Is your neighbor a spy? Are you a spy? ----------------------------------- US planning to recruit one in 24 Americans as citizen spies 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.
i dont know, but my neighbor is old and he wears a really tight speedo to go swimming. it makes me sad.
they should recruit me... since i run 10-15 miles everyday throughout various streets of Austin, I see people around their homes and businesses every morning! People do some odd things out there! Close your blinds!!!!
This is going WAY to far, they should just reward people who help capture a terrorist, that way the whole country is in on it. DaDakota
It's funny that a country can so criticize the USSR for using citizen informants against enemies of the state and then turn around and do it themselves. I'm too jaded now, I guess, to be sad about it. We may have East Germany beat on informants per thousand, by the way, but the USSR had 1 in 10 for awhile.
"Tis true magistrate, mine crops did wither whence the old lady did place a curse upon them. Burn her for witchcraft!" Riiiiight...
Has anyone else noticed the similarity of Bush's actions regarding the patriot act and Adolf Hitler's actions at the very beginning of the Third Reich? Just wondering...
Welcome in my friends, To the show that never ends. Step inside, step inside... Damn commies...er...I mean...terrorists!
Which group of terrorists had attached Hitler's Germany the way that we have been attacked and infiltrated by Al Qaeda? How long are you guys' arms?
He didn't say the context was the same, only the actions. Though it really sounds to me more like the USSR than Nazi Germany. You've got enemies of the state, tighter immigration rules, racial profiling, citizen informants, etc. In Stalinist Russia, they prominently reported on terror and sabotage committed by bourgeois wreckers (like the shoe-bomber, say) and traitors (like your "Johnny Jihad").
How terrible!! Our president is asking people to report suspicious terrorist activity!! The sky is falling, the sky is falling!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (guess, what? this program is already in place, and 1 out of 1 of us are supposed to participate.)
Wow, what a thread!! We are all supposed to assist law enforcement- that is our civic duty. What are you people arguing here?? Are you a "spy" if you report that a woman is getting beaten in the streets? Do you object that government is organizing an activity that is supposed to be compulsory? (I buy that argument) Geez, if the President does nothing, he isn't protecting us enough. If he takes charge and organizes the citizens to protect ourselves, then he has created a "police state".
tbagain: Of course it is our responsibility to report crime (unless we are on Seinfeld - there ya go Max!). That isn't the point. The point is, do we actually need to recruit people for a job we are already supposed to be doing? Isn't that simply a redundant law that does nothing but create even more buerocracy? In the 50's, people would rat out friends to save their own ass and claim people were commies just because they held a grudge against them. The potential for corruption only gets greater when you place a few in a position of suggested power over the rest.
Are you completely out of your friggin mind? Conscientious Americans reporting strange people casing power plants is one thing but your mail carrier reporting you to a secret agency because he once saw an Arabic looking guy at your house is a whole different ball game. The potential for massive abuse here is outrageous.
