Shame on gov't getting mad at the media

Bloomberg.com: Worldwide has a story about how the House of Representatives passed a resolution condemning various news agencies for publishing reports on the checking of international banking records for terrorist funding. Bush was extremely pissed over this one and there is a great audio clip I keep hearing on NPR of Bush stating this fact.

Now I for one think Congress and Bush are totally out of line for being pissed at the various newspapers that covered this story. It isn't like this was not an obvious thing for the government to be doing. I actually figured they were already doing this.

But claiming that covering this story risks American lives is just such bullshit it's ridiculous. How does letting the American people know that their government is now tapping into the bank transactions going to risk lives? That's like saying if I go driving I am risking lives. Yeah, true, but it isn't like the newspapers published the names of CIA operatives or something (oops, that was the Bush administration).

This just piles on top of the Bush administration being pissed about the NSA's phone tracking system being exposed. Sorry, but I like knowing when the government is tracking stuff of ordinary citizens without getting approval for it from anyone. I like there to be checks on the power of government. I want people to make sure that they don't go overboard trying to protect me since without those checks we get led into an authoritarian state.

Boy I hope the American people are disenfranchised enough to vote in people into power that can undo some of this crap.