President Bush today said $55 million has been donated over the World Wide Web as Internet users pitch in to aid recovery efforts following last week's terrorist attacks.

The president urged Americans to continue giving. "We saw a great country rise up to help," Bush said at a Rose Garden ceremony to thank charitable groups for fund-raising efforts in the week since hijacked jetliners slammed into the World Trade Center and Pentagon. The president said that the titans of high-tech - AOL Time Warner, Microsoft, Amazon, Ebay, Cisco Systems and Yahoo - have banded together to form the American Liberty Partnership, setting up http://www.libertyunites.org to generate more contributions. "If a concerned American wants to help a neighbor in need, even though the neighborhoods might not be right next to each other, they can get on Libertyunites.org and find out how to help," Bush said. The site takes cash donations and supplies information on where to send clothing and food, and how to donate blood. The site keeps a running tally of online donations that totaled $57,696,442 early this afternoon. Libertyunites.org links to Web sites of 30 charities, and provides information on each group. "The online medium has played an important role in other ways as well," says a joint statement posted on the site, "connecting friends and family members by e-mail and instant message who couldn't reach one another by phone, providing real-time information about the disaster and its aftermath, and bringing a global community together to talk, share and grieve." The American Liberty Partnership site is at http://www.libertiesunite.org