Press being turned away from New Orleans.

If this is true--and it came from a blogger on the scene--it is the worst abuse of power yet.

No Accountability: Bush Locks Press Out of NOLA
September 7th, 2005
We are in Jefferson Parish, just outside of New Orleans. At the National Guard checkpoint, they are under orders to turn away all media. All of the reporters are turning they�re TV trucks around.

Things are so bad, Bush is now censoring all reporting from NOLA. The First Amendment sank with the city.

The original link is here, but it's down at the moment since being Atrios'd. However I can confirm that the web page did exist--I saw it with my own eyes and copied and pasted the text from my history.

Add to that the Reuters story via latimes.com:

FEMA Wants No Photos of Dead
From Reuters

NEW ORLEANS � The U.S. agency leading Hurricane Katrina rescue efforts said Tuesday that it does not want the news media to photograph the dead as they are recovered.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, heavily criticized for its slow response to the devastation caused by the hurricane, rejected journalists' requests to accompany rescue boats searching for storm victims.

An agency spokeswoman said space was needed on the rescue boats.

"We have requested that no photographs of the deceased be made by the media," the spokeswoman said in an e-mail.

If there was ever a time that full, unfettered photography and reporting was needed, it is now. The dead have faces. THEY MUST NOT BE FORGOTTEN, AND THE GOVERNMENT MUST BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE.