-Caveat Lector-
Planned volunteer-informant corps
elicits '1984' fears ;)
By Ellen Sorokin
THE WASHINGTON
TIMES
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 — or
nearly 4 percent of Americans — 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 — 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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