MB Civic

Re “Patriotism and the Press” (editorial, June 28):

Without the work of diligent reporters and courageous editors at The Times and at other news organizations, Americans wouldn’t know about United States interrogators torturing prisoners at detention camps, the C.I.A. operating secret prisons abroad, the military manipulating the media in Iraq, the Pentagon tracking domestic peace activists, the National Security Agency conducting surveillance on American citizens, and now the Treasury Department poring over personal banking records.

Have such disclosures endangered American lives in the “war on terror”? Unlikely. Have they exposed a dangerous erosion in individual liberties and a compromise in constitutional checks and balances? Absolutely.

So let’s be thankful for our free press. But also let’s keep asking: What else is our government doing that we’re not aware of yet?

Robert J. Inlow
Charlottesville, Va., June 28, 2006

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To the Editor:

With your self-imposed mandate to “provide information the public needs,” The Times would do well to remember that the current enemy of our country is not fighting us as a uniformed army but as part of that public. Do you really intend to fulfill their information needs as part of your mandate?

Bill Decker
San Diego, June 28, 2006

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To the Editor:

It is a sad day when The Times feels the need to use prime editorial space to defend itself from doing what the “paper of record” is supposed to do: report the news accurately, truthfully and without bias.

I am proud to subscribe to The Times and will continue to write letters supporting and opposing the views stated on your editorial page. That is what our bravest men and women are dying for in Iraq, isn’t it?

Henry A. Lowenstein
New York, June 28, 2006

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To the Editor:

Your editorial “Patriotism and the Press” brings into play the concept of “could have” versus “should have.” Could you print the story of the secret antiterrorism program in question? Yes. Should you have? No.

Monte Seewald
Old Bridge, N.J., June 28, 2006