Doing its job as outlined in the First Amendment

People generally know the First Amendment guarantees Americans freedom of speech, but most people seldom see the text of the First Amendment in its entirety, as written by the founding fathers. Allow me to save you the trouble of a Google search: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

As New York Times editor Bill Keller noted, the founding fathers included the press in the First Amendment to ensure the press would act as an effective check and balance of the American government. And that is precisely the interest in which the Times was acting by publishing the story about a Treasury Department program that monitors the financial records of random Americans and, presumably, of terrorists.

President Bush described the New York Times as “disgraceful” and added, “The fact that a newspaper disclosed it makes it harder to win this war on terror.” He also poked his finger in the air to accentuate how serious he was, utterly unaware of the stark irony in his commentary on grace. What’s serious is the need for Bush to read and comprehend the First Amendment. Upon doing so he might realize that the New York Times would have been “disgraceful” had it NOT reported such a story, because this program smacks of another attempt at an executive branch power grab and another the invasion of privacy. Given the context of the recent circumstances surrounding this administration"i.e., phony WMD intelligence, Valerie Plame, NSA wiretapping, etc."reporting this story was incumbent upon the “New York Times.” The American people deserve to know what’s going on when the potential for corruption is abundant.

If the program is so effective and vital to the “war on terror,” why hasn’t it yielded any discernible results? The United States knows firsthand that a war is not cheap. We have largely funded the war in Iraq with money borrowed from China. Despite the hundreds of billions of dollars spent, the state of affairs in Iraq continues to spin further out of control. Shouldn’t this financial record monitoring program have exposed whatever entity is funding the “insurgency” in Iraq by now? We can’t be expected to believe that bin Laden, though wealthy, can match the U.S. dollar for dollar alone. What is the Bush administration really worried the New York Times will discover?

Bush seems to be trying to extend the power of the executive branch for reasons that will only benefit a few. I would have less of a problem with Bush if he were trying to make himself more powerful so he could do something responsible for society, like say, providing health insurance for the more than 45 million Americans who aren’t covered, or actually taking Global Warming seriously and trying to end America’s “addiction” to foreign oil. Instead, the Bush administration seeks to further a war agenda that will continue resulting in the death and dismemberment of Americans and Iraqis alike, while our future is plunged deeper into debt. Perhaps Americans should contemplate the last part of the First Amendment. Or would petitioning this government for a redress of grievances be “disgraceful.”