...but freedom is far, far better. Personal and informed freedom, even with the risk of death, is far preferable to belonging to a nation of individuals fearfully cringing at the slightest shadow. The latter America is clearly the one that Tony Snow and his ilk want to push our nation to become.

Screw the White House and its Congressional apologists with a 12-foot spiked dildo. The New York Times performed a vital public service by reporting the bank monitoring story. Those two reporters are heroes in my book.

The very first ammendment to the constitution says Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of the press. There is a good reason for this (I'd use the term "obvious" instead of "good" but I realize there are dimwits among us) and we have to really question the desire of a government who wishes to silent the press. They've already eliminated the legislative branch of government. The "free" press is all we have left.

I'll say it time and again, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Democrats and all liberals need to continuously ask conservatives why they hate America. Why do they want to stomp on our constitution? "If you want to live in a country that supresses the media and invades your privacy, move to Iran, move to North Korea," we should all be saying! Conservatives are nothing more than a bunch of freedom haters!

The NY Times was right to publish this story, but was wrong to consult with the Administration before doing so. It is not the duty of journalists to run their stories past the subjects of their investigations for aproval or permission to publish, as NYT Executive Editor Bill Keller did.

It should also go without saying that the president should not be breaking laws, and that "security" should not be used as a cloak to do so. Citizens are far likelier to lose their freedoms to an oppressive, secretive government than to putative "terrorists."

Finally, Rep. King should read the Constitution. The First Amendment has no clause about it being suspended during times of war.

Funny argument from Snow: freedom of the press and the public's right to know what the government is doing in its name should take second place to "someone's right to live." I'm sure he remembers back in the 80s, when people on his side of the political spectrum poured scorn on those European pacifists who opposed Reagan's muscular military policies by proclaiming they'd rather be red than dead. See, back then, it was more important to be free than alive. I guess that's yet another thing that changed on 9/11.

If there were any, ANY proof that they were being effective in this so-called "war against terror" it would still be offensive to me that they continue to trample on the constitution in they're efforts.

Please - spend your time reading and talking to people about what you can do to make their lives better and we will win this battle with far fewer casualties and a greater sense of accomplishment than can ever be imagined by this administration.

This bunch is becoming more Nazi-like as the days go by. The most frightening part is, that like the Nazis, the public is swallowing it hook, line and sinker.

...WHO hates our freedoms?

It occurred to me that we might have an SDI-redux here. Reagan pumped money into the Strategic Defense Initiative even though he new it wouldn't work -- or at least that's the revisionist history. The story was that it would force the Soviet Union to keep pumping dough into their own missile programs, which would hasten their eventual downfall. And viola! It worked like a charm.

I won't waste space here arguing the history. The point is, what if these data mining programs really don't work? Here's my scant circumstatial evidence:

1. We've heard all about NSA warrantless wiretaps, widespread monitoring, and now financial data mining. But we've heard precious little about all the terrorists, if any, we've caught with these programs.

2. There are all sorts of recriminations from the Republicans, and threats to prosecute the Times, but it'll never amount to anything. Mark my words.

3. No-one (except the Times and the rest of us lefties) seems to be disgruntled with the financial data mining, but somebody leaked it anyway.

I hesitate to suggest that the White House is this clever, but, hey, it's a big organization. What if they're just trying to force the terrorists into using lower-tech methods? It's harder to blow up a building when you're carrying all your cash in a canvas bag, and passing paper notes at the mall.

And they're even more clever than SDI. Reagan announced SDI in public, and even broadcast commercials about it, so the discussion immediately turned to whether it would work or not. This time, no-one's talking about whether it works. They're trying to hide it, so it must work!

If we hear about data mining of medical records four months from now, and EZ-Pass records three months after that, then I rest my case.

Among the media outlets reporting on the bank-monitoring story was none other than the Wall Street Journal. Although I don't know how to what extent, if any, their reporters were involved in breaking the story, but I believe their version at least appeared on the same day.

But you probably won't hear any noises from anyone questioning their involvement or culpability. And they probably won't be discussing their arrogant, elitist, "left wing" agenda... because the Wall Street Journal's agenda is anything but.

Maybe we should let King slide on this one. After all, you'll recall he expressed deep concern over the actions of the New York Times when we learned that it inappropriately helped advance the administration's case for war by publishing article after excruciatingly inaccurate article by Judy Miller and others on Iraq's nonexistant WMDs. Oh yeah, nevermind, King never mentioned anything about that.

President Clinton tried to have Bin Laden and al-Qaeda assets frozen but was stopped by Secretary Rubin, thought it would violate international financial system's integrity. March 2000, new laws banning business and residents from doing business with bank that provided safe haven for al-Qaida's money laundering were shot down by the Senate, lead by Banking Committee chairman Phil Gramm Republican of Texas, who argued it was "totalitarian"

Seems like President Bush may be smarter than Clinton in some ways, it is much harder getting proposed terrorist fighting policies passed through ligitimate channels, than just doing them secretively. Leaves out other people disagreeing with you.

Finally, how this revealation of spying on American banking record, even on a limited basis, going to effect the integrity of todays finicial institutes? Where is Phil Gramm now?