Osama Bin Bush

There is a blatant and growing agenda within our government to remove public information from the public view by any means necessary in order to hide the criminal and Machiavellian acts of the Bush administration to rob the poor and reward the rich.

Our system is still working in favor of the people, but one has to question just how long that will be the case in light of the mindless and certainly illegal push by the Bush presidency to subvert American democracy. Terrorism is a relative term: the destruction of American democracy from within by trusted and elected officials looms larger everyday as a sure possibility.

This is terrorism.

As an American from an American family dating to the mid-1600’s, the constant fear that these people will subvert the democracy held sacred and as necessary to life as the air we breathe, this writer considers these illegal and dangerously destructive acts by the Bush administration to be nothing more (and nothing less) than terrorism of the most deliberate kind.

To endanger my beloved country is an act of terrorism. To subvert the laws of my country in opposition to the Constitution and the rule of law is an act of terrorism.

There is no middle ground. Discussion has become merely an excuse to further obfuscate actions that cannot be defended. The Bush administration is guilty of treason.

The Bush administration is guilty of terrorism.

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January 17, 2006
Editorial

What Is the I.R.S. Trying to Hide?

The attributes that allow the Internal Revenue Service to do its job - power and pervasiveness - are the same ones that create the potential for the mistreatment of taxpayers. To prevent abuse, the public must have a steady stream of facts and figures on how the agency collects taxes.

But as The Times's David Cay Johnston reported last week, after years of providing such data, the I.R.S. is now balking. A motion filed recently in federal court asserts that the agency is defying a longstanding court order requiring it to release audit statistics. The information in question shows how thoroughly the I.R.S. audits corporations and rich taxpayers compared with others, how much time it spends on audits, and how much additional tax is recommended. The figures are crucial in gauging the agency's fairness, efficiency and effectiveness.

The motion was filed by Prof. Susan Long, who teaches statistics at Syracuse University. In 1974, while writing her dissertation, Professor Long sued the I.R.S. for access to agency statistics. In 1976, she won an order entitling her to the audit data on an ongoing basis. Today, much of what the public knows about the I.R.S. is based on data she has gathered and, since 1992, posted online at trac.syr.edu.

In May 2004, the I.R.S. refused to release figures Professor Long had requested. The timing was curious. A month earlier, she had posted data showing sharply fewer corporate audits in 2003 and had critically contrasted the data with public comments in early 2004 by the I.R.S. commissioner, Mark Everson, about cracking down on corporate wrongdoing. The I.R.S. says the events aren't connected.

First, the agency told Professor Long that it was under no obligation to provide the data. Reminded of the court order, the I.R.S. now says that Professor Long's requests have become excessive and could inadvertently reveal the identities of taxpayers. Professor Long simply asks the court to enforce its order. She deserves to prevail again.

Copyright 2006The New York Times Company