- 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. Top Stories
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- "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.
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- 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."
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- "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.
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- John Whitehead, executive director of the Rutherford
Institute, agreed.
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- "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."
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- 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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- http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020716-75882632.htm
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