30 julho 2003

ECO-TERROR
Pentagon Prepares a Futures Market on Terror Attacks: Washington, July 28 — The Pentagon office that proposed spying electronically on Americans to monitor potential terrorists has a new experiment. It is an online futures trading market, disclosed today by critics, in which anonymous speculators would bet on forecasting terrorist attacks, assassinations and coups.
Traders bullish on a biological attack on Israel or bearish on the chances of a North Korean missile strike would have the opportunity to bet on the likelihood of such events on a new Internet site established by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
The Pentagon called its latest idea a new way of predicting events and part of its search for the "broadest possible set of new ways to prevent terrorist attacks." Two Democratic senators who reported the plan called it morally repugnant and grotesque. The senators said the program fell under the control of Adm. John M. Poindexter, President Ronald Reagan's national security adviser.
Pentagon Abandons Plan for Futures Market on Terror: Washington, July 29 — The Pentagon office that proposed spying electronically on Americans to monitor potential terrorists has quickly abandoned an idea in which anonymous speculators would have bet on forecasting terrorist attacks, assassinations and coups in an online futures market.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz said today that the program would be dropped.
Senators say Pentagon plan would allow betting on terrorism, assassinations: According to its Web site, the Policy Analysis Market would be a joint program of the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, known as DARPA, and two private companies: Net Exchange, a market technologies company, and the Economist Intelligence Unit, the business information arm of the publisher of The Economist magazine.
[Algumas partes do site que foi entretanto desactivado: PAM Concept Overview, Becoming a PAM Trader, Organizations Behind PAM]
[act.: No future for Poindexter?: Irony of ironies - traders can now speculate on John Poindexter's chances of keeping his job.
act. II: Is a Futures Market on Terror Outlandish? Maybe not. There is strong evidence that futures exchanges can predict events better than other forms of analysis.
act. III: American Action Market]