[ale] [www.washtimes.com] [OT] Planned volunteer-informant corps elicits 1984' fears

Fri Jul 19 11:43:03 EDT 2002

swillms at mail.sis.pitt.edu has sent you an article from The
Washington Times.

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PLANNED VOLUNTEER-INFORMANT CORPS ELICITS '1984' FEARS

Ellen Sorokin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

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As part of the country's war against terrorism, the Bush
administration by next month wants to recruit a million
letter carriers, utility workers and others whose jobs allow
them access to private homes into a contingent of organized
government informants.

The Terrorism Information and Prevention System (Operation
TIPS), a national reporting pilot program, is scheduled to
start next month in 10 cities, with 1 million informants Â—
or nearly 4 percent of Americans Â— initially participating
in the program. 

The program will allow volunteers, whose routines make them
well-positioned to recognize suspect activities, to report
the same to the Justice Department, which is running the
project. The Justice Department will enter the information
into a database, which will then be broadly available within
the department, and to state and local agencies and local
police forces. At local and state levels, the program will
be coordinated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Operation TIPS is one part of President Bush's new volunteer
Citizen Corps program that urges Americans to keep their
neighborhoods safe. The program is described on the
government Web site www.citizencorps.gov.

"This broad network of volunteer efforts will harness the
power of the American people by relying on their individual
skills and interests to prepare local communities to
effectively prevent and respond to the threats of terrorism,
crime, or any kind of disaster," the program's description
on the Web site states. 

The program has already alarmed several civil liberties
groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the
Rutherford Institute, which say the administration should
not allow TIPS to become "an end run around the
Constitution."

Critics say that having Americans act as "domestic
informants" is reminiscent of the infamous Stasi, the
new-disbanded communist East German secret police service
that snooped on dissidents and ordinary East German citizens
for more than 40 years, compiling a huge catalogue of notes.

Rachel King, an ACLU legislative counsel, said yesterday the
organization is concerned that law enforcement will use the
volunteers, especially those whose occupations allow them to
enter homes and monitor residents Â— to search people's
residences, without a warrant. She said that the
organization is also worried that the program will adversely
affect the fight against terrorism by wasting resources on
useless tips and that the program will encourage vigilantism
and racial profiling.

"The administration apparently wants to implement a program
that will turn local cable or gas or electrical technicians
into government-sanctioned peeping Toms," Miss King said. 

John Whitehead, executive director of the Rutherford
Institute, agreed.

"This is George Orwell's '1984.' It's an absolutely horrible
and very dangerous idea," he said. "It's making Americans
into government snoops. President Bush wants the average
American to do what the FBI should be doing. In the end,
though, nothing is going to prevent terrorists from crashing
planes into buildings."

A Justice Department official in charge of answering
questions about Operation TIPS was out of the office
yesterday and not available for comment.

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This article was mailed from The Washington Times
(http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020716-75882632.htm)
For more great articles, visit us at
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