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.
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 coordinated
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.
