政府还存在着投机取巧的倾向。 911事件发生后，时任美国副总统迪克·切尼同他的下属利用规则窃取了一些权力，其范围之大堪称前所未有。当时，他们对这个秘密守口如瓶，甚至没有对国会吐露过一个字。时至今日，这些幽灵对自己的行为更加小心谨慎。然而，由于此事还牵扯到一些法官，美国的这套体系已经到了近乎荒谬的地步：法庭是秘密的，法官签发的收集数据的命令是秘密的，执行命令的人被要求保守秘密，监督负责监管这一程序的议员接到的简报也是秘密的;制约这一程序的法律意见书也是秘密的。为了向世人揭示这种暗箱操作的真相，人们正在尝试着各种努力。例如，一个名为“电子前线基金会”的游说组织正在力争赢得一场官司。一旦打赢了，他们就能够获得鲜为人知的外国情报监视法庭在2011年签发的一份秘密文件。这份文件之所以这么重要，是因为它阻止了国家安全局的一项秘密计划。我们认为，政府有时可以为了目的而不择手段。但是，像非常规引渡、“黑狱”和水刑等冒险行为肯定不适用于这种情况，它们是切尼团伙强加给美国的。
Trust but verify
不能无条件地将权力交给政府
Our point is not that America's spies are doing the wrong things, but that the level of public scrutiny is inadequate and so is the right of redress. Without these, officials will be tempted to abuse their powers, because the price of doing so is small. This is particularly true for those who bug and ban.
我们认为，美国情报机构现有行为没有不当之处，有失水准的反而是公众监督的水平和向政府索赔的力度。缺少了它们，政府官员，尤其是那些手握别人生死大权的官员，肯定会不由自主地滥用手中的权力，因为这样做的代价实在是太小了。
Spooks do need secrecy, but not on everything, always and everywhere. Officials will complain that disclosure would hinder their efforts in what is already an unfair fight. Yet some operational efficiency is worth sacrificing, because public scrutiny is a condition for popular backing. Even allowing for the need to keep some things clandestine, Americans need a clearer idea of what their spies are doing in their name.
如果幽灵们为了某些行动的效率而保持隐身，这确实必不可少。如果他们想对所有事情进行随时随地的监控，这就没有必要了。果真如此的话，官员们就会对政府披露内情的做法牢骚满腹。他们会认为政府的做法打击了他们的积极性。因为，他们早就在这场战争处于不利的地位。不过，如果是为了换取民众的普遍支持，政府牺牲某些行动的效率还是值得的。退一步讲，即便美国人同意有政府以秘密手段采取行动，他们人也需要对那些正在打着他们的旗号行事的机构到底在做些什么有一个更详尽的了解。
[2013.06.15] Surveillance: Look who’s listening 揭开监控黑幕
Surveillance
监控
Look who’s listening
揭开黑幕
America’s National Security Agency collects more information than most people thought. Will scrutiny spur change?
美国国家安全局收集的数据比大多数人想象的还要多。审查能促进变革吗?
Jun 15th 2013 | LONDON AND WASHINGTON, DC
THICK and fast they came at last, and more and more and more. On June 5th the Guardian, a British newspaper, reported that America’s National Security Agency (NSA) was collecting the telephone records of millions of Americans not suspected of crimes. A day later, theWashington Post reported the existence of a programme code-named PRISM, under which the NSA collects an unknown quantity of e-mails, internet phone-calls, photos, videos, file transfers and social-networking data from big internet companies, including Google, Facebook, Apple, YouTube, Skype, Microsoft and PalTalk—a video-chat service popular in the Middle East and among Muslims.
内幕终于开始密集曝光，一波接一波，层层叠叠。六月五日英国《卫报》报道说美国国家安全局(NSA)收集了数百万美国人的电话记录，而这些人并没有犯罪的嫌疑。一天之后《华盛顿邮报》报道说，美国国家安全局通过一个代号为“棱镜”的项目，从谷歌、苹果、脸谱网、YouTube、Skype、微软和paltalk(流行于中东地区及穆斯林之间的一项视频聊天服务)等大型互联网公司收集了数量不明的电子邮件、网络电话、照片、视频、文件传输和社交网络数据。
Members of the Senate Intelligence Committee confirmed that widespread collection of telephone records had been going on for years. As for PRISM, on June 8th America’s director of national intelligence, James Clapper, issued a rare public statement acknowledging its existence, but stressing that it is lawful and operates under a secret court that oversees intelligence-gathering. The leaker revealed himself the next day: Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old who had worked as a security contractor at the NSA for the past four years, employed by several private contractors.
多名美国参议院情报委员会的成员证实，大范围收集电话记录的情况已经持续了许多年。六月八日，美国国家情报总监詹姆斯•克拉珀罕见地公开发表声明，承认“棱镜”项目存在。他强调说这个项目是合法的，项目运行受到负责监控情报收集工作的秘密法庭的监管。六月九日，爆料人公布了自己的身份：爱德华•斯诺登，29岁，过去的四年以来一直是美国国家安全局的安全承包商，受雇于多家私营承包商。
In an interview with the Guardian (from Hong Kong, where he had holed up in hope of avoiding extradition to America), Mr Snowden said the NSA had built the capacity to ingest massive quantities of information from people not suspected of crimes. “I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded,” said Mr Snowden. He believes that the public, not spies and secret courts, ought to decide whether this is right. He chose to reveal himself to avoid hiding behind the secrecy he abhors.
斯诺登在接受《卫报》采访时说，美国国家安全局建立了一个庞大的监控系统，随时在收集大量的信息，而不管监控对象是否涉嫌犯罪(斯诺登在香港接受采访，他希望躲在香港可以避免被引渡回美国)。他说：“我不想生活在一个任何言行都被记录下来的世界里。”斯诺登认为应该由公众，而不是由间谍和秘密法庭，来决定监控是否正当。他选择了站出来，而不是隐藏在他所厌恶的黑幕之后。
视频：斯诺登接受《卫报》采访 (跳转到《经济学人》网站观看)
Since its creation in 1952 the NSA has been listening in on the world’s communications, from drunk Soviet leaders to Osama bin Laden’s satellite phone. Its thirst for information is well known. For decades, under a programme called Echelon, it has operated listening stations around the world that intercept troves of phone and data traffic.
自1952成立以来，美国国家安全局一直在监听全世界的通信，目标从醉醺醺的苏联领导人一直到奥萨马•本•拉登的卫星电话。美国国家安全局对信息的渴求是众所周知的。几十年来，它通过一个名为“梯队”的项目，操作部署在世界各地的工作站，截获了无数的电话和数据。
Yet the latest disclosures suggest a scale of data-collection bigger than many experts had expected. A former high-ranking American official with ties to intelligence says more programmes skirting legality have still to be exposed. Mr Snowden has handed over “thousands” of classified documents, according to Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian journalist who broke the story, so more disclosures are probably on the way. His revelations have already prompted condemnation—and vigorous debate over the proper role and extent of modern government surveillance.
然而，最新披露的信息表明美国国家安全局所收集数据的规模比许多专家预料的还要大。一位与情报系统有关的前高级美国官员说，还有许多避开合法性问题收集数据的项目尚未曝光。据首位报导“监控门”的《卫报》记者格伦•格林沃德说，斯诺登提供了“数千份”机密文件，所以可能还会有其他消息爆出。公众谴责斯诺登所揭露的这种监控行为，同时对现代政府监控的适用范围和程度展开了激烈的争论。
Insight into the telephone-data collection came from a leaked order from a FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) court instructing Verizon, one of the country’s biggest telecoms firms, with 121m American customers, to hand over information about all calls on its network “on an ongoing daily basis”. The FISA court was created in 1978 to approve or deny government requests to listen to foreigners’ calls on the ground of national security. Other telecoms firms are believed to deliver data under similar FISA orders, which appear to be renewed every three months.
被曝光的一项FISA(外国情报监视法)法庭发给Verizon(美国最大的电话运营商之一，拥有1.21亿美国用户)的命令透露了当局收集电话数据的情况。这项命令要求Verizon“每天”提供其网络处理的所有电话的信息。FISA法庭成立于1978年，负责审批政府出于国家安全的目的对外国人进行监听的申请。估计其它电信公司也在按照类似命令要求提供数据。这项指令似乎每三个月更新一次。
The order does not give the government the right to listen to the content of calls, as Barack Obama, in response to the leak, emphatically told Americans. For that, law-enforcement agents need a separate warrant: one far harder to obtain because it requires suspicion of particular individuals and proof that “normal investigative procedures have been tried and failed”. Instead, the NSA has hoovered up “metadata”—the records of who people call, when, for how long, and so on.
面对曝光事件，奥巴马向国人强调：这项命令并未授予政府监听电话内容的权力。要想监听电话，执法部门需要获得另外一项单独的授权。那项授权更难获得：监听对象必须要有犯罪的嫌疑，而且要证明“已经使用过一般的侦查手段但是无效”。美国国家安全局实际上获得的数据是“元数据”：即包含呼叫者、呼叫时间和通话时长等信息的记录。
Back when telephones were plugged into walls and data analysis was done by humans, the usefulness of metadata was limited: hence the lower evidentiary standards required to obtain them. But thanks to powerful computers that can map people’s associations, and mobile phones that pinpoint a person’s movements, metadata can now provide a detailed portrait of who people know, where they go and their daily routines. The NSA may be able to use metadata to identify connections between people even if they have never shared a direct link, just as Facebook can predict which people a user may know. From a security point of view, what matters is getting all the information available. At the same time, the need to examine data at a moment’s notice has shifted the regime to “collection first” and analysis later, under FISA approval.
以往电话还得连到插座上、数据分析还得人工完成的时候，“元数据”的用处不大，所以对取证的要求也不高。但目前强大的计算机能够把人们的各种关系关联起来，移动电话能够透露人们的行踪，“元数据”现在能够具体地说明一个人都认识谁、常去哪里、有哪些日常活动等。即使两个人从来没有直接联系过，美国国家安全局也可以使用“元数据”来确定他们之间的关系，就好像脸谱网可以推测两位用户是否相互认识一样。从安全的角度来看，难点在于要收集所有可能获得的信息。同时，由于问题出现之后很短时间之内就要找出答案，所以美国国家安全局只好在获得FISA批准的前提下改用“先收集，再分析”的策略。
The details of PRISM are murkier. The initial leak for the programme was a computer slide presentation, in which the NSA said it had access to a cornucopia of customer information from American web firms. That stoked fears that the NSA is hoovering up information on a grand scale. But according to Mr Clapper, PRISM is not a data-gathering tool; it is an “internal government computer system” for accessing content that a court has already ordered companies to provide.
有关“棱镜”的细节更是迷雾重重。这个计划第一次被曝光是由于一个计算机幻灯片。在这个幻灯片里美国国家安全局表示，它能从美国的网络公司那里获得无数的用户信息。人们由此担心美国国家安全局正在大规模地收集用户信息。但是按照克拉珀的说法，“棱镜”不是一个数据收集工具，而是一个“政府内部的计算机系统”，用于访问各公司按照法院要求提供的数据。
Stewart Baker, a former homeland-security official, compared PRISM to FTP (file transfer protocol)—a way to transfer files over a network. In America’s system of law-enforcement wiretapping, operators must provide access to the line when they are served with a court order to do so. Big internet companies may have simply designed a similar system for requests for content. There is no evidence yet that all the world’s Skype conversations, e-mails and Google docs are being sucked into NSA headquarters.
前国土安全部官员斯图尔特•贝克认为“棱镜”和FTP(一种通过网络传输文件的协议)相似。在美国，侦测监听必须要有法院命令才能进行。 大型互联网公司可能会直接设计一个类似于FTP的系统来处理内容监听请求。尚无证据表明，世界上全部的Skype通话、电子邮件和谷歌文档正被传入美国国家安全局总部。
Hands off my metadata
别碰我的“元数据”
The leaks have shaken the Obama administration, and drew swift criticism in Congress. Two Democratic senators, Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, who have warned about state intrusions into privacy for years, demanded that the government should reveal more about its data-gathering. Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner, a Republican and the author of the Patriot Act, the legal basis for the sweeping surveillance, called the activities “an abuse of that law”. A bipartisan group of eight senators has introduced legislation to force the government to make public its interpretation of the laws that seem to condone the surveillance. On June 11th the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), an advocacy group, sued the government over the surveillance programmes.
泄漏事件动摇了奥巴马政府，并很快招来了国会的指责。罗恩•威登和马克•乌代尔两名民主党参议员已连续多年警告国家在侵犯隐私，要求政府披露数据收集情况。全面监控的法律依据——《爱国者法案》的作者、共和党议员吉姆•森森布雷纳认为监控活动“滥用了这部法律”。由两党八名参议员组成的一个团体已提出了立法要求，要让政府公开说明是如何解读《爱国者法案》的，这种解读似乎纵容了监控行为。六月十一日，美国公民自由联盟(ACLU)对政府的监控项目提起了诉讼。
But both the metadata programme and PRISM appear to be legal. Both were approved by a FISA court, even if the breadth of surveillance of American citizens seems at odds with the privacy protections in FISA. Many criticise FISA courts for excessive deference to the government: in 2012 the government made 1,856 applications for electronic surveillance to FISA, and none was denied.
然而“元数据”项目和“棱镜”项目看起来都是合法的。虽然广泛监控美国公民看起来与FISA的隐私保护规则有冲突，但FISA法庭还是批准了这两个项目。许多人批评FISA法庭太偏袒政府：2012年政府向FISA提出了1856项电子监控的申请，没有一项被否决。
Benjamin Wittes of the Brookings Institution argues that the metadata programme rests on a “very aggressive reading” of section 215 of the Patriot Act. That section allows the FBI or others to apply to a FISA court for a warrant compelling businesses to turn over “any tangible things”, as long as they are “relevant to an authorised preliminary or full investigation to obtain foreign intelligence information not concerning a US person”. The authorities seem to believe that obtaining records of every telephone call made in America is either relevant to an investigation or an essential bulwark against international terrorism.
布鲁金斯学会的本杰明•威特斯认为“元数据”项目基于对《爱国者法案》第215条的“非常偏激的解读 “。这条法律允许联邦调查局(FBI)或其他机构请求FISA法庭签发命令，强制企业交出“与经过授权的、不涉及美国人的、旨在搜集外国情报的初步或全面调查相关的任何有形的东西”。政府似乎相信，获取美国的全部通话记录要么与某项调查有关、要么是对抗国际恐怖主义的一个必不可少的桥头堡。
As for PRISM, on paper the protections against privacy abuse seem robust. The government does not “unilaterally obtain information” from company servers, nor does it target anyone for information-gathering without “an appropriate, and documented foreign-intelligence purpose to the acquisition”. It does not intentionally target any American citizen. The process is monitored by a FISA court, by Congress (through twice-yearly reports) and by independent inspectors-general. The information is subject to “minimisation procedures” designed to protect Americans unconnected to an investigation whose information is accidentally gathered.
“棱镜”项目从表面上看对隐私的保护很有力。政府不从网络公司服务器“单方面地获取信息”，而且除非有“适当的、记录在案的外国情报收集目标”否则不得针对特定的人收集信息。它没打算针对任何美国公民。整个过程受FISA法庭监督，国会(通过每年两次报告)和独立检察官也会介入监督。信息收集按照“过程最小化”的原则设计，以避免收集到与调查无关的美国人的信息。
Yet that does not reassure everyone. Just three months ago Mr Wyden asked Mr Clapper, who was testifying under oath before the Senate, whether the NSA collects “any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans”. Mr Clapper said it did not; thanks to Mr Snowden’s leak, everyone now knows that it does. As a candidate, Mr Obama applauded the courage of whistle-blowers (and rode into the White House on their disclosures); as president he has prosecuted them far more vigorously than his predecessors did. Then there is the data centre that the NSA is building near Salt Lake City, Utah. It is likely to cost at least $1.2 billion, and some expect its computers to provide five trillion gigabytes of storage. The agency did not build it to stand empty.
但这并不能让所有人放心。就在三个月前，克拉珀在参议院宣誓提供证词。当时威登议员问他：美国国家安全局是否在收集“数百万甚至数亿美国人的任何数据”。克拉珀矢口否认。经过斯诺登的爆料，现在每个人都知道这是假话。奥巴马还是总统候选人的时候，曾称赞过告密者的勇气(并借助告密者的曝光入主白宫);当上总统之后，他起诉起告密者来比前任还要积极。美国国家安全局在犹他州盐湖城附近建设了一个数据中心，建造费用估计至少也有12亿美元，这个数据中心的电脑系统大约能提供5泽字节①的存储空间。美国国家安全局可没打算让它空着。
Still, the American public may not mind too much. A poll taken in the days after the metadata programme was exposed found that a majority of respondents (56%) believe that monitoring their phone calls is an “acceptable” way to investigate terrorism—though a substantial minority (41%) disagreed. (On the question of e-mail monitoring, the split went the other way: 52% said it was unacceptable while 45% approved.)
不过，美国公众可能不太在乎。“元数据”项目曝光几天之后，一项调查发现尽管也有不少人(41%)反对，大多数接受调查人员(56%)认为为了调查恐怖活动而监控他们的电话是“可以接受的”。(在电子邮件监控的问题上，调查结果却不一样：52%表示无法接受，而45%认为可以接受)
Separate from the question of trust is the subtler issue of data-mining’s efficacy. Bruce Schneier, a security expert, does not believe that a data-mining dragnet works. Terrorism, he says, “is a needle-in-a-haystack problem, and dumping more hay on the stack isn’t going to solve [it].” He advocates “going from person to person with targeted warrants”.
除了信任问题之外，还有一点更微妙，那就是数据挖掘的实际效果问题。安全专家布鲁斯•施奈尔不相信全面撒网的监控方式能有什么效果。他说，“恐怖主义就好比藏在干草堆里面的一根针，你往上堆再多的草也解决不了问题”，他主张在“有授权的前提下顺藤摸瓜”。
The government claims that information gathered has disrupted plots and stopped potential attacks, though the details remain classified. On June 12th the head of the NSA, Keith Alexander, said the surveillance programmes had helped prevent “dozens of terrorist events”—though they did not avert the Boston bombings.
政府声称信息收集活动曾打断了恐怖主义活动策划、阻止了潜在的攻击，虽然其中细节仍然保密。六月十二日，美国国家安全局局长基思•亚历山大说，虽然监控方案未能避免波士顿爆炸的发生，但已经“阻止了数十起恐怖事件”。
Whatever the truth, the leaks are damaging America’s telecoms and internet firms, especially the companies whose cheerful logos appear at the top of the leaked slides describing PRISM. The bosses of Google and Facebook, Larry Page and Mark Zuckerberg, both strongly denied that the NSA has special access, and said they had not received orders to supply communications data, like the one issued to Verizon. Yet it is possible to speculate that they are simply unaware of some data-hoovering. According to a lawyer at a telecoms company and the retired boss of a large telecoms group operating in the United States, telecoms companies have long been required to employ technicians with security clearances who assist in government surveillance, but are not allowed to disclose their activities to their uncleared bosses. The same request may, perhaps, have been extended to web firms.
无论真相到底如何，曝光损害了美国的电信和网络公司，特别是徽标在描述“棱镜”计划的那个幻灯片中出现过的公司。谷歌老板拉里•佩奇和和脸谱网老板马克•扎克伯格都强烈否认为美国国家安全局提供了特殊的访问权限，并说他们没有收到类似于Verizon的那种命令要求提供供应通信数据。然而，根据某通信公司的律师及一家大通信集团的前任老板的说法，电信公司早就在雇佣有安全许可的技术员协助政府进行监控，但他们的活动不能让没有安全许可的老板知道。也许类似的信息收集要求已经扩展到网络公司。
Google, Facebook and Microsoft have requested permission to publish the numbers of national-security requests they receive, including FISA orders. So far there is no sign that the big web firms are losing users, and their share prices have not been hit. But the boss of a large European telecoms operator says he plans to market his services on the basis that they protect customer data from America’s prying eyes.
谷歌、微软和脸谱网已经请求政府批准他们公布接收到的国家安全请求，包括FISA法庭命令。到目前为止还没有任何迹象表明，大型网络公司正在失去用户，它们的股价也没有受到冲击。然而欧洲一家大型电信运营商的老板宣称正打算推出能够保护用户数据不受美国监控的服务。
American officials keep repeating that they hoover up very little content belonging to their own citizens. That is no comfort to the many millions of foreigners who visit American websites or whose traffic happens to pass along networks owned by American firms. On June 10th William Hague, Britain’s foreign minister, promised that his country’s spies would explain to a parliamentary committee how they may have benefited from America’s surveillance. British MPs fear that spooks are asking American agencies to fish out information on Britons they are forbidden to collect themselves—a claim Mr Hague said was “fanciful”.
美国官员反复地说他们只收集了数量极少的美国公民数据。对于数百万访问美国网站或者利用美国公司的网络来传递数据的外国人来说，这个消息并不能让人放心。六月十日，英国外交大臣威廉•黑格承诺该国特工将会向一个议会委员会解释英国如何从美国的监控中受益。英国国会议员担心本国特工们会请求美国情报机构帮忙收集英国法律禁止收集的信息，黑格认为这种想法是“异想天开”。
Snoopers international
国际上的监控
China dined out on the surveillance saga, with the state-run China Daily remarking that it was “certain to stain Washington’s overseas image”, and citing a Chinese academic who condemned “the unbridled power of the [American] government”. Peter Schaar, Germany’s data-protection chief, said the alleged scale of the spying was “monstrous”. Europe’s politicians have long fretted about FISA. In October a report prepared for the European Parliament warned that the law had granted American spies “heavy-calibre mass-surveillance firepower” and recommended that cloud-storage providers should be required to warn European users of the risks.
中国对“监控门”事件幸灾乐祸，官方媒体《中国日报》评论说事件“无疑将损害美国的海外形象”，报纸引述了一位中国学者的观点，这名学者谴责了“滥用权力的[美国]政府”。德国首席数据保护专员彼得•沙尔说被曝光的间谍活动规模 “骇人听闻”。欧洲的政治家们对FISA法庭一直心存疑虑。去年欧洲议会的一份准备资料警告说，法律授予了美国间谍进行”广泛监控的强大武力”，并建议云存储服务提供商应提示欧洲用户注意相关风险。
The weaker powers granted to European spooks are part of a pattern. In April the British government was forced to drop plans to make it easier for investigators to see whom troublemakers contact online. It aimed to require more phone and internet firms to store data about what their customers do, but would probably not have allowed authorities to download and store it daily, as in America. Critics mauled the proposal, but appreciated that it had been made public and debated. European privacy groups blame American lobbying after the September 11th attacks for the EU’s own limited data-retention law. Germany, Belgium and the Czech Republic have failed to ratify it fully; Austria and Ireland have asked a European court to rule on it.
欧洲模式授予间谍较弱的权力。四月，英国政府被迫放弃让侦查人员更容易了解侦查对象的在线联系人的尝试。政府本打算让电话和互联网公司存储更多客户行为的数据，但很可能不会允许相关机构像在美国那样可以每天下载和存储这些数据。评论家们抨击这一提案，但对提案能够公开辩论表示赞赏。欧洲隐私保护团体指责美国在911之后游说欧盟制定《数据保存限制法案》。德国、比利时和捷克共和国未完全批准该法案;奥地利和爱尔兰已经要求欧洲法院就这一法案的有效性进行裁决。
But America’s energetic snooping is part of a broader global trend. Each year authorities in South Korea make more than 37m requests to see communications data stored about the country’s 50m people (police in Britain make about 500,000). New laws in Kenya let the government snoop on suspects indefinitely once an application is approved. India is considering a plan to route communications through government equipment, helping it to eavesdrop without alerting service providers. A report presented on June 4th by Frank La Rue, the UN’s special rapporteur on free expression, warned that broad interpretations of outdated laws were enabling sophisticated and invasive surveillance measures to flourish around the world. He called for governments to draw up new regulations that properly acknowledge the growing power of modern spying equipment.
然而美国的活跃监听行为代表着一种广泛的全球趋势。韩国只有5000万人口，但当局每年发出的通信数据监控申请高达3700万次(英国警察每年只发出约50万次申请)。肯尼亚的新法律让政府一旦获准即可无限期地监听嫌疑人。印度正在考虑让通信流量流经政府的设备，从而可以在运营商不知情的情况下窃听信息。六月四日联合国言论自由权问题特别报告员法兰克•拉•卢发表一份报告，警告说对陈旧法律的宽泛解读正让复杂而极具侵略性的监控措施在全世界大行其道。他呼吁政府制定新的监管措施，以正确地约束能力正在不断升级的现代间谍设备。
Flourishing surveillance abroad may have a surprising impact back home. As more communications are stored on servers far from the citizens who created them, domestic intelligence services are increasingly trying to track activity overseas, says Carly Nyst of Privacy International, a lobby group. South Africa and Pakistan have both passed laws that give agencies more power to intercept communications between foreign citizens and to peruse material on servers abroad. Dutch spies want approval to hack into foreign machines and infect them with spyware. One risk is that security services from friendly countries will collaborate to evade domestic limits on their power, says Mr La Rue. Everyone is a foreigner to someone.
监控在海外盛行对于本国可能会有令人惊讶的影响。游说团体“隐私国际”的卡莉•奈斯特说，随着越来越多的公民把他们创造的信息存储到遥远的服务器上，国内情报机构正在增加对海外活动的跟踪。南非和巴基斯坦都通过了法律，给情报机构更大的权力来截听外国公民之间的通信以及阅读海外服务器上的材料。荷兰间谍希望获批以黑客方式入侵外国机器并在上面安装间谍软件。法兰克•拉•卢说确实存在友国的安全部门帮助本国情报人员规避监控限制的风险。每个人对于别国来说都是“外国人”。
Driving all this is a dramatic expansion in the information people create, transmit and store. The fact that the scale and scope of surveillance has widened too should raise no eyebrows. That does not make the NSA’s work legitimate, but it makes it likely to continue—even if better protections emerge against abuse. When asked what the best outcome of the present furore would be, a former intelligence official said: “It’s that we have a debate and keep doing what we’re doing in better conscience.” That is only half the answer.
这一切背后的驱动因素是人们创造、传输和存储的信息数量正在急剧扩张。所以监控规模和范围同步扩大不足为奇。这并不意味着美国国家安全局的行为就是合法的，但这种监控可能会继续下去——特别是如果能够更好地防止监控数据被滥用的话。当被问及目前事态发展的最好结果时，一名前情报官员说：“我们在进行一场辩论，然后将基于达成的共识继续监控。”这个回答并不完整。
[2013.06.15] AIDS in India: The cost of living 生命的价值
AIDS in India
印度的艾滋病
The cost of living
生命的价值
Testing every adult in India for HIV would save both lives and money
印度对所有人进行艾滋病病毒检测，不仅能救命还能省钱
Jun 15th 2013 | DELHI |From the print edition
LIFE is priceless to those who possess it. Policymakers, though, must take a more hard-headed approach. That is particularly—if unfairly—true in poorer parts of the world. It is important for the authorities to understand the cost-effectiveness of a health programme, so that its value can be compared with that of other claims on the public purse.
对那些活着的人来说，生命是无价的。然而在面对生命时，决策者需要有更加精明冷静的头脑。尽管有些不公平，但在世界上，越是贫穷的地方越是如此。对政府当局来说，十分重要的一点是掌握健康计划的成本效益，如此一来，该项目的价值就能与其它公共项目产生的效益相提并论。
How to go about doing this is illustrated by a paper published in the Public Library of Science by Kartik Venkatesh of Brown University and Jessica Becker of Yale. Dr Venkatesh and Dr Becker asked themselves if it would be a good idea for the government of India to try, at regular intervals, to test the country’s population for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, in order to treat those who unknowingly harbour it. The short answer is that, if it were feasible, it would be.
来自美国布朗大学的Kartik Venkatesh和耶鲁大学的Jessica Becker在公共科学图书馆上发表了一篇文章，他们在文章中对如何估算成本效益进行了解释。Venkatesh博士和Becker博士思考了这样一个问题：对印度政府来说，为了治疗那些并不知道自己已经携带HIV的患者，对全国所有民众定期进行艾滋病病毒检测是否是一个好主意。简单地说，如果可行，这将是个好主意。
Though HIV in India has not turned into the widespread epidemic some experts feared it would a few years ago, it is reckoned to affect about 2.4m people, many of whom do not realise they are infected. If they were identified, these people could be given antiretroviral drugs to stop the symptoms of AIDS developing. That would also have the bonus of reducing the chance of their passing the virus on.
几年前一些专家曾担心艾滋病将成为印度的流行病，尽管还没到这种程度，但据估计印度的HIV携带者约有240万，其中很多人还不知道自己是病毒携带者。如果确诊，那么政府就能用抗逆转录病毒药物来阻止艾滋病病情恶化。这样做还有一个好处就是能降低艾滋病病毒继续传播的几率。
The calculations made by Dr Venkatesh and Dr Becker rely on a model developed by the World Health Organisation and already in use in America, France, South Africa and elsewhere. It values lives extended and saved, and further infections and other treatment avoided. It then balances those against the costs of testing people and of giving drugs to those who test positive (plus the inevitable extra non-HIV spending that typically follows testing).
Venkatesh博士和Becker博士在计算时使用的是由世界卫生组织所创建的一种模型，该模型已在美国、法国、南非以及其他一些地区得到应用。人们可以用它对延长的寿命、被拯救的生命、省去的进一步的感染和治疗进行估价。然后再用它对所节省的资金与为人们进行检测以及给那些检测呈阳性的人提供药物所花的钱(还要加上检测后通常不可避免一笔额外花费，即花在HIV以外的其他病种上的钱)进行权衡。
The price at which an extra year of life saved is deemed cost-effective is anything less than triple the annual GDP per person of the country in question. In India that is $3,900. Anything below parity ($1,300 per year of life) counts as very cost-effective. According to Dr Venkatesh and Dr Becker, testing Indian adults every five years would cost $1,900 per year of life saved, and would thus pay off handsomely.
让一个病人延长一年寿命的花销只要低于这个国家每年人均GDP的1/3，就认为是划算的。在印度，年人均GDP的三倍为3900美元。只要体检开销低于年人均GDP(多活一年为1300美元)，则都是非常划算的。根据Venkatesh博士和Becker博士的研究，如果检测周期为五年，让一个患者多活一年，只许花费1900美元，因此这样做是非常划算的。
Whether it could actually be done is another matter. But India takes AIDS seriously and the fact that the epidemic has not run out of control in the way that was once feared is at least in part the consequence of the country’s policies. The will to test therefore probably exists. Dr Venkatesh and Dr Becker suggest it would be worth finding the means, as well.
然而这种做法能否付诸实践又是另外一回事。但印度人十分重视艾滋病的防治，这种传染病没有像人们所害怕的那样一发而不可收拾，怎么说政府的管理也是有一定功劳的。(这种传染病没有像人们所害怕的那样失去控制，这份功劳里政府无论如何也应该分得一杯羹。---奥西王的译法)因此，印度政府还是有可能会采取这种做法的。Venkatesh博士和Becker博士称找到(对全民进行艾滋病病毒)检测的方法同样也是很有用的。
[2013.06.15] Europe’s reluctant hegemon 心不甘情不愿的欧洲盟主
Europe’s reluctant hegemon
心不甘情不愿的欧洲盟主
Germany, now the dominant country in Europe, needs to rethink the way it sees itself and the world, says Zanny Minton Beddoes
扎尼·明顿·比多思(Zanny Minton Beddoes)指出，作为当今的欧洲第一强国，德国应调整心态，重新审视自己和世界。
Jun 15th 2013 |From the print edition
IT IS NOT often that a single country dominates the final of Europe’s Champions League, but on May 25th more than 360m people around the world watched Bayern Munich score in the 89th minute to beat Borussia Dortmund by two goals to one at London’s Wembley Stadium. The symbolism was powerful. For the first time in its 58-year history, the final of Europe’s most important football contest was a wholly German affair.
来自同一个国家的两只球队在欧洲冠军杯决赛中交手并不常见。但在5月25日，这样的“内战”就发生在今年的欧冠决赛球场上。在全世界超过3.6亿观众的注视下，拜仁慕尼黑在伦敦温布利体育场于第89分钟进球，以2比1击败多特蒙德。这场比赛的象征意义巨大。在这项欧洲最重要的足球赛事58年的历史里，这是第一次两只打入决赛的球队双双来自德国。
From the football pitch to politics to the economy, Germany has become Europe’s most powerful country. Described by this newspaper as the sick man of Europe in 1999, Germany now appears to have the continent’s strongest as well as its biggest economy. It accounts for a fifth of the European Union’s output and a quarter of its exports. From Volkswagen to SAP, Germany’s big companies are world-renowned. Many smaller German firms are global champions in niche markets such as tunnel-boring machines and industrial cleaners.
不管在球场上，还是以政治或者经济论，德国都已成为欧洲的第一强国。1999年本报曾称德国为欧洲病夫，如今德国似乎已成为欧洲最强大的国家，也是欧洲最大的经济体。德国经济产值占欧盟总体的五分之一，其出口量更是占到全欧盟的四分之一。德国有很多全球知名的大公司，从大众汽车到SAP。很多较小的德国企业在一些利基市场(如隧道挖掘机及工业清洁剂)内是全球领头羊。
Germany’s jobless rate, at 5.4% (using standardised OECD statistics), is less than half Europe’s average. Youth unemployment, a scourge throughout much of the rest of the continent, is at a 20-year low in Germany. The country’s budget is balanced, government debt is falling and long-term bond yields are the lowest in Europe. It is the largest creditor country in the euro zone, and as chief paymaster it has the biggest clout in determining the single currency’s future.
德国现在5.4%的失业率(根据标准化OECD数据算出)不到欧洲平均失业率的一半。困扰欧洲其它大部分地区的严重问题——青年失业率——在德国已降到20年来的最低点。德国预算收支平衡，政府债务正在减少，其长期债券收益率位居全欧最低。它同时也是欧元区最大的债权国，身为该地区的主要金主，德国在决定欧元未来上的影响力也超过其它任何一国。
The weakness of other heavyweights has added to Germany’s heft. Britain, outside the euro and distracted by a domestic debate about its EU membership, has lost influence. The Franco-German tandem at the core of post-war European integration has become lopsided. Relations between Berlin and Paris are unusually poor, with some French politicians decrying the “selfish intransigence” in the euro crisis of Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel. The economic gap between Germany and France is wider than it has ever been. France’s economy is stagnant, statist and uncompetitive and urgently needs reform.
其它一些大国最近的疲软表现进一步增强了德国的声势。英国不但身处欧元区之外，其国内关于欧盟成员身份的争执也让它无心顾及欧洲事务，进一步削弱了其影响力。在战后欧洲一体化进程中占据核心地位的法德合作已变得一边倒。柏林和巴黎的关系已差到了不同寻常的程度。一些法国政治家痛斥德国总理安格拉·默克尔(Angela Merkel)在欧元危机中的“自私强硬态度”。德法两国的经济差距也达到了史上最大点。法国经济目前停滞不前，政府计划控制严重，缺乏竞争力，亟需改革。
As a result, power within Europe has shifted sharply towards Berlin. Mrs Merkel is widely seen as the continent’s most important politician. In Beijing or Washington, DC, the question: “Where is Europe going?” has become synonymous with: “What do the Germans want?”
由于以上种种原因，欧洲内的权力正在迅速集中于柏林。很多人视默克尔为欧洲最重要的政治家。不管是在北京还是在华盛顿，“欧洲何去何从?”和“德国人想怎样?”这两个问题已经变得意义相同。
Bureaucrats in Brussels talk ruefully about Berlin becoming the capital of Europe. “When the German position changes on an issue, the kaleidoscope shifts as other countries line up behind them,” says one official. “That’s unprecedented in the history of the EU.”
布鲁塞尔的官员们在谈到柏林正在变成欧洲首都这一点时不无恨意。一位官员说：“德国一旦在某一问题上改变立场，其它国家会纷纷追随，整个局面立刻彻底改变。这种情况在欧盟的历史上可谓是前所未见的。”
German predominance is not all-encompassing. In foreign affairs and military matters, for instance, France and Britain still play a much bigger role. But across a large swathe of European policy, Germany has become much more than a first among equals. And judging by France’s weakness, Britain’s ambivalence and southern Europe’s debt problems, for the next few years Europe’s future will continue to be disproportionately “Made in Germany”.
德国的主宰并不绝对。例如在外交和军事问题上，法国和英国依然扮演更大的角色。但是在大量欧洲政策问题上，德国的影响力可谓是鹤立鸡群。而且放眼如今法国的积弱不振、英国的模棱两可以及南欧地区的债务问题，可以预见在接下来的几年时间内欧洲的未来走势还会继续过度背负“德国制造”的标签。
Outside Germany this dominance has become the subject of lively debate. The “German question”—about the role of a country too big for Europe and too small for the world, as Henry Kissinger famously put it—is back on the agenda. Many fret that Germany is becoming too bossy. Newspaper cartoons in southern Europe show Mrs Merkel with a Hitler moustache. Southern European politicians say Germany is selfishly wielding its clout to impose austerity policies that will wreck their part of Europe in order to protect German taxpayers.
在德国之外这种一国坐大的局势已引发激烈的辩论。亨利·基辛格(Henry Kissinger)有一句很著名的话：德国对于欧洲来说过大，对于世界来说又过小。如今这个所谓的“德国问题”再次变成重要的议题。很多人担心德国正在变得过于专横。在南欧的报刊漫画中，默克尔的嘴上多了两撇希特勒的小胡子。南欧政治家们称德国自私地动用其影响力将财政紧缩项目强加于南欧诸国头上，为了保护德国纳税人不惜破坏南欧经济。
Others are worried that Germany is being too passive. Radek Sikorski, Poland’s foreign minister, fears German inaction more than German power. On this view, Germany does not want, and cannot exercise, the leadership required of a predominant power. In the language of political scientists, it lacks the capacity to act as Europe’s hegemon—a leading country that takes responsibility for the stability of an international system as a whole, as America does for the world. William Paterson of Aston University in Birmingham has called Germany a “reluctant hegemon”.
其他人则担心德国目前过于被动。对于波兰外交部长拉德科·西科尔斯基(Radek Sikorski)来说，他更害怕德国毫无作为，而不是德国一国坐大。从这一观点的角度来看，德国既不愿，也不能实施身为主导强国所需要的领导力。用政治学家的话来说，德国缺乏以欧洲盟主身份行事的能力。这里的“盟主”一词指可以承担起某一国际系统稳定性责任的领导国家，就如美国在世界上的地位一样。伯明翰阿斯顿大学的威廉姆·帕特森(William Paterson)称德国为一个“心不甘情不愿的盟主”。
Within Germany this debate is almost wholly absent. Germans are deeply ambivalent about their growing role in Europe, and generally uncomfortable talking about leadership. The mere vocabulary is fraught with historical echoes. The German world for leader is Führer, the title adopted by Adolf Hitler. Mention the word “hegemon”, and German politicians flinch. Mrs Merkel recently described the concept as “totally foreign to me”. Strategic thinking is strikingly absent anywhere in government. Joschka Fischer, a former foreign minister, laments that: “Germans have never had a serious conversation about the destiny of a reunited Germany in Europe.”
在德国内部，这类辩论则几乎完全不存在。德国人对于自己国家在欧洲日益举足轻重的角色怀着
