From: Scribe1865-AT-aol.com
Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2002 21:17:46 EDT
Subject: Fascism or Security?



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Check out the two reports below. The first, from the government webpage; the 
second, from an alternative press site. Who to believe? If you are convinced 
that the government is pure evil, you believe the second report. If you think 
the government is merely trying to prevent terror attacks, you believe the 
first report. Who to believe?

When evaluating this, I try to consider the limited budget of the Justice 
Department, their constitutional charter, and the fact that they may be 
deluged with false leads. But I would also remember that Ashcroft's running 
the DOJ show, and may be pushing some darker agenda. 

Who to believe? Precisely the point we've been debating all along. Instead of 
debating abstractions, we would do well to follow the progress of this 
initiative.
Eric
NYC

COMPARE THIS PROGRAM [http://www.citizencorps.gov/tips.html]

Operation TIPS - the Terrorism Information and Prevention System - 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. Operation TIPS, a project of the 
U.S. Department of Justice, will begin as a pilot program in 10 cities that 
will be selected. Operation TIPS, involving 1 million workers in the pilot 
stage, will be a national reporting system that allows these workers, whose 
routines make them well-positioned to recognize unusual events, to report 
suspicious activity. Every participant in this new program will be given an 
Operation TIPS information sticker to be affixed to the cab of their vehicle 
or placed in some other public location so that the toll-free reporting 
number is readily available. Everywhere in America, a concerned worker can 
call a toll-free number and be connected directly to a hotline routing calls 
to the proper law enforcement agency or other responder organizations when 
appropriate. 

TO THIS REPORT OF THE SAME PROGRAM  

US planning to recruit one in 24 Americans as citizen spies
By Ritt Goldstein
July 15 2002
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 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.







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