I said the law was powerless to protect you not punish you.
Posted on 07/15/2002 9:05:15 AM PDT by eshu
By Ritt Goldstein
July 15 2002
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.
Ritt Goldstein is an investigative journalist and a former leader in the movement for US law enforcement accountability. He has lived in Sweden since 1997, seeking political asylum there, saying he was the victim of life-threatening assaults in retaliation for his accountability efforts. His application has been supported by the European Parliament, five of Sweden's seven big political parties, clergy, and Amnesty and other rights groups.
CNN, Dec. 18, 2000
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. GEORGE W. BUSH (R-TX), PRESIDENT-ELECT: I told all four that there were going to be some times where we don't agree with each other. But that's OK. If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
Mine are wide open, and I'm calling this guy's bluff. "Ad hominem?" No, he's setting for his opinions on a police matter, and specifically he poses himself as an expert on it. My point is his ideas, not something else about him personallly.
He's a loon. He thinks that for years that people had been pepper-spraying him in Hartford, Connecticut, in "plain clothes", so, therefore, they had to be the police. And instead of running to Cali or New York, he had to run to Sweden to avoid those crafty Hartford police. My opinion is he is a loon. And his point about one can't fool all the people all the time was a slip on his part, which the journalist politely and satirically put at the end of the article. Get it?
"If you aren't alarmed you aren't thinking. "
I'm alarmed so many here are susceptible to this guy's rhetoric.
"I don't want some $#@ deciding I'm a terrorist because I say something nasty about a politician. I don't want a neighbor with an axe to grind to use a secret phone call to the government to get me. Open your eyes."
Um, they can do that now. It regularly happens out of revenge and like motives. How will making a centralized system be worse? And where is the "neighbor on neighbor" bit? The program seems oriented on people in the transportation industry and such.
My eyes are wide open. Sure I question the messenger. P.S. Beware that old biddy down the street running Neighborhood Watch.
I am more aware of my surroundings and woudl not hesitate to report on activity that seemed odd considering the Sept 11th attack, aren't you? Our law enforcement can't be EVERYWHERE at the same time. And I don't want to pay more taxes to salary MORE paid police, etc. Do you?
It is GOOD that more citizens are being aware of their responsibility to help secure the safety of our nation.
I'd like to think that hikers or just regular folks, upon seeing suspicious activity around say a water plant, or a nuclear plant or a naval base or a port or a church or a ballgame or ANYWHERE would be willing to report it instead of simply noticing it and then going about their private business, doing nothing.
Do you have a neighborhood watch in your area? Does that SCARE you too? Does that say POLICE STATE to you? Give it a REST.
It will be worse to create a central buraecracy to encourage and reward citizen-informants because it will affect American culture, it will make it cool to "snitch" and encourage mistrust. That is what happenmed in most of the Warsaw pact countries that had such programs.
And where is the "neighbor on neighbor" bit? The program seems oriented on people in the transportation industry and such.
You might not mind the idea of warrantless searches on your house, the FBI interviewing librarians to find out what books you borrow, pizza-delivery guys peering in the side window of your living room on the way back to their Buick, before scurrying to a pay phone to report your suspicious bird-feeder, etc... I do.
And where is the "neighbor on neighbor" bit? The program seems oriented on people in the transportation industry and such.You might not mind the idea of warrantless searches on your house, the FBI interviewing librarians to find out what books you borrow, pizza-delivery guys peering in the side window of your living room on the way back to their Buick, before scurrying to a pay phone to report your suspicious bird-feeder, etc... I do.
What does this have to do with "TIPS"?
And yeah, so the TIPS program is only going to solicit information from delivery people or whatnot. SO what, right? Why shouldn't the pizza guy call an 800# if he notices something suspicious about you, right? He is "transportation" personnel after all, and if you didn't tip for delivery, what kind of American are you? Probably a "bad" one...
I spent a couple of years in Eastern Europe after the fall of Communism and it would be difficult to describe to someone who has never lived there, just how deeply the "informant" mindset had penetrated those countries' cultures, the extent to which the seeds of mistrust were sown throughout all levels of almost every profession. I'll tell you the truth - I didn't get the impression that it was something that most people liked, knowing that a co-worker or neighbor had been spying on them for the govt.
But, there is probably some truth to what you and Shermy are implying here - if you don't have anything to hide, then why shouldn't the govt. know everything about you, right? I have nothing to hide... I have never had an affair, or jockeyed for a promotion by takling credit for my colleagues ideas, or expressed fringe political positions, or donated money to unpopular causes...
Now, if the govt. ever decides to start paying informants, then we will really have to worry - of course, by then, the buraeucracy and infrastructure will already be in place, so there won't be much we can do about it then but gripe and keep our opinions to ourselves.
And no, Hilary in 2004 would never abuse such a system....
What? Four years of keeping lists of FReepers we're going to liquidate when the Revolution comes are all in vain? Dagnabbit...shoulda took up needlepoint instead...
I do not fear is people reporting suspicious behaviour. I do fear the government organization of an official network of informants. I'm a big believer in the strength of individuals, working in self-forming networks, to get the job done, like neighborhood watches and like how the passengers of United Flight 93 performed, the only successfully stopped terrorist hijacking of 9/11.
(It is of note that the same government that is organizing this "TIPS" debacle in waiting is the same government that would rather shoot down an airliner than allow pilots to carry an effective means of defense. I know that this is a bit off topic, but just how much empowerment are citizens to be trusted with by this government?)
People don't need the government to officially sanction them being informants for them to be effective at spotting terrorism, and the risks of organizing such a network, IMHO, outweigh the benefits.
And, for what it's worth, your comparison to a neighborhood watch is a bit disingenuous, no matter how many words you type in all caps.
But I understand that by recruiting people, I expect no pay will be involved in this, the government hopes to LIMIT the false reports and hone its ability to respond to more legitimate calls for investigation or note.
Besides-this little interesting idea of citizen activists for national security sends a MARVELOUS SIGNAL to terrorist organizations. Nothing can hamper these cowards more than not knowing if someone glancing their direction is a citizen activist or not. If ya catch my drift.
A supplemental decree creates the SA (Storm Troops) and SS (Special Security) Federal police agencies.
But regardless of who actually planned and executed the fire, it is clear that the Nazis immediately took advantage of the situation in order to advance their cause at the expense of civil rights. The Decree enabled the Nazis to ruthlessly suppress opposition in the upcoming election.
Over the next few weeks, each of the lawful Weimar State governments falls to the same ruse:
Actually, it's completely on topic, as it proves that the government's agenda is not to provide security.
I said the law was powerless to protect you not punish you.
you write:
I don't think Dubya was responsible for the WTC bombing but this is certainly taking advantage of it like it was the Reichstag fire.
I agree with you. BTW, the most interesting part of the Reichstag article was the last sentence:
"...democracy can be destroyed by... offering as a 'solution' the abdication of civil liberties and state's rights to a powerful but unaccountable central authority.
We appear to be heading down that road rather quickly.
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