US planning to recruit one in 24 Americans as citizen spies

The Bush Administration aims to recruit millions of United States citizens as domestic informants in a program likely to alarm civil liberties groups.

The Terrorism Information and Prevention System, or TIPS, means the US will have a higher percentage of citizen informants than the former East Germany through the infamous Stasi secret police. The program would use a minimum of 4 per cent of Americans to report "suspicious activity".

Civil liberties groups have already warned that, with the passage earlier this year of the Patriot Act, there is potential for abusive, large-scale investigations of US citizens.

As with the Patriot Act, TIPS is being pursued as part of the so-called war against terrorism. It is a Department of Justice project.

Highlighting the scope of the surveillance network, TIPS volunteers are being recruited primarily from among those whose work provides access to homes, businesses or transport systems. Letter carriers, utility employees, truck drivers and train conductors are among those named as targeted recruits.

A pilot program, described on the government Web site www.citizencorps.gov, is scheduled to start next month in 10 cities, with 1 million informants participating in the first stage. Assuming the program is initiated in the 10 largest US cities, that will be 1 million informants for a total population of almost 24 million, or one in 24 people.

Historically, informant systems have been the tools of non-democratic states. According to a 1992 report by Harvard University's Project on Justice, the accuracy of informant reports is problematic, with some informants having embellished the truth, and others suspected of having fabricated their reports.

Present Justice Department procedures mean that informant reports will enter databases for future reference and/or action. The information will then be broadly available within the department, related agencies and local police forces. The targeted individual will remain unaware of the existence of the report and of its contents.

The Patriot Act already provides for a person's home to be searched without that person being informed that a search was ever performed, or of any surveillance devices that were implanted.

At state and local levels the TIPS program will be co-ordinated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which

was given sweeping new powers, including internment, as part of the Reagan Administration's national security initiatives. Many key figures of the Reagan era are part of the Bush Administration.

The creation of a US "shadow government", operating in secret, was another Reagan national security initiative.

October 18, 1998 story on Mr. Goldstein from the Hartford Courant:
STATE MAN SEEKS ASYLUM IN SWEDEN;
AN ACTIVIST CLAIMS HIS EFFORTS TO START A CIVILIAN REVIEW BOARD FOR POLICE IGNITED A CAMPAIGN OF HARASSMENT, BUT SWEDISH AUTHORITIES HAVE DENIED HIS REQUEST.

It sounds like one of those "News of the Weird" column items: A Connecticut man is hiding in Sweden, where he seeks asylum, because he thinks U.S. police are out to get him.

The things is, it's true. The asylum part anyway.

Richard "Ritt" Goldstein, 47, became the first American in years to apply for asylum when he moved to Sweden last year. He said his activism in pushing for a statewide civilian review board for police resulted in daily harassment from police in Connecticut and other states.

Goldstein's asylum request was rejected by the Swedes last month, and since then he has been living a refugee's life, supported by private citizens and European human rights groups.

"I live underground," he said, during a phone interview Friday. "The thing is, very fortunately, there are those who looked at the work I had done and looked at the overwhelming evidence that I brought with me. Initially, there was a little skepticism, but here, unlike other places, they were not burdened by believing it can't happen. . . . Law enforcement wasn't a sacred cow to them."

Whether Goldstein is characterized as a kook making false claims or a legitimate poster boy for the crusade against police brutality depends on who is doing the talking.

Just last week, Amnesty International launched a new campaign calling attention to human rights abuses within the United States, citing "widespread and persistent" police brutality as one of the top problems.

Former Norwalk Mayor William Collins said Goldstein had a strong commitment to his work, which included arranging a hearing at the state capitol last year on forming a statewide police review board.

Goldstein also headed a group called the Standing Committee on Law Enforcement Development. "I found him very dedicated to his cause, which I supported very strongly," Collins said.

Connecticut police don't share that view.

Goldstein has made harassment complaints to several police departments, including Danbury, Norwalk, Wethersfield and Cromwell. His complaints date back to the 1980s, when his activism began.

The complaints seem to have a pattern: Goldstein told police his car or home or self was sprayed by chemicals or pepper spray, usually by someone in plain clothes that he was sure was a police officer.

His complaints were investigated, but police say the investigations led nowhere because Goldstein failed to provide promised witnesses, or wouldn't come in to meet with police.

"We investigated what we could," said Lt. John Salvatore of the Wethersfield Police Department. "We were not able to substantiate any of the claims."

Cromwell police arrested Goldstein in April 1997 for making a false report, in which he alleged that police used pepper spray on him at a local Super Stop & Shop.

Cromwell Police Capt. Thomas Roohr said investigators found no one who could remember seeing Goldstein at the market, or encountering pepper spray, a highly irritating substance.

Goldstein maintains that he passed a lie detector test in the Cromwell incident. But a warrant is now out for his arrest because he failed to show up in court.

Goldstein said he moved out of his Danbury apartment into various hotels across the state because he couldn't take the harassment. He moved to Sweden when he could no longer take the drain on his health.

"The harassment was off the scale," he said. "It's the kind of things you don't expect in America."

He said he never filed lawsuits in Connecticut against the police because an attorney told him such suits are impossible to win.

In Sweden, his case attracted attention when a letter on his behalf, signed by high-ranking clergy, ran in a Swedish newspaper. Legal experts also felt his case may have repercussions for the few immigrants from stable Western democracies who apply each year for asylum to a country within the European Union.

Goldstein's attorney in Sweden, Robert Camerini, said Goldstein was denied asylum because of his country of origin.

"It's my judgment it was denied not on the merits of what was presented, but because he was American," Camerini said. "If Goldstein had come from a Third World nation, then I think it would have been another question."

The Swedish government considers the United States a stable democracy with human rights groups of its own, groups that can help citizens with police complaints, said Nina Ersman, spokeswoman for the Swedish Embassy in Washington, D.C.

Gunnar Sommarin, spokesman for Sweden's Alien Appeals Board, said whatever harassment Goldstein encountered did not seem state-sponsored. He said it was now up to the Swedish police to deport Goldstein.

As far as the U.S. government is concerned, Goldstein may apply for asylum in other countries or renounce his citizenship if he chooses.

Unless he needs to be extradited for a major crime, the government doesn't much care what he does, said Marie Rudensky, spokeswoman for the Bureau of Consular Affairs in the U.S. State Department.

"In our eyes, his status remains the same," she said.

In Sweden, Goldstein has exhausted his appeals. He has no plans to return to the United States, where he feels no one can help him, at any level of government.

He said his next recourse may be the European Court of Justice. In the meantime, he continues to live in Sweden.

"Hopefully, things will change here," he said. "You can't fool all of the people all of the time."

Wait a minute, if you don't have to register with TIPS to report suspicious activity then whats the point? Do you get a shiney gold badge to show to your friends, a certificate? What?

Exactly. It's all just a game to get people to spend more time being alert for suspicious activity, because now instead of being Joe Citizen, they'll be "part of the Team!" The tips they give will end up in the same places they would if you just picked up the phone and called the FBI randomly anyway. And we all know the feds certainly aren't going to waste their time investigating 65-year-old white females just because some TIPS member reports her as "suspcious" as revenge for some argument they had the last time everyone came over to her house to play canasta.

The federal government has to put on a PC face in public, but it's quite obvious that in reality the feds are tracking, arresting, and questioning precisely those that fit the profile: 18-to-35-year-old Arab males.

My worry is if this is really about fighting terrorism then its all for show. Creating another ineffectual program to deal with problems is what the Democrats excel at.

Yeah. You know, if so many Freepers are so worried about this program (which hasn't even managed to get off the ground yet, and will undoubtedly be run about as well as all other government programs), why don't they sign up? At least a few will end up being in one of the lucky 10 chosen cities, and if it turns out to truly be something close to Gestapo 2K2, they can report back here and we can start fighting it and spreading the word. And if it's not, we can all stop freaking out about it.

If the gov't really wanted to fight terrorism they would be recruiting Muslims to go undercover in mosques.

I'd be very surprised if this isn't already happening. Assuming they can find any trustable Muslims that attend the same mosques where the real psychos hang out, that is. I think if Mohammed Smith of Dubuque, Iowa suddenly shows up at the most radical mosque in New York and asks to join, they're going to be a bit suspicious of him.

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