-Caveat Lector- http://home.post-dispatch.com/channel/pdweb.nsf/TodayMonday/86256A0E0068FE50 86256B9C00371912?OpenDocument&PubWrapper=Editorial
This story was published in Editorial on Monday, April 15, 2002. SNOOPING ON NEIGHBOR By Robert Joiner Desperate is a word I never thought I'd use to describe Attorney General John Ashcroft. But that was before he made the National Neighborhood Watch program an unofficial arm of the Office of Homeland Security. Has the FBI's trail gone cold already? There are plenty of reasons to worry about the attorney general's neighbor-against-neighbor approach, which harks back to Cold War days and fear-mongering. Because untrained members of watch programs lack the expertise to identify terrorists, it probably means they would snoop on every Arab or Muslim in a given neighborhood. That's racial profiling in the extreme, guaranteed to encourage ethnic scapegoating. Don't you find it strange that this same attorney general never asked any of us to keep an eye on right wing groups after Timothy McVeigh did the unthinkable? Perhaps this Ashcroft announcement was done mainly for public relations. Ed McMahon, the former "Tonight Show" sidekick and current Neighborhood Watch spokesman, said the group's expanded focus was "in the great tradition of American volunteerism." This doesn't sound like a campaign to put unarmed neighborhood volunteers on the trail of potentially dangerous suspects. Instead, it sounds like a government campaign to make us feel safer. If that's what the administration is shooting for, it's trampling on an awful lot of our rights to get there. In this war, President George W. Bush has even given children a role. To find out what stories the White House is feeding your kids about what good citizens are supposed to do to thwart terrorism, go to www.whitehouse.gov/kids. There you'll meet Lydia, a Philadelphia woman who foiled a sneak British attack -- we didn't call it terrorism then -- against our country on Dec. 4, 1777. She overheard British military leaders planning the assault when they were guests in her home. She mentioned this to nobody, not even her husband. Instead, she crossed British lines to alert Gen. George Washington's army. Arriving for what it had expected to be a sneak attack at Valley Forge, the British Army canceled the operation after finding Washington's men armed and waiting. One point of this story seems to be that all of us, youngsters included, have a duty to spy on others for Uncle Sam. Another more disturbing message seems to be that youngsters need not tell their parents what information they have gathered to pass on to the government, just like Lydia. Then there are those government television ads in which drug users are supposed to equate snorting cocaine with financing terrorism. That's because some associates of Osama bin Laden get their funding partly through trafficking in drugs. I don't think those ads are going to convert many junkies. Besides, it's a hypocritical message. Terrorists finance their operations through illicit diamond trade too, but I have yet to hear anybody in the administration urge us to boycott diamonds. During the Reagan administration, however, some groups called for a diamond boycott as a way to pressure mineral-rich South Africa to dismantle apartheid. Donald T. Regan, the White House chief of staff, warned a group of reporters that sanctions would hurt the United States, because the U.S. counts on South Africa as a supplier of strategic minerals, such as manganese, platinum, rhodium, chromium and diamonds. But the most telling line was this: "Are the women of America prepared to give up all their jewelry?" he asked. Not that he took a poll to find out. Probably didn't even ask his wife. Oh, but he may have consulted his stock portfolio. Back when we didn't have a CIA, FBI, DEA, Customs and Office of Homeland Security, folks like Lydia probably were crucial to our ability to weed out suspicious characters bent on ruining our tea party. But snooping on genuine terrorists is a dangerous business. That is why we spend billions of dollars a year on police agencies that are supposed to keep us safe. Asking neighbors to be vigilant isn't a bad idea in these times unless it causes us to turn profane eyes on every American or immigrant who happens to be Muslim or Arab. That would encourage intolerance and poison the atmosphere; it already has been tainted too much since Sept. 11. Robert Joiner is an editorial writer for the Post-Dispatch. [EMAIL PROTECTED] <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! 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