Then why the need for the new program?
There are only two distinct possiblilities:
1. TIPS grants no new powers to authorities, and is a useless program.
2. TIPS grants new powers to authorities, and these new powers can (and will) be abused.
So, which is it?
You and our current Republican administration don't seem to give a rat's a$$ about the Constitution and Bill of Rights, particularly the protection against unreasonable search. Sending in an agent in the form of a furnace repair man who has the power to look around and report any activities that HE thinks are suspicious, which then goes into a record you can never access is, in my opinion, a violation of the Fourth Amendment.