American Stasi?

Hobbes

http://www.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".

Chaos-Engine

Ala "1984 - George Orwell"

JustHalf

You ever read that book?

Aspro

Historically, informant systems have been the tools of non-democratic states.

Say no more.

How long before the so-called "war against terrorism" becomes a war against anyone who challenges the vested interests and the status quo?

"Winston sat in his usual corner, gazing into an empty glass. Now and again he glanced up at a vast face which eyed him from the opposite wall. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption said. "

JustHalf

Mmh, that's paranoia for you.

Hobbes

I preferred "Brazil"

DON'T SUSPECT YOUR FRIENDS! REPORT THEM!

JustHalf

Pah. Here's one better.

KILL ALL DISSENTERS, OR YOU ARE A DISSENTER, AND WILL BE KILLED, DISSENTER

deco

In a wierd way it is really similar to the Chinese informant system.

Under Mao, there was no real real need for a KGB or CIA type organisation because the state just used huge networks of ordinary people as informants who just reported people who were acting "suspiciously" to the police....

Scary that the CIA is attempting to use the same tactic....

In the New World Order, Big Brother is the kid across the street playing hop-scoch with his sister or the co-woker you share a friendly coffee with at lunch....

Scary enough.....

pencil

Originally posted by deco

Scary that the CIA is attempting to use the same tactic....

In the New World Order, Big Brother is the kid across the street playing hop-scoch with his sister or the co-woker you share a friendly coffee with at lunch....

Scary enough.....

What's scary is the fact that they are almost there!

It's going to be one hell of a Fu@ked up country to live in.

A rich elite, presiding over a society of under-educated, poorly paid sub-class, who spy on each other for healthcare tokens - while taking turns filling the world biggest prison population and/or working for a below living standard minimum wage.

Sounds like a pre-Revoltution French Disneyland, it's only a matter of time before the ask for that statue back!

mike65

If TIPS becomes a reality and is allowed to become a de-facto
part of US life then it'll be the end of the United States as
an economic superpower after all how can anyone be productive if they're paraniod and watching thier backs? I can't think of any
country that had used such methods of spying that has prospered.

Mike.

Hobbes

The website has been changed!

Here is what it orginally said ( thanks google cache )

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.

Operation TIPS is coming in August 2002.
Volunteer now!

pencil

From:
http://www.citizencorps.gov/faq.html

'I am a U.S. citizen living abroad, what can I do to participate?
Service, responsibility, and citizenship may be fulfilled in many different ways. Learning about how to be better prepared for emergencies is at the heart of Citizen Corps. Contact your embassy for information on volunteer programs where you are living and on how you can offer your talents and services.'

O Sh!t, does this mean I'm going to have to stop ranting about American foreign policy when I'm down the local?!

If I know of an American Citizen taking part in this program while living here in Ireland, can I make a citizen's arrest on this person for Spying? surely I can, can't wait to see one of those stickers!

edited spelling

Lex_Diamonds

Looks like those survivalists in America arent so crazy after all.

ReefBreak

Well, I think you lot are over-reacting. The Sydney Morning Herald have put a rather silly, paranoid spin on it. After reading the version quoted by Hobbes, it looks like nothing more than a nationwide Neighbourhood Watch Scheme:

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.

I really don't think you can compare this to the East German Stasi. In fact, you had a similar scheme in Northern Ireland: the confidential phone line used to report information on terrorist activity. Not sure if was used that much, but it was good that it was there.

As an aside, 1984 is always used in debates like these. e.g. CC Cameras were opposed using the old Big Brother/1984 argument. In fact, what they actually do is find the knacker that nicked your wallet.

Typedef

Four legs good
Two legs bad.

<<Go Team>>


We control matter, because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull. I could float off this floor like a soap bubble if I wished to. I do not wish to, because the Party does not wish it.

Victor

Originally posted by ReefBreak
In fact, what they actually do is find the knacker that nicked your wallet.

Well, it shows someone taking what might be your wallet, a lot of cameras are actually quite fuzzy.

Hobbes

Originally posted by ReefBreak
I really don't think you can compare this to the East German Stasi. In fact, you had a similar scheme in Northern Ireland: the confidential phone line used to report information on terrorist activity. Not sure if was used that much, but it was good that it was there.

The other sections of citizen corps runs like a neighbourhood watch scheme.

The TIPS section is different. It uses everyday workers (postal, cable guys, bin men, etc) to spy. So when the cable guy comes in to set up your TV he could be conducting what would be called an illegal search if a cop was to come in.

Also the name is very apt as I'm sure you'd be reported as a subversive if you didn't TIP the guy.

While the rest of citizen corps seems fine I think the TIPS part is pushing the limit of what Americans expect of how they live. The fact they reworded their website would seem to suggest they know this.

Von

Surely only muzzies have to worry about this sort of thing.

And nig nogs.

And communists.

And longhairs.

And anyone who's got a noam chomsky book in the house.

JustHalf

OH NOE!!!!

Gosh, the paranoia is ceaseless.

Bob the Unlucky Octopus

That's got to be the funniest thing I've read in a looong time. The best part is, the sheer number of people who read Ritt Goldstein's tripe and actually lend credence to it.

TIPS' mandate (at present an executive pilot mandate) simply states:

"A national system for
concerned workers to report
suspicious activity."

Now that doesn't seem to resemble the Stasi much to me- the idea behind the Stasi was to create a powerful loyal core of civilian support for a one party state. The idea behind TIPS is basically an information hotline for reporting suspicious activity. Now I personally see nothing wrong with that- most nations, including Britain have a national provision of emergency measures, some of whose principles amount to martial law. TIPS simply seems to be a direct point of contact between federal agencies and concerned citizens reporting suspicious activity. No ranks are accrued, no reports published, and no powers of arrest/confinement are surrendered- what's the big hubub? Besides: There are three reasons this won't get out of hand, as some posters have theatrically suggested.

Reason #1: Local government feedback is not an acceptable circumstance of public interests immunity prosecution. In other words, if a local legal condition had to be tested in a state court, the federal government cannot claim a context of public interests and shut relevant information out of the courtroom.

Reason #2: Executive pilot schemes have a maximum of 90 days grace to prove their effectiveness. The DOJ will be required to submit, before the Senate and House Law and Order committe, evidence to suggest marked improvement over the status quo. If the DOJ is unable to substantiate this through independent sources, the comittee stops their funding, and it's back to the drawing board for Ashcroft & co.

Reason #3: The bad thing about the Stasi wasn't that it included a gaggle of informers. The problem was first: the secret police always believed the informers, and second: those detained were never given a fair trial. Even before TIPS, anyone could call their local police department and say: "There's some suspicous fag0t on my landing," or some such tripe that's probably been spouted a billion times since 9/11...the police aren't going to send 20 cops around to the place and beat this "suspicious fag0t" to a pulp, drag him off, and throw him/her in a cell without recourse to legal advice. That's what the Stasi did...I can't see ol' trucker Cletus pulling off a citizen's arrest on a dangerous terrorist either. So why the scaremongering?

As for FEMA and the billion-and-one conspiracy theories surrounding it- emergency measures are an important part in the thought process of any government. As a matter of interest, FEMA is a civil department, even its chair is appointed independently by the House Intelligence committee. Ritt Goldstein loves misleading a captive audience via omission of circumstance. After all, if he didn't, his conspiracy theory of being relentlessly pursued by CIA assassins (remarkably incompetent assassins it has to be said, if they've let him write this sh1t for 5 years and more)- that conspiracy theory would be blown straight out of the water if he actually showed us the whole picture. No matter, for every Ritt Goldstein-style whistleblowing conspiracy theorist there are 100,000 responsible journalists willing to weigh the background before penning an elaborate tale about the end of the world.

There is one amusing problem with this TIPS system though- and it's abuse- it's the old floodgate problem. Take a city like New York just for argument's sake. Now it's an A OK city for the most part...but let's face it, NYC has a disproportionate number of weirdos, nutbags, and generally strange folk. There are two scenarios I envisage. The first is one where everybody in NY, realizing that everybody around them suddenly looks a lot more suspicious, begins flooding the TIPS call center. TIPS becomes overwhelmed, and the Justic department's total workload is suddenly doubled. The second scenario is possibly worse. This is one where everybody in NY, used to living in their unique environ, can't be bothered to call (realizing that most of it is paranoid scaremongering anyway). Leaving aside the enormous tax cost for a moment, think about the excuses the administration as a whole presented as to why 9/11 was allowed to happen. The reason was that there were just too many damn threats to assess. Over 2,000 a day after filtering...and now you're going to add more to this mix? Some poor receptionist at the NSA is going to have to sift through calls which will likely include Farmer Did L. E. Squat ringing up from The Middle of Nowhere, Maine, about "some suspicious gook" hanging around near his barnyard. What's the government going to do, dispatch a 40-man SWAT team? Nah, the feds have boned themselves good this time, and how.

Occy

pencil

Originally posted by Bob the Unlucky Octopus
Reason #3: ................and second: those detained were never given a fair trial.

...........the police aren't going to send 20 cops around to the place and beat this "suspicious fag0t" to a pulp, drag him off, and throw him/her in a cell without recourse to legal advice. That's what the Stasi did...I can't see ol' trucker .........

So why the scaremongering?

Occy

Bob, you seem to miss or ignore the fact that this has & is already happening!

Currently, as I type, i.e. right NOW, there are over 2,000 'non-nationals' who are being illegally held by the US government under suspicion of being terrorists. These peoples families have had no contact with them in months, they do not even know where they are. These people (probably all Arabs) are being held without ANY recourse to legal advice. No lawyers, no court, no visits from anyone. They just didn't like the look of them, so they were dragged of to a cell somewhere.

What's worse is that with all the pontificating they do about it, the American media doesn't seem to care that 2000 people 'constitutional rights'/'human rights' are being trampled on. You can be damn sure if these were 2000 Americans somewhere in the world we'd be hearing about it!

Now let me get this right, you want to give a Government who would be so factitious about this inhumane treatment more invasive rights over the society. I just don't get it, frankly the thought of America getting more powerful or having more of an impact in my life, terrifies me & I live in Ireland!

JustHalf

Pencil, keep up with the times.

The number was nearer 1000.

Almost all have been released. Some have been deported on Visa violations.

pencil

My Apologies,

Same point stands 1000 is still a lot of people, deported or imprisioned for months.

DadaKopf

As mentioned before, one major worry about TIPS is the fact that it may be used as a way for the authorities to get around illegal searches. There are firm reasons for these laws and this is yet another example of the US government pushing the bounds of acceptable levels of security.

An other worrying aspect of TIPS is that, if given the green light, it'll generate a culture of suspicion throughout America. Moreover, it might even reinforce stigmas and racial/ethnic mistrust already evident in American society. This is the same concern being voiced in Britain's identity card row. It's simply dangerous for any measures to be taken that would create such a negative and destructive force in society.

The irony of TIPS, and perhaps Citizen Corps, is that it may very well disrupt communities and dissolve their solidarity rather than foster them. Why citizens can't just be encouraged to report unusual activities to their local police department, and let them handle it, is beyond me. The only reason I can imagine, in this instance, is that after all the scandals, no one trusts them anymore. Maybe this should be worked on by the US government more than introducing sexy new organisations, adding yet more layers to an already labrynthine and disgracefully monolithic defence and intelligence community.

Hobbes

Originally posted by JustHalf
Pencil, keep up with the times.

The number was nearer 1000.

If your going for running totals it's over 2000 and that doesn't take into account the detainees at camp x-ray. Also a lot of those have been held without even having their familys informed or people even knowing about them. The first person to die (of natural causes) while detained his family didn't even know he was dead until some time after the fact.

Or prehaps how about the taxi driver in Boston who was detained and later released as innocent? He lost his job and his home because everyone had believed he had skipped town.

Btw, it's not only non-nationals. Mr "Dirty Bomb" had been detained for quite some time before Ashcroft said they had him and he isn't the only American being held (I believe he was the third case).

Sand

Currently, as I type, i.e. right NOW, there are over 2,000 'non-nationals' who are being illegally held by the US government under suspicion of being terrorists. These peoples families have had no contact with them in months, they do not even know where they are. These people (probably all Arabs) are being held without ANY recourse to legal advice. No lawyers, no court, no visits from anyone. They just didn't like the look of them, so they were dragged of to a cell somewhere.

All done without TIPS. How did they manage to do it without this American Stazi men in black coats with mirroshades NWO 1984 Animal Farm bleeeh.....im sorry, losing the run of myself here. Its just a centralised system allowing reports of possible terrorism to be analysed and correlated at a central point - rather a hell of a lot of work as Bob said, but bureacracies tend to be good at filing reports and answering phones. Leading nicely to.....

Maybe this should be worked on by the US government more than introducing sexy new organisations, adding yet more layers to an already labrynthine and disgracefully monolithic defence and intelligence community.

And communists.

And longhairs.

And anyone who's got a noam chomsky book in the house.

In a perfect world Von, a perfect world. Fight the power!!!

Von

Originally posted by Sand
In a perfect world Von, a perfect world. Fight the power!!!

Who knows Sand, your dream of living in an authoritarian neo-nazi taliban (possibly cannibal?) police state may yet come true!

Public Enemy reference?

There's hope for you yet.

But not much.

Sand

Who knows Sand, your dream of living in an authoritarian neo-nazi taliban (possibly cannibal?) police state may yet come true!

I was hoping for an authoritarian neo-nazi *christian fundamentalist* police state myself, but I guess anything where they round up and imprison long haired, middle class communists is a workable solution to the high incidence of muppetry afflicting Ireland:)

Hows the fight to establish an authoritarian neo-marxist police state coming along? First the college campus, next the world.... Big Brother Von knows whats best for *you*:)

DadaKopf

ZZZZZZZZZZ.

Von

Originally posted by DadaKopf
ZZZZZZZZZZ.

Exactly.

Why bother.

Bob the Unlucky Octopus

Currently, as I type, i.e. right NOW, there are over 2,000 'non-nationals' who are being illegally held by the US government under suspicion of being terrorists.

Illegally held? Not so- if they're being held under suspicion of being terrorists then that's perfectly legal. In fact, the provisions under which this is done in the US is nowhere near as suffocating as the Prevention of Terrorism Act the UK has in force- effectively allowing a rank & file cop the authority to arrest and hold someone on suspicion alone if circumstances hint at terrorism.

These people (probably all Arabs) are being held without ANY recourse to legal advice.

Now a small point regarding profiling- it's the only effective way to deter or even attempt to prevent the sort of terrorism witnessed by the West on 9/11, and by the Israeli public most days of the week. Chances are, if you look at suicide bombers, the vast majority (perhaps even all) of them fit a certain ethno-centric profiling. If I'm a police officer looking (for example) for a Sicilian crime boss, chances are I won't be looking for a 6'11" African American build. I'll play the odds, because that's how cases are solved. I have an exceedingly low opinion of "random searches" to be honest. To use an example, I am extremely skeptical of the idea of running random medical tests to effectively prevent illness. Research and public awareness are more effective. Just as profiling is the most effective way to prevent 9/11 from happening again.

As far as legal advice goes- just as a crime boss should be barred from independent legal advice, so should terrorists be. It defies reason for the conduit of "legal advice" to be used for conducting operations from behind bars, be you terrorist or crimelord. If you are under suspicion of either of these two, then a significant body of evidence will have to be laid before an internal committee, with a view to cleaning it up before either a formal charge, or release. That's how the system should work in these special cases, and in most cases it does follow exactly those guidelines.

Who knows Sand, your dream of living in an authoritarian neo-nazi taliban (possibly cannibal?) police state may yet come true!

Of course that's his dream...no wait! That's a gross exaggeration isn't it? Wooow, wonder how I picked up on that. I must have one of those Thought-Crime Detecto-machines...yeah :rolleyes:
In all seriousness, there are better things to worry about than a Taliban-like government seizing power in any government with even moderate geopolitical weight. Afghanistan has had its geographical and tactical very harshly exploited, incredibly so, for a number of reasons. None of which apply to governments in the West- so why punctuate already shaky arguments with gross hyperbole? It does nothing but weaken your position.

This is the same concern being voiced in Britain's identity card row.

Now this has to be the biggest crock I've ever heard about. Just as an example of this- I lived in Malaysia for a number of years- even did some schooling there. They have 3 major and countless minor racial/ethnic groups, AND a system of national identity cards which has been in force for decades. Guess what? There's nothing totalitarian about their political process, certainly no more or less than any Western government. If an identity card helps to curb illegal immigration and the trafficking of human beings for hard cash, I can see no problem. Similarly, if criminal activity is in any way deterred by ID cards, I'm all for it. I don't see what I lose(apart from a small amount of dignity re: photo) if I'm required to carry around a small card containing minimal personal information.

I'd probably put a tonne more details down on an employment record than I would ever reveal via an ID card. Why for example, is this any different from being required to produce a passport when you travel? Tempest in a teapot, and ACLU-esque radicals sounding off about 1984, Orwellian society, Harrison Bergeron, and thousands of other "examples" of how the world could be. At least according to popular fiction based on politics- although a close study of politics would reveal that it *in itself* is little more than "popular fiction", or at least "fiction that is available for popular consumption".

An other worrying aspect of TIPS is that, if given the green light, it'll generate a culture of suspicion throughout America.

Been there recently Dada? Well before TIPS was even a possibility on an analyst's drawing board, that culture of suspicion was born. Not because of a poorly drawn up executive pilot scheme, but because of two planes crashing into buildings that symbolized the spirit of the city they desecrated. On that day, a culture of suspicion was created. You cannot lay the blame for that mindset anywhere other than at the hijackers' feet. Will TIPS create any more suspicion than exists currently? Hardly- for reasons I've mentioned, New Yorkers will likely ignore even potential threats, you don't change an urban attitude so disaffected overnight(at least not for the most part).

Why citizens can't just be encouraged to report unusual activities to their local police department, and let them handle it, is beyond me.

Because Sgt. Joe Schmidlapp munching his afternoon doughnuts is unlikely to take outlandish threats as seriously as a federal agents trained to investigate said outlandish threats. If I went to my local police department to report a cybercrime, or a computer attack on the city's water-supply units, I'd probably be laughed out onto the street. The FBI, the NSA and the PIAG were created for just this purpose, to fight unusual threats.

...adding yet more layers to an already labrynthine and disgracefully monolithic defence and intelligence community.

So what do you propose? That instead of a monolithic defence structure with a single civilian executive agency we privatize defence? That seems to be the only viable alternative. That, or remove threat assessment from the province of the intelligence community a la Israel. In other words, eliminate the limited checks and balances currently imposed on the intelligence community. Thanks, but no thanks. Everyone's a critic, all you have to do is show up and point before pontificating. It takes a little more effort to actually propose a viable and workable alternative doesn't it?

Occy