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Accused again

| June 28, 2006 12:00 AM

The New York Times is being accused of everything but sedition these days because once again the newspaper has revealed that the present administration is hell-bent on whittling away American rights without the public's say-so.

The latest revelation seems more like administrative whining and unbecoming the president. After the Times printed a story last week showing that the federal government is examining all banking documents for ties to overseas terrorists, President Bush accused the Times of breaking a long tradition of keeping wartime secrets.

The president called the reporting disgraceful and that such revelations made winning the war on terror more difficult to win.

I suppose we have to find somebody to blame.

But if I remember right, not too long after 9-11, the federal government started looking in financial transactions across the country quite closely to make sure Osama bin Laden's deep and laden pockets weren't jingling in the U.S. It seem some accounts in Atlanta were seized in a very public manner with the government making a bit of noise about its find.

It doesn't seem like checking financial transactions and records is all that big a secret. Maybe the feds think the terrorists forgot about that and Bush and his cronies don't need anybody — especially the widely read New York Times — reminded them.

Actually, it doesn't matter what party or administration is in office, or what kind of quiet permission they have from congress. The American public needs to know what its government is doing to them in the name of the so-called global war on terrorism.

It's more of a disgrace that more of the larger national and international media aren't reporting more of what's really going on. I guess, in due time. — Roger Morris