Informant Fever

If, starting next month, your neighbors begin showing unexpected interest in your travel plans, your cable TV repairman asks what magazines you subscribe to and the pizza delivery boy starts trying to draw you out about your views on the Middle East, it could be that everyone is just getting a lot friendlier. But it is more likely that you are being engaged by some of the early participants in the Terrorism Information and Prevention System, or TIPS. The Bush administration plans to enlist millions of Americans to spy on their fellow Americans, and to feed that information into a centralized database. This ill-considered domestic spying program should be stopped before it starts.

The Bush administration, which plans to start the program in the late summer or early fall, is in discussions with industry groups whose members might be enlisted to engage in spying. Early descriptions of how TIPS will work have mentioned mail carriers, utility workers and train conductors as the kinds of employees who might be in a position to pass on useful information. The Justice Department insists it does not intend TIPS participants to collect information in people's homes, but it is unclear how that will be prevented.

Even if it is limited to public places, the program is offensive. The idea of citizens spying on citizens, and the government collecting data on everyone who is accused, is a staple of totalitarian regimes. East Germany's infamous Stasi internal security system kept files on some six million citizens — about a third of the country. Fortunately, TIPS is already facing opposition. The American Civil Liberties Union, not surprisingly, has denounced the program. But so, too, has Dick Armey, the House Republican leader. The Postal Service has already expressed serious reservations about participating. And the initial version of the bill to create a Homeland Security Department, introduced by Mr. Armey, includes language that would prevent TIPS from going forward.

The Bush administration's post-Sept. 11 anti-terrorism tactics — secret detentions of suspects, denial of the right to trial and now citizen spying — have in common a lack of faith in democratic institutions and a free society. If TIPS is ever put into effect, the first people who should be turned in as a threat to our way of life are the Justice Department officials who thought up this most un-American of programs.

Are you a Domestic Terrorist?

* Do you consider yourself to be a "defender" of the U.S. Constitution against the federal government and the UN?

* Have you ever asked an officer why you have been pulled over?

* Do you make numerous references to the U.S. Constitution?

* Do you believe in animal rights?

* Are you a lone individual?

!! CAUTION !!
If you answered "Yes" to any of these questions, the FBI says
you fit the profile of a domestic terrorist.

"If you encounter any of the following,
Call the Joint Terrorism Task Force"
- Phoenix FBI Information Sheet regarding Domestic Terrorism (.pdf)

According to the information sheet (available in .pdf format, above) created by the Phoenix, AZ, FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force, these situations could get you branded as a potential domestic terrorist. This sheet was designed to "assist uniformed patrol officers in identifying potential domestic terrorism."

If TIPS is going to happen, we have to get a lot of good guys involved or else the bad guys will cream us with it. Many of us don't like big government and we avoid being part of it. As a result, government is disproportionately peopled by the bad guys and we wind up on the losing end. Things we don't like won't go away just because we don't like them; they won't go away just because we don't support them; they won't go away just because we ignore them.... The opposite happens — they get worse. If we are not part of it, it can't be good.

My comments on this same subject as they were submitted to anther string.

GW Bush has deserted his base. He has done an about face on almost every promise he made to the Conservatives when he was seeking the presidency.

Now it appears from the proposals he has set forth lately, he is only interested in increasing and consolidating his power. We have much to fear from his VIP program and his proposal for a "Department of Homeland Defense". The later sounds like something from the old Soviet Union.

We already have a "Defense Department" whose function is supposed to be to protect our country from outside attack. Why do we need a new bureaucracy, stripping us of our god given freedoms to satisfy the lust for power by our current crop of dishonest politicians? Let's use the laws we already have in place to provide the "Security" that so many wimps feel we need. We have survived for more than 200 years without these unneeded bureaucracies, and will continue to survive as a World Power only if we maintain our freedoms rather than give them up to a Totalitarian Government.

The enenmy we have to fear the most is ensconced in the White House the Capitol and the SCOTUS. The politicians on both sides of the aisle who have betrayed their oath of office to defend the Constitution. By betraying their oath of office, they come under the Constitutional definion of Treason.

Let's clean out the Washington Establishment and return this country to what the Founders planned, A Free Republic.

And to those of you who feel that it is OK to give up a little liberty in exchange for "Security", I say that if you were only giving away your own freedoms that would be acceptible to me, but when you give away my freedoms, those of my children and my grandchildren, you are giving away something that is not your to give. These freedoms were won by the blood, sweat and tears of those who fought for them and ought not to be given up freely.

That's my opinion

GW Bush has deserted his base.

His base is not monolithic.

Now it appears from the proposals he has set forth lately, he is only interested in increasing and consolidating his power.

That's what politicians and political parties do. It's called getting reelected and keeping the other guys out of power.

We have much to fear from his VIP program and his proposal for a "Department of Homeland Defense". The later sounds like something from the old Soviet Union.

These programs are coming whether we like it or not. So, it would be in our best interest to be involved in running these programs. We keep ceding these things to the Liberals to our detriment.

We already have a "Defense Department" whose function is supposed to be to protect our country from outside attack.

We're not talking about outside attacks. The mechanisms for dealing with inside attacks need some serious rework/consolidation.

Why do we need a new bureaucracy, stripping us of our god given freedoms to satisfy the lust for power by our current crop of dishonest politicians?

The current bureaucracy is doing that quite well. Some big time consolidation is overdue. They're not all dishonest...yet. And...all sides believe that God is on their side, so let's leave God alone for a while.

We have survived for more than 200 years without these unneeded bureaucracies,...

During that time bureaucracies were created and expanded at all levels of government. There was no status quo.

The enenmy we have to fear the most is ensconced in the White House the Capitol and the SCOTUS. The politicians on both sides of the aisle who have betrayed their oath of office to defend the Constitution. By betraying their oath of office, they come under the Constitutional definion of Treason.

Self-defeating ranting.

Let's clean out the Washington Establishment and return this country to what the Founders planned, A Free Republic.

OK.

And to those of you who feel that it is OK to give up a little liberty in exchange for "Security", I say that if you were only giving away your own freedoms...

That's the nature of all forms of government. It's just a matter of degree.

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