8 of you are spies....

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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.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/07/14/1026185141232.html