Controversial Operation TIPS appears dead

Controversial Operation TIPS appears dead
By Cassio Furtado
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - The Homeland Security Bill passed early Saturday by the House of Representatives appears to kill Operation TIPS, the administration's controversial effort to encourage millions of Americans to report suspected terrorists to authorities.

The 200-page bill, which passed by a 295-132 vote, prohibits programs such as the proposed Terrorism Information and Prevention System. TIPS was part of President Bush's recently-released homeland security plan, but it drew fire from Republican conservatives and from the American Civil Liberties Union, which charged that it would encourage "government-sanctioned peeping toms."

The House bill, masterminded by Rep. Dick Armey, R-Tex., the House majority leader, is intended to prevent "citizens spying on one another," said Armey aide Richard Diamond.

The Senate version of the homeland security legislation, to be debated next week, is not likely to include any reference to TIPS, Diamond said, meaning that the proposal is dead.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has compared TIPS to a ghetto informant program run by the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover in the 1960s. Agents hired neighbors of suspected political protestors to spy on them.

"It was a very, very sorry time in our history," Leahy told Attorney General John Ashcroft at a Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday.

Ashcroft defended the controversial TIPS proposal. Under questioning from Leahy, he said that the program would merely "be a referral agency that sends information that is phoned in to appropriate federal, state and local law enforcement agencies."

Ashcroft added that information gathered by TIPS would go only to existing law enforcement channels. Tips from informants would not be collected in a central database, he assured Leahy.

But Ashcroft didn't say what law enforcement agencies would do with information they received from TIPS.

"Well, what the FBI does with data, what various agents do with data, depends on the nature of the data," he said.

Ashcroft also said that TIPS volunteers wouldn't spy on ordinary people. Rather, he told lawmakers, volunteers would report on "anomalies, things that are different" and raise suspicions. He offered the example of "truck drivers seeing things happen that don't usually happen."

The program already had been rejected by the U.S. Postal Service, which declined to join it last week.

It isn't stopped it is still going foreward. Posted on Fri, Jul. 26, 2002

Ashcroft addresses TIPS controversy
By JESSE J. HOLLAND
Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Attorney General John Ashcroft says a new government program that asks Americans to report suspicious activity won't create an Orwellian database that could be used against innocent citizens.

Instead, Operation TIPS will be "a clearinghouse for people who think they see something" suspicious, Ashcroft told senators Thursday.

Operation TIPS - Terrorism Information and Prevention System - is being developed by the Justice Department and is set to get under way this summer.

It is a part of the Citizen Corps, an initiative announced by President Bush in his State of the Union address, and is designed to enable the public to participate directly in homeland security.

Operation TIPS plans to give millions of American truckers, train conductors, ship captains, utility employees and others "a formal way to report suspicious terrorist activity," according to its government Web site.

Those people are crucial because "they are regularly in the public," Ashcroft said. "They can spot anomalies - things that are different - (such as) truck drivers seeing things happen that don't usually happen."

The program is already generating controversy on Capitol Hill.

The Homeland Security Department legislation moving through Congress includes language that would prohibit programs such as Operation TIPS within the new department. With opposition mounting, the U.S. Postal Service announced it would not participate in the current version being developed by the Justice Department.

Lawmakers are echoing the American Civil Liberties Union's criticism that the program could result in Americans spying on one another.

"We don't want to see a 1984, Orwellian-type situation here where neighbors are reporting on neighbors," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. "We want to make sure that what this involves is legitimate reports of real concerns that might involve some terrorist activities."

A government database of terrorist tips, whether truthful or not, could be used against people, said Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

He outlined a scenario where a person applies for a government loan or a job and is told that a suspicious activity has been logged in the databank because somebody "didn't like their dog barking in the middle of the night" or the political shirt they were wearing.

Ashcroft assured senators that Operation TIPS would only be a clearinghouse, with all relevant information passed on to the appropriate law enforcement agencies, which already have well-established policies on how information can be used.

"TIPS will be a referral agency that sends information that is phoned in to appropriate federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies," Ashcroft said.

Ashcroft also defended his proposal to immediately destroy government records of people who buy guns, disputing a congressional report that said his idea could help criminals get firearms illegally.

Other "records that are maintained can be used to detect the illegal purchases," the attorney general said.

Ashcroft last year suggested shortening from 90 days to no more than one business day the time during which the government keeps records on people who try to purchase firearms.

But the General Accounting Office, Congress's watchdog agency, said one-day destruction of records would mean that the FBI would not be able to go back and check for fraudulent transactions or mistaken approvals.

Ashcroft said government agencies such as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms could still track down illegal gun purchases through the firearm dealer information.

ON THE NET

Justice Department: http://www.usdoj.gov
http://www.miami.com/mld/miami/news/politics/3739941.htm

Have you ever heard/read such obfuscating convoluted language for the word “snitch?”

The government has already asked U.S. Citizens to be aware of suspicious activity. These Mid East types taking pictures of schools, bridges, factories, ETC is worthy of keeping an eye on.

We had some in New England taking pictures of schools. Turned out to be people checking out new schools for their kids. At least that's what the media ended up reporting.

Heck some of them could already be in federal prisons, for all we really know.

There is a fine line between reporting possible terrorist activity and being a snitch.

Although "Snitch" does fit, it does have a negative connotation.

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