- One of the current Administration's "anti-terror"
initiatives is slowly taking shape, and it isn't a pretty sight. TIPS,
Terrorism Information and Prevention System (www.CitizenCorps.gov/tips.html)*,
is a government plan for recruiting millions of Americans to spy and snitch
on their neighbors. The recruitment focuses on people with access to homes
and businesses, including letter carriers and utility employees.
-
- According to Ritt Goldstein, who broke the news, the
Justice Department plans that "the U.S. will have a higher percentage
of citizen informants than the former East Germany through the infamous
Stasi secret police." One in every 24 Americans will be a snitch,
which means that, assuming your acquaintance list is 150 names long, you
will know six rats personally.
-
- This is an unprecedented level of government spying on
citizens. But such spying has a long pedigree, which helps to make the
new initiative seem almost innocuous. Bill Redden describes in his book
Snitch Culture, the frightening extent to which Americans are addicted
to snitching.
-
- The scope of snitching goes way beyond direct governmental
spy operations such as COINTELPRO and Senator McCarthy's "Unamerican"
hearings. In public schools, students are invited to place anonymous calls
and rat on other students, while teachers and counselors are encouraged
to report "anti-social" tendencies to the police. At work, employers
require workers to report on other workers, hire detectives to spy on workers
and question neighbors on workers' private lives. Neighbors are asked to
call the police if they suspect someone's child is crying too much. Hospital
workers are asked to inform the police about the drug habits of patients.
The IRS wants to know what you think of your neighbor's new Lexus, etc.
-
- The media endorses the snitching culture with reality
television shows in which participants assess one another for the camera,
or shows like the Jerry Springer Show, in which guests are publicly humiliated
by revelations from relatives and old lovers. Crime shows invite the public
to report suspects they might know, and stories about relatives or spouses
ratting on each other to law enforcement agencies are given prominent and
sympathetic coverage in the news.
-
- Snitches and informants are usually associated with authoritarian,
and often totalitarian, regimes. The infamous Stasi police in East Germany
has won notoriety for their extensive snitch files. Other brutal regimes
invest in large secret police forces that specialize in recruiting and
handling informants. The regimes of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Israel all
rely extensively on such methods.
-
- The official explanation is always that informants are
needed to foresee and prevent security threats or violence. The justification
for TIPS is no different. But there is another aspect of snitching that
is equally important to the rulers, an aspect that George Orwell explored
in depth in his acclaimed novel, 1984.
-
-
- Snitching creates a culture of paranoia. It isolates
people, breaks down social solidarity, and prevents exchange of information
between members of society. Everyone becomes obsessed with watching their
own back. Nobody is a friend. Nobody can be trusted.
-
- Snitching creates a culture in which every encounter
between two citizens is mediated by authority: Big Brother is always in
the room with you. And even if it isn't, you have to behave as if it is.
The ubiquity of authority is the essence of totalitarianism.
-
- Many people, after reading the official Citizen Corps
web page, will say that TIPS is really no big deal. After all, what can
be so wrong about citizens notifying the government about what looks to
them as terrorist related activity?
-
- A lot, actually. People don't know what terror activity
looks like. To the casual eye, preparing for a terror attack can look like
just about anything. Professional terrorists don't look like professional
terrorists. They look like me and you. Informants will report instead on
whatever fits their prejudices - odd haircuts, books in Arabic, posters
of Che Guevara, disparaging comments about the intelligence of the President,
etc. Some of them will invent stories to harm people because they hold
a grudge against them. Others will use their imagination to make themselves
loved by their handlers.
-
- TIPS will create new governmental files on citizens,
useful for harassment and abuse, and not much else. It will increase the
paranoia and suspiciousness of American society, driving it one step closer
to George Orwell's dystopia. That is a high price to pay for pretending
to increase our safety. It is a suicidal response to the terrorist suicide
attack on September 11.
-
- If TIPS doesn't seem outrageous, it is because Americans
have already accepted a significant degree of totalitarianism and the decline
of civil society that is totalitarianism's essential counterpart. The breakdown
of sociability and the "crisis of trust" is one of the few things
the left and the right in America agree upon**. The culture of snitching
is both a symptom and a precipitant of this crisis.
-
- During the last election campaign George W. Bush told
us he found Jesus. If TIPS is any evidence, perhaps he found Judas, and,
being under the influence, mistook him for Jesus.
-
- (Rats disclaimer: the last sentence, and all other explicit
and implied criticism of the government of the United States, were made
in jest only. The author is actually a great admirer and fervent supporter
of our great president and most pious leader, George W. Bush, hammer of
terrorists and slayer of evil states. God bless him.)
-
- * On July 16, 2002, after information on TIPS began attracting
media attention, the content of the page changed. In particular, information
relevant to calculating the size of TIPS was excised. This column as well
as Goldstein's refer therefore to information that is no longer public.
The old page will remain viewable for a while in the google cache.
-
- ** see Robert D. Putnam's Bowling Alone: The Collapse
and Revival of American Community, and Francis Fukuyama's Trust: The Social
Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity. ___
-
- Gabriel Ash was born in Romania and grew up in Israel.
He is an unabashed "opssimist." He writes his columns because
the pen is sometimes mightier than the sword - and sometimes not. Gabriel
lives in the United States.
-
- Gabriel Ash encourages your comments: gash@YellowTimes.org
http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=495
|
