It’s good that three men were indicted today for their reconnaissance of NY financial institutions and evidence of other activities for Al Qaida. As they’ve been in custody since their work came to light last summer, it’s not surprising, either. It’s a reasonable guess that they’ve been interrogated since, till all useful info that could be plumbed from them has been obtained.

The reports today also note something else:

Last August the government raised the risk of a terrorist attack to “high” for those specific financial institutions. The color-coded threat level for the rest of the nation remained at yellow, or elevated, the middle of a five-point scale.

Federal authorities, who acknowledged the threat was based mainly on years-old intelligence, said the decision to raise the threat level was based on an abundance of caution and because of the lengthy planning and plotting record of the terrorist network known as al-Qaida.

The threat level was lowered to yellow for the buildings in November.

Ah yes, the Crayola alerts. That wasn’t the only one issued during that period. We were warned regularly of potential terror attacks, at political conventions and sporting events, up to and including Election Day. In fact, we were treated to the alerts regularly for three years. It seemed like every time Bush was advancing an aggressive foreign policy move, or when he needed a distraction from a blunder (like Abu Ghraib), or his polling numbers were falling behind his political opponents for his election campaign, an alert would emanate.

Were the alerts politically motivated, generating fear, knowing that the US electorate historically rallies behind a President when they’re fearful? There have been no terror alerts since November 14th’s downgrade - nearly 5 months.

That’s just question number one that our corporate media has not asked about or investigated. I have a longer list. If our Fourth Estate wishes to regain its standing as a critical information outlet fulfilling its role as a brake on the propaganda of an elitist and imperialist federal government, instead of serving as its parrot, these are the questions they have to ask (the title says there’s a dozen, but there’s more, within a dozen topic areas.)

2) Where are the leaders of Al Qaida? Has Bin Laden been given an exemption because of his family’s ties to the Saudi royal family?

3) How much of Afghanistan is actually a functioning democracy? And how are women and children being treated there, now?

4) How is it that the Shia majority in Iraq represents 60% of the populace, that the second largest group - the Sunnis - barely participated in the election there, yet the Shias didn’t obtain a 50% majority? Was the election rigged to deny majority power to the Shias, so the US could continue to influence the outcome of the government-building process through proxies like the Kurds?

5) Our intelligence agencies have been faulted for their deficiencies ever since the 9/11 attacks. In fact, the bipartisan Hart-Rudman Commission pointed to the deficiencies months and years before 9/11. Yet repeated investigations continue to display glaring deficiencies in our intel corps, long after major restructuring was begun. Is anyone in our government ever going to be held accountable for these deficiencies and will they ever be corrected?

6) How many Iraqi civilians have been killed since March 2003 as a result of our invasion of Iraq?

7) When will the rest of the videos of Abu Ghraib be released to the public? What reason is there to continue hiding them from us?

8) How can you explain $9 billion of our tax dollars ‘missing’ in Iraq?

And, domestically:

9) Ever since the ‘culture of life’ concept has been promoted by this administration, we’ve been treated to repetitive stories and photos of dying and dead people. The federal government intruded on a family matter with the Schiavos and Schindlers. Much hoopla was raised about the death of John Paul II, with numerous extensions of protocol violated (flags ordered to half-staff, the president attending his funeral, etc). If the ‘culture of life’ requires that we confront the reality of death in such bold and dramatic ways, why does the ban remain on photographs of coffins of dead soldiers returning from Iraq?

10) By staking out the defense of Tom Delay as “it may be unethical but no-one’s proven he broke the law yet”, aren’t you creating a ‘culture of corruption’?

11) The easiest first step to correcting the long term deficiency in the funding of Social Security is to require that the wealthiest start paying Social Security taxes on all their earned income, like the rest of us do. The easiest first step to alleviate the growing cost of Medicare is to permit the federal government to utilize bulk purchasing of medicines to lower the cost of prescriptions. Why are these two easiest answers not being utilized?

12) It’s been almost 9 years since a mostly Republican Congress has raised the minimum wage. Considering the tens of thousands that have flowed to the richest in America through tax policy changes, and especially with gas and oil prices raising costs of everything transported, when are the poorest workers in America going to get a break?

Of course, there’s more: Why the delays in the investigation about the security breach regarding Valerie Plame’s identity? What’s the latest on the anthrax attacks that occurred in 2001? And so on.

Unchecked power by the federal government is the greatest danger facing the country. Our courts and our press are the primary defenses the citizenry has. With the recent pronouncements by Tom Delay and others that target our independent judiciary, the primary questions the press must contend with are these: you were silent when they usurped the powers of everyone else, so when they finally come for you, who do you expect will be left to speak up in your defense? And with your record of limp, pathetic coverage why should anyone bother?