AUSTIN, Texas -- So, Haditha becomes another of the names at which we wince, along with Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and My Lai. Tell you what: Let's not use the "stress of combat" excuse this time. According to neighbors, the girls in the family of Younis Khafif -- the one who kept pleading in English: "I am a friend. I am good" -- were 14, 10, 5, 3 and 1. What are they going to say? "Under stress of combat, we thought the baby was 2"?

"We have a Haditha every day," said Muhanned Jasim, an Iraqi merchant. "Were (those killed in Haditha) the first Iraqis to be killed for no reason?" asked Ghasan Jayih, a pharmacist. Well no, but we Americans don't count collateral damage unless we're forced to. We prefer to ignore collateral damage, especially if they're under 5.

Congress is pushing a law that would abandon the Internet's First Amendment -- a principle called Network Neutrality that prevents companies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast from deciding which Web sites work best for you -- based on what site pays them the most. If the public doesn't speak up now, our elected officials will cave to a multi-million dollar lobbying campaign.

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While in Los Angeles, I met a friend who bemoaned the fact that a credit reporting agency refused to remove an item that was misreported recounting years of horror stories concerning his efforts to get them to correct it which resulted in the slander of his credit -for years- ultimately denying him a car lease. Then in today's Sunday Los Angeles Times there is a front page business section article on how to challenge false credit reporting noting an incident where someone was jammed on his report for items not his listing an address in Fresno where he never lived. This false reporting and slander of credit is so widely now in the press because it is epidemic. Recently we saw the report on the Veterans information stolen. All their social security numbers now are subject to false credit jamming and it will happen.

This could be, if you forgive the conspiratorial mind, an excellent way to shut up dissenters. If one creates havoc and mayhem in their personal financial life they have little energy left to protest.

People who are concerned about the state of the U.S. news media in 2006 might pause to consider those who have lost their lives in the midst of journalistic neglect, avoidance and bias.

We remember that while TV and radio news reports tell the latest about corporate fortunes, vast numbers of real people are struggling to make ends meet -- and many are in a position of choosing between such necessities as medicine, adequate food and paying the rent.

We remember that many Americans have lost their limbs or their lives in on-the-job accidents that might have been prevented if overall media coverage had been anywhere near as transfixed with job safety as with, say, marital splits among Hollywood celebrities.

We remember that the national and deadly problem of widespread obesity is in part attributable to constant advertising for products with empty calories and plenty of fat.

We remember that despite public claims by tobacco companies, the ads that keep trying to glamorize smoking continue to lure millions of young people onto a long journey of addiction to cancer-causing cigarettes.

Anticipating that the U.S. federal government would invoke the so-called "state secrets" privilege to block any lawsuit calling for the disclosure of details about allegations that phone companies shared customer records with the government's biggest spy agency, a major civil rights group has embarked on an alternate course.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed complaints in more than 20 individual states demanding that their utility commissions and attorneys general convene public hearings and call phone company executives to testify.

The ACLU action in Massachusetts is typical of the approach being taken by the civil rights group. Carol Rose, executive director of the ACLU in Massachusetts, said four mayors had complained to the state's utility regulatory board, where. State law requires the board to conduct public hearings when a mayor complains.

Michael D. Bissonnette, mayor of Chicopee, Massachusetts, said he joined the requests because privacy was fast becoming the key civil rights issue.

"This is likely the greatest invasion of consumer privacy in our nation's history," he said.