A Nation of Informers

New York Times ^ | 9/23/02 | ADAM LIPTAK

[kattracks]

HAT should Eunice Stone have done?

As she was having breakfast at a Shoney's restaurant in Calhoun, Ga., one day earlier this month, she said she overheard a conversation among the three men in the next booth that alarmed her.

So Ms. Stone, a nurse from Cartersville, Ga., called the police and said that she heard the men discussing terrorism plans. As a consequence, law enforcement officials closed down the Interstate highway known as Alligator Alley and detained the men for the better part of a day. The men, who were Muslim medical students on their way to a hospital in Miami, endured a thorough search of their cars for explosives and intense public scrutiny before they were released.

Ms. Stone has been praised for her alertness as well as criticized for what civil-liberties advocates said was paranoia. She has hired lawyers. Yet Ms. Stone was clearly heeding the call of government officials, from President Bush on down, who have asked citizens to be vigilant and report anything suspicious.

It is hard to know how to calculate the costs and benefits of encouraging tips like that of Ms. Stone's, said Cass R. Sunstein, a law professor at the University of Chicago.

"There are two things to balance," he said. "One is the likelihood that you'll get good information that will prevent harm. The other is that you will get people in trouble who don't deserve to be or that you will create a culture of surveillance."

It is not difficult to identify in hindsight tips that should have been made but were not. After Sept. 11, 2001, for instance, a federal Department of Agriculture official in Florida was criticized for failing to report a charged encounter in 2000 with Mohamed Atta, believed to be the ringleader of the terrorist attacks. Other people came forward after Sept. 11 with stories about disturbing encounters with the hijackers that they did not report.

Last week, after the arrests of six Arab-American men from Lackawanna, N.Y., who are accused of being members of a Qaeda cell, New York state established a toll-free hotline for reporting suspicious activity. Information from within the Yemeni community in Lackawanna seems to have played a role in the arrests.

James McMahon, the superintendent of the New York State Police, said people should err on the side of passing along information, even if it is based only on "instincts and intuition."

But is it possible to be too vigilant? Does the flood of resulting tips obscure or even reduce, as the boy who cried wolf learned, the truly valuable information?

Even Gov. George E. Pataki sounded a little wary about the hotline when he announced it, asking people to use it "responsibly and with common sense."

Civil libertarians said that may be asking too much of the public.

"We will find ourselves falling into anarchy if we ask ordinary people to play the role that only law enforcement officials can play properly," said Anthony D. Romero, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

But others say such comments exaggerate and overreach.

"Informing in a country where thought crimes are criminal is one thing," said Charles Fried, a law professor at Harvard. "Informing in a country where the only crimes are menaces to public security in a physical sense is very different."

Mr. Sunstein said there was no need for alarmism. "I think our culture is strong enough that the likelihood that this will create serious problems for our freedom is very low,"` he said.

Those upon whom suspicion is cast have little legal recourse. It is permissible to contact the authorities with leads based on misunderstandings or ill-founded suspicions.

Various legal claims may be available in theory, experts said, among them defamation, infliction of emotional distress and malicious prosecution. But they are not likely to succeed. In most states and in most situations, plaintiffs must prove not only that the tip was false but that the informer knew or suspected that at the time and meant to harm the subject of the tip.

In the current environment, said Prof. Rodney A. Smolla of the University of Richmond School of Law, "there is not much realistic exposure to liability, though it would depend on the pointedness of the tip." A purposefully false accusation of training pilots for terror missions, he said, might be treated differently from the voicing of more generalized suspicions.

It gets more complicated when suspicions result in fights and imprisonment, as in the case of two men of Indian descent who were jailed in Arkansas earlier this month after a Northwest Airlines flight attendant grew concerned about their trips to the airplane bathroom. They may be able to sue the airline and the government for malicious prosecution or false imprisonment.

"It all turns on the question of probable cause," said Richard D. Emery, a civil rights lawyer.

Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said untrained civilians are more likely to engage in racial stereotyping.

"There is a real chill in the Muslim community about what will be taken as an innocent comment," Mr. Hooper said.

And not all tips are made in good faith, he said.

"We've had reports of cases where people use tips as payback on the job," Mr. Hooper said. "We see it in custody cases, where people make all kinds of allegations against others if they're Muslims."

But false accusations are a part of law enforcement, Mr. McMahon said, and that is where police investigative skills come in. "Whether it comes in as a tip, a 911 call or over a seven-digit number, you're going to get false reports," he said.

If there are to be errors, Mr. McMahon said, they should be on the side of too much information.

"There are probably going to be a lot of tips that come in baseless," he said. "I'd rather hear about it."

[nopardons]

You weren't defending Jews. You were using them, and Christians, in a hypothetical, to discredit FREEPERS. Yes, that's anti-Semitic. You did the same with blacks. That's racist.

[Dat]

Making threats against people is a serious crime. I'd like to know what you would say if someone had failed to report a real threat because they thought it was a joke or because they didn't want to seem bigoted. PC gone mad.

[DentsRun]

The Muslims are caucasoids, so it can't be racist, for another caucasoid to call the police on them. They aren't Jews, so, even though Arabs are Semites ( and two of the stooges are of Pakistani heritage, which also makes them caucasoids ; but NOT Semites ! ) , the phrase " anti-Semite " is only conferred on Jew hating slanders.

Attacking even one person for his race is still racism. Attacking anyone for their religion is bigotry. The nurse's son could tell they were jerking her around (because she was was staring at their headgear?). If she couldn't tell they were jerking her around too she should give her nursing job to her son becuase he obviously has more sense than she does.

[nopardons]

You weren't there. You have NO idea what Mrs. Stone's son said or " felt ", as it has NOT beeen reported / commented upon. You do NOT know that she was " staring " at them. Only ONE of them, was wearing a white , crochetted , Muslim skullcap. The others were bareheaded and clean shaven.

Since you originally, incorrectly claimed that Eunice was a W-A-I-T-R-E-S-S,your credibility is zilch. You just don't like that anyone would tell the police anything. You don't want to " KEEL " before any person of authority, and you most assuredly don't give a damn about this country, her peoples, nor anyone other than yourself. You make blanket, juvenile statements about Mrs. Stone's worthiness to be a nurse. That is patently ridiculous. You don't know her, her nursing abilities, and obviously are pro-Muslim / terrorist.

[DentsRun]

Making threats against people is a serious crime. I'd like to know what you would say if someone had failed to report a real threat because they thought it was a joke or because they didn't want to seem bigoted. PC gone mad.

What I want to know is why she thought it was a real threat when her son could clearly see that they were just fooling around with her? Either she's wrapped too tight, or she knew it was a joke and just decided to teach them a lesson because they were Muslims and she knew it was okay to be openly bigoted against Muslims in America because she reads Free Republic and sees casual bigotry there all the time.

[ChasingFletch]

This guy next door cuts his grass during air alerts with his gas mower, he is seen eating too much beef from his charcoal grill, and he SMOKES! Yoi! What a guy!

[nopardons]

Now Eunice Stone is a FREEPER and you are saying that ALL or even most FREEPERS are openly bigoted ? Is that what you are saying ?

Gee, what a mindreader, you are. NOT !

[Dat]

Yes of course. Everyone in the world who reads FR is bigotted and is trying to get Muslims. I'm sure someone, somewhere thought Atta and crew were suspicious but were disuade from calling someone because their collegue/son/family member thought they were just joking around.
Perhaps people shouldn't say stupid things in a public restaurant where other people can here them. If they wanted to get a rise out of her then they succeeded. What if someone you didn't know talked about mugging you after you left the restaurant? Would you automatically assume they were joking?

[DentsRun]

You weren't there. You have NO idea what Mrs. Stone's son said or " felt ", as it has NOT beeen reported / commented upon. You do NOT know that she was " staring " at them. Only ONE of them, was wearing a white , crochetted , Muslim skullcap. The others were bareheaded and clean shaven.

No, I wasn't there and neither were you. I'm relying on press accounts which widely (and repeatedly) reported that the nurse's son said (to the best of my memory), "mom, they're just fooling (or joking) with you."

It's true I don't know why they decided to tease her. But one reason could be that they were pissed because she was looking at the one man's headgear suspiciously. If someone looked at me because I was wearing my customary headdress I'd be pissed too. If it was clear to her son that they were jerking her around, why couldn't she see it too, unless of course she didn't want to, given that it was payback time in America.

[DentsRun]

What if someone you didn't know talked about mugging you after you left the restaurant? Would you automatically assume they were joking?

No, I'd use my common sense, like the informant's son did.

[DentsRun]

Now Eunice Stone is a FREEPER and you are saying that ALL or even most FREEPERS are openly bigoted ? Is that what you are saying ?

I'm saying if the shoe fits, put it on. Those Freepers who blindly lash out at all Muslims in this country are without a question bigoted. And I've seen many such posts on Free Republic, ranging from calls to throw all Muslims out of America to nuking Baghdad even though we're supposedly attacking Iraq to free the average Iraqi citizen.

[The Great Satan]

Thumbs up to this woman. I think, as a side-bonus, anything that makes mohammedans feel more uncomfortable and unwelcome in America is ipso facto a good thing, and functional in the larger context of our war with Islam. We really don't these savages and their creepy, death-cult religion in our country. This is a civilized country, not a Third World sewer.

[nopardons]

How many times does someone have to tell you, that she said that she thought that it could have been a hoax, but after weighing the outcome, of NOT reporting it, she decided to ? She said, and it was reported IN PRINT, far more times, than anything her son said. BTW, the media reported so much , that was erronious / inaccurate, that you have NO idea what was said / happened.

First it was " their " headresses and now, after giving you FACTUAL info, which until I posted it, you did not know, you say that she was staring at the jerk in the skullcap. You're quite a piece of work, dear. Now, just out of morbid curiosity, what kind of headgear, doi you wear ? One of those floppy, checkered tableclothe things, that Arabs wear ? Are you a Seik and wear a turban ? Is is now against the law and / or taking away your " rights and freedoms ", to be looked at in public ? Have you reached your 30th birthday yet ? I'm being kind; you sound adolescent. :-)

[nopardons]

You have NO " common sense ".

[John Lenin]

How much are the Saudis paying you ?

[CWOJackson]

What is the Muslin equivelent to "Hey dude, hold my beer. Watch this."

[CWOJackson]

He's pro-bono.

[nopardons]

You are a LIAR and I'm getting bored by your bloviation.

Since FR and so many FREEPERS are so dreadful, in your blinkered opinion, then I suggest that you leave or just quit posting. FR hasn't and obviously isn't doing you any good. Why stay ?

You've accused FREEPERS of doing thus and so. You've done the same about Eunice ... without a shred of evidence. You don't know the proven facts of the case, but you imagine that you can say any old thing and have credibility here ?

That shoe, which you keep tossing around, doesn't " fit " me, dear. Sorry, I've been here for a very long time. I dare you to find and CCP one post of mine, that " fits " your delsuional ravings. Just one, dear; go for it. :-)

[nopardons]

LOL ... I haven't the slightest idea. :-)

[John Lenin]

given that it was payback time in America.

As Bill Clinton once said " You Aint Seen Nothing Yet ! "