- Citizens will not become informants. Citizens will not
be spying on one another.-Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey,
NBC-TV's Meet the Press, July 21
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- The July 17 editorial in The Boston Globe-not one of
my columns in the Voice-was headlined, "Ashcroft vs. Americans."
It began: "Operation TIPS-The Terrorism Information and Prevention
System-is a scheme that Joseph Stalin would have appreciated. Plans for
its pilot phase, to start in August, have Operation TIPS recruiting a million
letter carriers, meter readers, cable technicians, and other workers with
access to private homes as informants to report to the Justice Department
any activities they think suspicious."
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- This newest John Ashcroft battle plan in the war on civil
liberties would have us join the citizens of China, Cuba, Kazakhstan, and
other countries where there is ubiquitous surveillance for signs of disloyalty
to the state. Not only Joseph Stalin but also George Orwell would have
understood what John Ashcroft had in mind. As The Boston Globe went on
to say, "Ashcroft's informant corps is a vile idea not merely because
it violates civil liberties . . . or because it will sabotage genuine efforts
to prevent terrorism by overloading law enforcement officials with irrelevant
reports about Americans who have nothing to do with terrorists. Operation
TIPS should be stopped because it is utterly anti-American." I was
first alerted to Operation TIPS by Matt Olson in Isthmus, a lively alternative
paper from Madison, Wisconsin. Then the May issue of The Progressive-a
national monthly magazine also out of Madison-ran the full story by Bill
Berkowitz, a regular contributor to Working Assets' workingforchange.com.
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- This time, John Ashcroft was so confident of public applause
for his plan to smoke out the lurking terrorist "sleepers" among
us that he didn't keep it secret. On May 29, on the government Web site
(www.citizencorps.gov/tips.html)
there it was! Meet Big Brother:
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- "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. . . . 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."
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- By July 16, that government Web site had removed the
listing of specific kinds of worker-informants who would be watching us,
but it noted that all the tipsters had to do was "use their common
sense and knowledge of their work environment to identify suspicious or
unusual activity." There was no definition of "suspicious"
or "unusual." The president endorsed Operation TIPS, as did Homeland
Security's Tom Ridge and Senate Republican Minority Leader Trent Lott.
The ACLU, of course, opposed Operation TIPS. As usual, there was no word
of alarm from Tom Daschle or Dick Gephardt. But Democratic congressman
Dennis Kucinich, ranking Democrat on the Government Oversight Committee's
National Security Oversight Subcommittee, told Bill Berkowitz in The Progressive:
"It appears we are being transformed from an information society to
an informant society."
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- Where were Al Gore, John Edwards, John Kerry, Joe Lieberman,
Charles Schumer, and Hillary Rodham Clinton?
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- Suddenly, however, Operation TIPS seemed to crash. On
July 19, Ellen Sorokin reported in The Washington Times that a prominent
conservative, "House Majority Leader Dick Armey, in his markup of
legislation to create a Homeland Security Department . . . scrapped a program
that would use volunteers in domestic surveillance."
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- The Postal Service, in part because of the pressure from
its unions, had already refused to permit its letter carriers to participate
in Operation TIPS.
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- What follows is from Dick Armey's markup on the "Freedom
and Security" section of the Homeland Security Bill. He wrote: "Because
the [Homeland Security] Department has a singular mission of protecting
the freedoms of Americans, specific legal protections will ensure that
freedom is not undermined. . . . Citizens Will Not Become Informants. To
ensure that no operation of the Department can be construed to promote
citizens spying on one another, this draft will contain language to prohibit
programs such as 'Operation TIPS.'"
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- Armey also canceled a cherished Bush-Ashcroft anti-terrorism
weapon, a national ID card. Wrote Armey: "The federal government will
not have the authority to nationalize drivers' licenses and other ID cards.
Authority to design and issue these cards shall remain with the states.
The use of biometric identifiers and Social Security numbers with these
cards is not consistent with a free society."
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- Also, Armey-described in The Almanac of American Politics
2002 as often driving a pickup truck, wearing cowboy boots, and quoting
country music lyrics-established, in his markup of the Homeland Security
Department bill, "A Privacy Officer. Working as a close adviser to
the Secretary, this officer will ensure technology research and new regulations
from the Department respect the civil liberties our citizens enjoy. This
is the first-ever such officer established by law in a cabinet department."
(Emphasis added).
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- Despite Dick Armey's rejection of the Bush-Ashcroft plan
for what conservative Republican Bob Barr calls an official "snitch
system," the Department of Justice declared that Operation TIPS will
continue. I called Ashcroft's spokeswoman, Barbara Comstock, and she explained
that since the Senate was still debating its version of the Homeland Security
Department bill, Armey's revisions had not become law; and until-if and
when-they are enacted, Operation TIPS will go forward.
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- Next week: How Vermont senator Patrick Leahy tried to
get Armey's rejection of Big Brother into the Senate bill, but was betrayed
by Joseph Lieberman and Tom Daschle. We may not know until September, when
the Senate returns, if we are all under government surveillance.
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- http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0232/hentoff.php
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