> US planning to recruit one in 24 Americans as citizen spies
> By Ritt Goldstein
> July 15 2002
>
>
>
> http://smh.com.au/articles/2002/07/14/1026185141232.html
>
> The Bush Administration aims to recruit millions of United States citizens
> as domestic informants in a program likely to alarm civil liberties
groups.
>
> The Terrorism Information and Prevention System, or TIPS, means the US
will
> have a higher percentage of citizen informants than the former East
Germany
> through the infamous Stasi secret police. The program would use a minimum
of
> 4 per cent of Americans to report "suspicious activity".
>
> Civil liberties groups have already warned that, with the passage earlier
> this year of the Patriot Act, there is potential for abusive, large-scale
> investigations of US citizens.
>
> As with the Patriot Act, TIPS is being pursued as part of the so-called
war
> against terrorism. It is a Department of Justice project.
>
> Highlighting the scope of the surveillance network, TIPS volunteers are
> being recruited primarily from among those whose work provides access to
> homes, businesses or transport systems. Letter carriers, utility
employees,
> truck drivers and train conductors are among those named as targeted
> recruits.
>
>
>
> advertisement
>
> advertisement
>
> A pilot program, described on the government Web site
www.citizencorps.gov,
> is scheduled to start next month in 10 cities, with 1 million informants
> participating in the first stage. Assuming the program is initiated in the
> 10 largest US cities, that will be 1 million informants for a total
> population of almost 24 million, or one in 24 people.
>
> Historically, informant systems have been the tools of non-democratic
> states. According to a 1992 report by Harvard University's Project on
> Justice, the accuracy of informant reports is problematic, with some
> informants having embellished the truth, and others suspected of having
> fabricated their reports.
>
> Present Justice Department procedures mean that informant reports will
enter
> databases for future reference and/or action. The information will then be
> broadly available within the department, related agencies and local police
> forces. The targeted individual will remain unaware of the existence of
the
> report and of its contents.
>
> The Patriot Act already provides for a person's home to be searched
without
> that person being informed that a search was ever performed, or of any
> surveillance devices that were implanted.
>
> At state and local levels the TIPS program will be co-ordinated by the
> Federal Emergency Management Agency, which
>
> was given sweeping new powers, including internment, as part of the Reagan
> Administration's national security initiatives. Many key figures of the
> Reagan era are part of the Bush Administration.
>
> The creation of a US "shadow government", operating in secret, was another
> Reagan national security initiative.
>
> Ritt Goldstein is an investigative journalist and a former leader in the
> movement for US law enforcement accountability. He has lived in Sweden
since
> 1997, seeking political asylum there, saying he was the victim of
> life-threatening assaults in retaliation for his accountability efforts.
His
> application has been supported by the European Parliament, five of
Sweden's
> seven big political parties, clergy, and Amnesty and other rights groups.
>
>
>
>