- America, humility has never been thy forte! We are the
arrogant masters of the game of one-upmanship in a nation known for its
excesses where bigger is better and having more is a measure of personal
status. We are a land of super-sized fries, giant soft-drinks, king-sized
burgers and overall superfluous portions, and we have the mega-sized waistlines
to prove it!
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- We drive the biggest, most wasteful, gas-guzzling vehicles
on the planet. The world's most gluttonous consumers of natural resources,
we spew forth the most pollution of any nation. We live in homes that are
virtual palaces compared to the living quarters of most of the population
in the rest of the world.
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- We own gargantuan-sized TV's purchased in city-sized
shopping malls. We have many of the world's tallest skyscrapers and are
home to mammoth, predatory corporations. We brag of having the largest
military equipped with the world's most extensive arsenal of high-tech
weapons of mass destruction bar none.
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- Today, we are standing on the threshold of the addition
of yet another superlative to our long, dubious list of boasts: soon we
are to be the largest police state that has ever existed. Our government,
under the pretext of homeland security, is in the process of creating a
division of secret informants whose scope promises to far surpass the level
of spying achieved by the Stasi, secret police, in former Communist East
Germany.
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- Brainchild of the Department of Justice, the Terrorism
Information and Prevention System, otherwise known as Operation TIPS, falls
under the Citizen Corps division of the USA Freedom Corps established earlier
this year by executive order. According to the Citizen Corps website (www.citizencorps.gov),
Operation TIPS will be "a nationwide program giving millions of American
truckers, letter carriers, train conductors, ship captains, utility employees,
and others a formal way to report suspicious terrorist activity."
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- The pilot stage, set to begin this August, will be set
up in 10 cities across the nation and will involve 1 million workers whose
jobs place them in the unique position to go where regular law enforcement
officials routinely cannot enter without permission or a warrant - namely,
into the homes of unsuspecting U.S. residents.
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- Based upon their training on what to observe and listen
for with regards to suspicious and potentially terrorist-related activities,
these volunteers, using a toll-free hotline number, are expected to report
back to the appropriate law enforcement authorities anything they may have
seen or overheard. This information will then be entered into a database
available to the Justice Department, related agencies and local police
forces for future reference or action without the targeted individuals
ever having been made aware of either the existence or the contents of
such a report.
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- While Operation TIPS is said to be an expansion and extension
of Neighborhood Watch, a popular crime prevention program in place in many
communities throughout the nation, it ventures far beyond the spirit of
any well-intended vigilance against crime by cutting right into the very
sphere and heart of privacy expressed in the commonly accepted phrase,
"My home is my castle."
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- The next cable TV or dishwasher repair person who enters
your home could now very possibly be a government spy. Who is to say that
your kid's science project - replete with wires, switches, metal tubes
and batteries - laid out on the dining room table will not be mistaken
for the makings of some sort of terrorist bomb? Or that a copy of "The
International Socialist Review, a Journal of Revolutionary Marxism,"
on one's coffee table will not raise a suspicious eyebrow and unfounded
fears of potentially subversive, unpatriotic behavior?
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- Our government officials have twisted the Miranda Rights
which advise you upon arrest that "anything you say, can and shall
be used against you in a court of law" to include anything "suspicious"
you may say, do, listen to, or read in the privacy of your own home can
and will be used against you!
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- Several civil liberties groups, including the American
Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Rutherford Institute, are very much
alarmed by the prospect of Operation TIPS serving to further undermine
our Constitutional rights currently under attack by the USA Patriot Act.
In an interview conducted by Bill Berkowitz, ACLU President Nadine Strossen
warns of "potential ethnic and religious scapegoating," destructive
"fear-mongering," and "the erosion of basic civil liberties
in the name of unproven security measures."
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- The "unproven security measures" she is speaking
about perhaps refer back to the track record of the Neighborhood Watch
program on which Operation TIPS is based. The results of most research
concerning the effectiveness of Neighborhood Watch in reducing crime rates
have been mixed at best. Although some studies show some level of success,
specifically in terms of burglary and property crimes, more extensive studies
conducted in Chicago came up inconclusive, with some areas showing decreases,
some increases, and some showing no change. Extensive research done in
Minneapolis in the late 80's also found no significant differences in crime
rates.
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- There is also the strong possibility that by "unproven
security measures" Strossen is alluding to the problems inherent in
relying on informants for one's information. Cited in a July 15 article
by Ritt Goldstein, a 1992 report by Harvard University's Project on Justice
calls into serious question the accepted practice of using informants:
"The accuracy of informant reports is problematic, with some informants
having embellished the truth, and others suspected of having fabricated
their reports."
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- Representative Dennis Kucinich's quote in The Progressive
should be regarded not merely as a statement of observation but as the
warning it is: "It appears we are being transformed from an information
society to an informant society." A discerning look back into history
reveals that such informant systems have been the tool of choice among
non-democratic states in controlling and eliminating "undesirables"
within the populace.
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- At least one branch of our government service agencies
refuses to be part and parcel to this invasion of our homes and privacy.
According to a Bloomberg release in the local Metro paper, "Officials
of the U.S. Postal Service have refused to have mail carriers participate
in a government program.... proposed by President Bush as part of a terrorism
prevention program." Even the Washington Post has voiced its reservations
about this highly questionable spy program, "It is easy to imagine
how such a program might produce little or no useful information but would
flood law enforcement with endless suspicions that would divert authorities
from more promising investigative avenues."
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- While vigilance is generally a commendable practice,
especially if carried out by caring neighbors who know and speak to one
another and are attuned to the daily routines within their own neighborhood,
Operation TIPS runs the danger of turning trusted family members, friends,
neighbors, hired workers, and public employees into cynical spies seeking
to augment their own egos by being declared the next U.S. hero for doing
their part to turn in "suspicious," unpatriotic, anti-American
"terrorists." After all, who among us would not like to be a
real, honest-to-goodness, American hometown hero? No doubt, there are millions
of our fellow citizens out there just itching at the chance to be an official
spy for Uncle Sam.
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- More and more, under the pretense of "security measures"
as dictated by the ever-expanding reach of the Office of Homeland Security,
the USA is becoming a mirror image of the dreadful, freedomless society
so eloquently described in George Orwell's 1984.
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- It is all the more imperative that we remain vigilant
and outspoken against any and all measures our government is undertaking
to intrude into the private lives of its citizens, lest we, too, like 1984's
Winston Smith, find ourselves one day furtively writing in a forbidden
journal: "You had to live - did live, from the habit that became instinct
- in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except
in darkness, every movement scrutinized."
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- Doreen Miller lived, studied, worked and traveled abroad
for several years, and is currently a Senior Lecturer and educator of international
students. She dedicates part of her time to serving the elderly and Alzheimer
patients. Mother, musician and poet, she pursues an avid interest in Buddhist
and Eastern philosophy. She advocates human rights, social justice, fair
trade, and environmental protection. Doreen lives in the United States.
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- Doreen Miller encourages your comments: dmiller@YellowTimes.org
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- http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=518
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