Posted on 07/15/2002 10:42:59 AM PDT by ExSoldier
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.
Until our government begins to act like it is truly interested in this country, I can't see this as doing anything but creating a network of snitches, who will do so for their own personal reasons, and to keep the citizenry in line for the rulers 'who know what they are doing'. (Do they ever!)
AmericanInTokyo, I will tolerate greater restrictions than already exist on the freedoms of innocent Americans ONLY when our employees have done everything possible short of shredding the Constitution to ensure our security.
"I'll/We'll make it safer" has been the traditional clarion call of tyrants in all times and in all countries. Don't be too quick to give up your rights (and everyone else's), because you'll not see them restored anytime soon (or ever). Notice how the "War on Terror" is being labeled as "indefinite?" This is a recipe for the indefinite suspension of our rights.
I see your point. But Old Ben, as good as a man he is, was not God, nor did he even envision the amount of personal liberties that were suspended both by de-facto government command and voluntarily by the American People, for a four year period during World War II. Rationing. Censorship. Suspension of certain communicative rights or rights of association. Organizations banned (German American Bund or Amaterasu Kai (Japanese). Civil defense groups, including counter espionage collaborations. Report all that is suspicious. We have been through all of this before.
Need examples?
I dispute the whole notion that we are not at war. We are indeed at war and it is against a deadly enemy. To deal with homeland defense at a time like this, with our porous borders and sleeper agents here (already proven), without a strategy that includes the cooperation of citizens to be vigilant and organized, to me seems irrational and quite silly, IMHO. I guaran damn tee you that you would not be crying out about 'liberties' from a cot on a subway platform asphixiating from sarin or VX gas. Ask Japanese attacked by Aum Shinrikyo seven years ago.
What should the "citizen spies" (clever, loaded term for sake of debate) do, then, if their neighbors fit the profile and are taking photographs of damns or bridges, or have been blabbering at strip joints that they are going to take down a tower, or are purchasing large amounts of fertilizer and Ryder trucks?
Further, I respectfully have to dispute your interpretation that we are not at war. As I write, if you are anywhere near Los Angeles, San Francisco and certainly NYC and Washington DC, your sky is being patrolled by CAP (Combat Air Patrol) on alert, with hot missiles on board, under the war operating rules to shoot to kill. What activity are our troops in Afghanistan currently engaged in? Are you aware of the Declaration of War issued against the United States by an organization called 'al-Qaeda'? Just wondering.
"I'll/We'll make it safer" has been the traditional clarion call of tyrants in all times and in all countries. Don't be too quick to give up your rights (and everyone else's), because you'll not see them restored anytime soon (or ever). Notice how the "War on Terror" is being labeled as "indefinite?" This is a recipe for the indefinite suspension of our rights.
EXTREMELY well said.
But seriously speaking, you have my curiosity now. Q: What level of national, regional or local coordination, then, do you suggest (in terms of defense against terrorist acts withing the US, and at which level, and how should it be structured, who should structure it, then?
There's your problem. Self-directed citizen vigilance is a good thing, because most people have a reasonable idea of what is worth reporting to the authorities. Citizens being organized and directed by the state is a bad thing, because the authorities are in a position to issue self-serving descriptions of what ought to be reported.
The fact that the authorities have not seen fit to take obvious measures (e.g. arming pilots, seriously tightening up on travel from known hotbeds of terrorist support) makes it very difficult to believe that their sole agenda is legitimate protection of national security.
No matter what you say - we have a right to protect our families and we will do so. I would gladly report suspicious activity, I will gladly report seeing young girls seemingly held against their wishes in a van. This same thing goes on daily right now and has even before the attack.
Americans have been spoiled into thinking they were safe in this country. That is no longer the case because there are too many ways radical groups can inflict harm if they intend to go after citizens instead of militaries. For us to ignore this fact because we don't want to have to watch those arounds us is to let it happen.
They want to take us down - they want the riches this country has because they never build anything of their own.
Our only real protection is for all citizens to band together against those trying to overtake us and show them it won't work here - we are not mindless idiots that depend on the government to defend us - we will defend ourselves too. It that means reporting that mideastern men are taking flying lessons to learn only how to take off - not how to land, then so be it.
Of course, any plan to protect this country will be an invasion to many here. They are too use to being totally safe in America. That is not the case any longer but they have not realized that yet.
The only way something would be reported is if it was suspicious. What makes them think the government wants to waste time looking at them if they are innocent when there are those out there trying to harm us?
Would they want to set old Joe up for search, mindlessly go through his computer nonsense, plow through the junk in his papers, eavesdrop on his inane conversations? What do they get from this other than death from boredom? Multiply that by hundreds of thousands of people. How much manpower does that take? How much would that cost? Surely, they have other things they would rather spend the money on. Meanwhile the terrorists are setting off their bombs.
I can believe 12, yes 12, impossible things before breakfast, but I do not for one moment believe this is being instituted solely to protect us from terrorists. If our government actually cared about terrorism they would be acting just a little like they were. Instead, we are being so politically correct, we can't protect ourselves. The government is doing just a few show and tell things to make us think they are doing something, but until they begin to profile as they should, close our borders, and stop the corruption in the visa program, there is no way they can justify this action.
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