US planning to recruit one in 24 Americans as citizen spies

Syndney ^ | July 15, 2002 | Ritt Goldstein

[bloggerjohn]

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.

[bloggerjohn]

This is NUTS! I'm all for the war on terror, increased security, but this is how it was in the old Soviet Union. This is just going too far. It's beyond the pale. I'm astounded. This is the end of freedom as we know it. Do you really want your neighbor to "report" you because you might say something mean about some politician they like, and they'll interpret that as sedition?

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Its total BS.

[Andy from Beaverton]

Can you say "Stazi"? Soon we will have people turing in their spouses just like in East Germany.

[Cap'n Crunch]

What's it pay?

[Registered]

I'll send you an application.

[Shermy]

Check your sources. "Ritt" is a nut. Look here:

Same story, post #102.

[Fixit]

T. I. P. S.

=

To

Insure a

Police

State

[RJCogburn]

Hmmm......can this really be true?

[Fixit]

Check your sources, the government really is planning on doing this, and has so announced on the CitizenCorps site:

http://www.citizencorps.gov/tips.html

Operation TIPS - the Terrorism Information and Prevention System - will be a nationwide program giving millions of American truckers, letter carriers, train conductors, ship captains, utility employees, and others a formal way to report suspicious terrorist activity. Operation TIPS, a project of the U.S. Department of Justice, will begin as a pilot program in 10 cities that will be selected.

Operation TIPS, involving 1 million workers in the pilot stage, will be a national reporting system that allows these workers, whose routines make them well-positioned to recognize unusual events, to report suspicious activity. Every participant in this new program will be given an Operation TIPS information sticker to be affixed to the cab of their vehicle or placed in some other public location so that the toll-free reporting number is readily available.

[eshu]

Already posted here

[bloggerjohn]

Well, you can curse the messenger, but things are heading in that direction, and it's even more dangerous with our man in the WH. It's Nixon to China.

If the dems were in power and did this, we'd fight it like hell. But now we won't. And the dems won't fight it cause they like this kind of stuff. Remember how Clinton tried to kill public key encryption?

[bloggerjohn]

Besides, ad hominem attacks don't tell us a damn thing. Sure, some stuff comes from nutty sources, but if it's true, it's true.

[Illbay]

Where do I sign up?

[Cap'n Crunch]

Can I get a cash advance? Got a few convenience store workers I'd like to turn in.

[bloggerjohn]

Well actually, I think my neighbor has been peeing on my rosebushes. Off he goes.

That's only half a joke. I know something like this will be abused, so make sure you're a really Pleasant person or you'll be in a lot of files.

I'm amazed so many on FR are laughing at this or just damning the source. There's still the govt. website, which is scary enough.

[spqrzilla9]

Someone needs to grow up. This article takes what is little more than a federal "Neighborhood Watch" program and casts it as a Soviet KGB.

[AmericanInTokyo]

So, what then would be your alternative plan (seeing as there are upwards of 5000 enemy agents, many capable of horrid acts of terrorism already inside the domestic United States)? What was the active involvement of the average American during the War of Independence when called upon by his new government to maintain vigilence, defend the homeland, and run out the opressors?