"US Planning to Recruit One in 24 Americans as Citizen Spies
Yes, Mark ... this is worth another look, I believe:
truthout.org
By Ritt Goldstein
Sunday Morning Herald | SMH.com.au
Monday, 15 July, 2002
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.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is
distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational
purposes.)
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