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US planning to recruit one in 24 Americans as citizen spies
Spy on your friends and neighbors! It's fun!!
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 http://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.8thdaycenter.org/090500.html
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 http://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.8thdaycenter.org/090500.html
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Hartford Courant, October 18, 1998
"Connecticut Man Seeks Asylum in Sweden"
It sounds like one of those "News of the Weird" column items: A Connecticut man is hiding in Sweden, where he seeks asylum, because he thinks U.S. police are out to get him.
The things is, it's true. The asylum part anyway.
Richard "Ritt" Goldstein, 47, became the first American in years to apply for asylum when he moved to Sweden last year. He said his activism in pushing for a statewide civilian review board for police resulted in daily harassment from police in Connecticut and other states.
Goldstein's asylum request was rejected by the Swedes last month, and since then he has been living a refugee's life, supported by private citizens and European human rights groups.
"I live underground," he said, during a phone interview Friday. "The thing is, very fortunately, there are those who looked at the work I had done and looked at the overwhelming evidence that I brought with me. Initially, there was a little skepticism, but here, unlike other places, they were not burdened by believing it can't happen. . . . Law enforcement wasn't a sacred cow to them."
Whether Goldstein is characterized as a kook making false claims or a legitimate poster boy for the crusade against police brutality depends on who is doing the talking.
Just last week, Amnesty International launched a new campaign calling attention to human rights abuses within the United States, citing "widespread and persistent" police brutality as one of the top problems.
Former Norwalk Mayor William Collins said Goldstein had a strong commitment to his work, which included arranging a hearing at the state capitol last year on forming a statewide police review board.
Goldstein also headed a group called the Standing Committee on Law Enforcement Development. "I found him very dedicated to his cause, which I supported very strongly," Collins said.
Connecticut police don't share that view.
Goldstein has made harassment complaints to several police departments, including Danbury, Norwalk, Wethersfield and Cromwell. His complaints date back to the 1980s, when his activism began.
The complaints seem to have a pattern: Goldstein told police his car or home or self was sprayed by chemicals or pepper spray, usually by someone in plain clothes that he was sure was a police officer.
His complaints were investigated, but police say the investigations led nowhere because Goldstein failed to provide promised witnesses, or wouldn't come in to meet with police.
"We investigated what we could," said Lt. John Salvatore of the Wethersfield Police Department. "We were not able to substantiate any of the claims."
Cromwell police arrested Goldstein in April 1997 for making a false report, in which he alleged that police used pepper spray on him at a local Super Stop & Shop.
Cromwell Police Capt. Thomas Roohr said investigators found no one who could remember seeing Goldstein at the market, or encountering pepper spray, a highly irritating substance.
Goldstein maintains that he passed a lie detector test in the Cromwell incident. But a warrant is now out for his arrest because he failed to show up in court.
Goldstein said he moved out of his Danbury apartment into various hotels across the state because he couldn't take the harassment. He moved to Sweden when he could no longer take the drain on his health.
"The harassment was off the scale," he said. "It's the kind of things you don't expect in America."
He said he never filed lawsuits in Connecticut against the police because an attorney told him such suits are impossible to win.
In Sweden, his case attracted attention when a letter on his behalf, signed by high-ranking clergy, ran in a Swedish newspaper. Legal experts also felt his case may have repercussions for the few immigrants from stable Western democracies who apply each year for asylum to a country within the European Union.
Goldstein's attorney in Sweden, Robert Camerini, said Goldstein was denied asylum because of his country of origin.
"It's my judgment it was denied not on the merits of what was presented, but because he was American," Camerini said. "If Goldstein had come from a Third World nation, then I think it would have been another question."
The Swedish government considers the United States a stable democracy with human rights groups of its own, groups that can help citizens with police complaints, said Nina Ersman, spokeswoman for the Swedish Embassy in Washington, D.C.
Gunnar Sommarin, spokesman for Sweden's Alien Appeals Board, said whatever harassment Goldstein encountered did not seem state-sponsored. He said it was now up to the Swedish police to deport Goldstein.
As far as the U.S. government is concerned, Goldstein may apply for asylum in other countries or renounce his citizenship if he chooses.
Unless he needs to be extradited for a major crime, the government doesn't much care what he does, said Marie Rudensky, spokeswoman for the Bureau of Consular Affairs in the U.S. State Department.
"In our eyes, his status remains the same," she said.
In Sweden, Goldstein has exhausted his appeals. He has no plans to return to the United States, where he feels no one can help him, at any level of government.
He said his next recourse may be the European Court of Justice. In the meantime, he continues to live in Sweden.
"Hopefully, things will change here," he said. "You can't fool all of the people all of the time."
"Connecticut Man Seeks Asylum in Sweden"
It sounds like one of those "News of the Weird" column items: A Connecticut man is hiding in Sweden, where he seeks asylum, because he thinks U.S. police are out to get him.
The things is, it's true. The asylum part anyway.
Richard "Ritt" Goldstein, 47, became the first American in years to apply for asylum when he moved to Sweden last year. He said his activism in pushing for a statewide civilian review board for police resulted in daily harassment from police in Connecticut and other states.
Goldstein's asylum request was rejected by the Swedes last month, and since then he has been living a refugee's life, supported by private citizens and European human rights groups.
"I live underground," he said, during a phone interview Friday. "The thing is, very fortunately, there are those who looked at the work I had done and looked at the overwhelming evidence that I brought with me. Initially, there was a little skepticism, but here, unlike other places, they were not burdened by believing it can't happen. . . . Law enforcement wasn't a sacred cow to them."
Whether Goldstein is characterized as a kook making false claims or a legitimate poster boy for the crusade against police brutality depends on who is doing the talking.
Just last week, Amnesty International launched a new campaign calling attention to human rights abuses within the United States, citing "widespread and persistent" police brutality as one of the top problems.
Former Norwalk Mayor William Collins said Goldstein had a strong commitment to his work, which included arranging a hearing at the state capitol last year on forming a statewide police review board.
Goldstein also headed a group called the Standing Committee on Law Enforcement Development. "I found him very dedicated to his cause, which I supported very strongly," Collins said.
Connecticut police don't share that view.
Goldstein has made harassment complaints to several police departments, including Danbury, Norwalk, Wethersfield and Cromwell. His complaints date back to the 1980s, when his activism began.
The complaints seem to have a pattern: Goldstein told police his car or home or self was sprayed by chemicals or pepper spray, usually by someone in plain clothes that he was sure was a police officer.
His complaints were investigated, but police say the investigations led nowhere because Goldstein failed to provide promised witnesses, or wouldn't come in to meet with police.
"We investigated what we could," said Lt. John Salvatore of the Wethersfield Police Department. "We were not able to substantiate any of the claims."
Cromwell police arrested Goldstein in April 1997 for making a false report, in which he alleged that police used pepper spray on him at a local Super Stop & Shop.
Cromwell Police Capt. Thomas Roohr said investigators found no one who could remember seeing Goldstein at the market, or encountering pepper spray, a highly irritating substance.
Goldstein maintains that he passed a lie detector test in the Cromwell incident. But a warrant is now out for his arrest because he failed to show up in court.
Goldstein said he moved out of his Danbury apartment into various hotels across the state because he couldn't take the harassment. He moved to Sweden when he could no longer take the drain on his health.
"The harassment was off the scale," he said. "It's the kind of things you don't expect in America."
He said he never filed lawsuits in Connecticut against the police because an attorney told him such suits are impossible to win.
In Sweden, his case attracted attention when a letter on his behalf, signed by high-ranking clergy, ran in a Swedish newspaper. Legal experts also felt his case may have repercussions for the few immigrants from stable Western democracies who apply each year for asylum to a country within the European Union.
Goldstein's attorney in Sweden, Robert Camerini, said Goldstein was denied asylum because of his country of origin.
"It's my judgment it was denied not on the merits of what was presented, but because he was American," Camerini said. "If Goldstein had come from a Third World nation, then I think it would have been another question."
The Swedish government considers the United States a stable democracy with human rights groups of its own, groups that can help citizens with police complaints, said Nina Ersman, spokeswoman for the Swedish Embassy in Washington, D.C.
Gunnar Sommarin, spokesman for Sweden's Alien Appeals Board, said whatever harassment Goldstein encountered did not seem state-sponsored. He said it was now up to the Swedish police to deport Goldstein.
As far as the U.S. government is concerned, Goldstein may apply for asylum in other countries or renounce his citizenship if he chooses.
Unless he needs to be extradited for a major crime, the government doesn't much care what he does, said Marie Rudensky, spokeswoman for the Bureau of Consular Affairs in the U.S. State Department.
"In our eyes, his status remains the same," she said.
In Sweden, Goldstein has exhausted his appeals. He has no plans to return to the United States, where he feels no one can help him, at any level of government.
He said his next recourse may be the European Court of Justice. In the meantime, he continues to live in Sweden.
"Hopefully, things will change here," he said. "You can't fool all of the people all of the time."
never deny the accusations, never defend, in fact, don't even mention them at all. simply change the subject by discrediting the individual/group/organization... and no man or woman or group is ever beyond discrediting, especially in the virtual world of the media and washington d.c. anyone can say anything about anyone else or anything else and nobody will know who's really being honest and what really is going on. the sad thing is, something really is going on, all the time. that's how it works in america...
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.
http://www.citizencorps.gov/tips.html
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.
http://www.citizencorps.gov/tips.html
For more information:
http://www.citizencorps.gov/tips.html
Help, please!!! I'd like to report that terrorists have seized control of the U.S. government in a political coup. They're now terrorizing the world and innocent citizens by destroying any freedoms, and trampling our inalienable human rights. Finding them should be as easy as A[shcroft], B[ush], C[heney].
An alarming revelation by one Ritt Goldstein in today's Sydney Morning Herald:
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".
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/07/14/1026185141232.html
Yikes, we're a police state! But a look at the Citizens Corps Web site shows that Goldstein is simply being hysterical:
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, 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.
http://www.citizencorps.gov/tips.html
Sounds more like Neighborhood Watch than the Stasi--and indeed, Neighborhood Watch is another program of the Citizens Corps. So who is this Ritt Goldstein? From his bio in the Herald: "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." Sounds like a really reliable source of information.
http://www.citizencorps.gov/watch.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".
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/07/14/1026185141232.html
Yikes, we're a police state! But a look at the Citizens Corps Web site shows that Goldstein is simply being hysterical:
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, 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.
http://www.citizencorps.gov/tips.html
Sounds more like Neighborhood Watch than the Stasi--and indeed, Neighborhood Watch is another program of the Citizens Corps. So who is this Ritt Goldstein? From his bio in the Herald: "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." Sounds like a really reliable source of information.
http://www.citizencorps.gov/watch.html
I'd like to see some confirmation (or disproof) of the statement that FEMA is running this program. Doesn't seem like anything FEMA should be involved in. If it is, then I would worry more, since it seems to have become a growing locus of completely illegitimate, opaque authority.
The following excerpts from a regime propaganda document issued in January show why community organization and involvement is vital to the defeat of the stalinist Operation TIPS citizen spy program.
Operation TIPS is based on APPLICATIONS FROM CITIES!!!
"Applications from cities will be accepted in Fall 2002 for inclusion as one of the pilot programs."
So the way to defeat Operation TIPS is to demand that local officials make no such applications, or if they already have, that they withdraw them immediately. Where initiative and referendum is available, this would be a logical way to raise public consciousness and insha'Allah deal the regime a major defeat.
Note: the following excerpts mention "Fall 2002" as the target date to begin operation. The target date has now been moved up to August 2002.
---
The USA Freedom Corps Council will be created by executive order. The President will chair the Council. The Council will include the following as members:
Vice President;
Attorney General;
Secretary of State;
Secretary of Commerce;
Secretary of Health and Human Services;
Secretary of Education;
Secretary of Veterans Affairs;
Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency;
Chief Executive Officer of the Corporation for National and Community Service;
Director of the Peace Corps;
Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development;
Director, USA Freedom Corps Office; and
Director, Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.
...
Create Operation TIPS: Terrorist Information and Prevention System
As part of the Citizen Corps, Operation TIPS -- the Terrorist Information and Prevention System -- will be a nationwide mechanism for reporting suspicious terrorist activity -- enlisting millions of American transportation workers, truckers, letter carriers, train conductors, ship captains and utility employees. Operation TIPS, a project of the U.S. Department of Justice, will start first as a pilot program in ten cities in America, affecting more than 1 million workers. Applications from cities will be accepted in Fall 2002 for inclusion as one of the pilot programs.
Operation TIPS will establish a national reporting system that would allow these workers, who have routines and are well positioned to recognize unusual events, to report suspicious activity to the appropriate authorities. Every participant in this new program will be given a Citizen Corps: Operation TIPS information sticker that could be affixed to the cab of the vehicle or placed in some other public location so that the toll free reporting number would be readily available to report any suspicious activity.
Everywhere in America a concerned worker will be able to call the 1-800 Hotline that can route calls immediately to law enforcement or a responder organization when appropriate. Importantly, this number will not supplant the existing 911 emergency system. Instead, it will take the stress off already burdened local systems needed for emergencies. The U.S. Department of Justice will provide $2 million in Fiscal Year 2003 to establish the hotline and assist with training and $6 million for the pilot programs and outreach materials.
Operation TIPS builds on the success of programs such as Highway Watch, which is a crime prevention partnership among the American Trucking Association and six states, and security training at the Global Maritime and Transportation School, which includes enhancing the ability of mariners aboard American vessels in island waterways and the Great Lakes to track and record potential threats.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/01/freedom-corps-policy-book-all.html
Operation TIPS is based on APPLICATIONS FROM CITIES!!!
"Applications from cities will be accepted in Fall 2002 for inclusion as one of the pilot programs."
So the way to defeat Operation TIPS is to demand that local officials make no such applications, or if they already have, that they withdraw them immediately. Where initiative and referendum is available, this would be a logical way to raise public consciousness and insha'Allah deal the regime a major defeat.
Note: the following excerpts mention "Fall 2002" as the target date to begin operation. The target date has now been moved up to August 2002.
---
The USA Freedom Corps Council will be created by executive order. The President will chair the Council. The Council will include the following as members:
Vice President;
Attorney General;
Secretary of State;
Secretary of Commerce;
Secretary of Health and Human Services;
Secretary of Education;
Secretary of Veterans Affairs;
Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency;
Chief Executive Officer of the Corporation for National and Community Service;
Director of the Peace Corps;
Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development;
Director, USA Freedom Corps Office; and
Director, Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.
...
Create Operation TIPS: Terrorist Information and Prevention System
As part of the Citizen Corps, Operation TIPS -- the Terrorist Information and Prevention System -- will be a nationwide mechanism for reporting suspicious terrorist activity -- enlisting millions of American transportation workers, truckers, letter carriers, train conductors, ship captains and utility employees. Operation TIPS, a project of the U.S. Department of Justice, will start first as a pilot program in ten cities in America, affecting more than 1 million workers. Applications from cities will be accepted in Fall 2002 for inclusion as one of the pilot programs.
Operation TIPS will establish a national reporting system that would allow these workers, who have routines and are well positioned to recognize unusual events, to report suspicious activity to the appropriate authorities. Every participant in this new program will be given a Citizen Corps: Operation TIPS information sticker that could be affixed to the cab of the vehicle or placed in some other public location so that the toll free reporting number would be readily available to report any suspicious activity.
Everywhere in America a concerned worker will be able to call the 1-800 Hotline that can route calls immediately to law enforcement or a responder organization when appropriate. Importantly, this number will not supplant the existing 911 emergency system. Instead, it will take the stress off already burdened local systems needed for emergencies. The U.S. Department of Justice will provide $2 million in Fiscal Year 2003 to establish the hotline and assist with training and $6 million for the pilot programs and outreach materials.
Operation TIPS builds on the success of programs such as Highway Watch, which is a crime prevention partnership among the American Trucking Association and six states, and security training at the Global Maritime and Transportation School, which includes enhancing the ability of mariners aboard American vessels in island waterways and the Great Lakes to track and record potential threats.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/01/freedom-corps-policy-book-all.html
The annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction awards are out. The contest, sponsored by San Jose State University, "challenges entrants to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels." This year's champion is Rephah Berg of Oakland, Calif., and here's the winning entry:
On reflection, Angela perceived that her relationship with Tom had always been rocky, not quite a roller-coaster ride but more like when the toilet-paper roll gets a little squashed so it hangs crooked and every time you pull some off you can hear the rest going bumpity-bumpity in its holder until you go nuts and push it back into shape, a degree of annoyance that Angela had now almost attained.
http://www.sjsu.edu/depts/english/bulwer.htm
Reason's Brian Doherty should enter next year. He's written a brief rant for the libertarian magazine's Web site in which he denounces the federal government's Terrorism Information and Prevention System, a sort of nationwide antiterror Neighborhood Watch, as the second coming of the Stasi. If this sounds familiar, it should; as I noted Monday, someone called Ritt Goldstein made exactly the same comparison in the Sydney Morning Herald two days before Doherty.
http://reason.com/links/links071602.shtml
What really got my attention about the Doherty piece, though, was not its unoriginality or its alarmism, but this sentence: "It seems likely that with more programs like Operation TIPS in effect, the very spirit of a free people that should be viscerally disgusted by such programs will be reduced to a half-remembered ghost." Doherty is worried about a "spirit" being reduced to a "ghost"? And how can a "spirit" experience any feeling "viscerally"? Can't Doherty tell a psyche from a viscus?
On reflection, Angela perceived that her relationship with Tom had always been rocky, not quite a roller-coaster ride but more like when the toilet-paper roll gets a little squashed so it hangs crooked and every time you pull some off you can hear the rest going bumpity-bumpity in its holder until you go nuts and push it back into shape, a degree of annoyance that Angela had now almost attained.
http://www.sjsu.edu/depts/english/bulwer.htm
Reason's Brian Doherty should enter next year. He's written a brief rant for the libertarian magazine's Web site in which he denounces the federal government's Terrorism Information and Prevention System, a sort of nationwide antiterror Neighborhood Watch, as the second coming of the Stasi. If this sounds familiar, it should; as I noted Monday, someone called Ritt Goldstein made exactly the same comparison in the Sydney Morning Herald two days before Doherty.
http://reason.com/links/links071602.shtml
What really got my attention about the Doherty piece, though, was not its unoriginality or its alarmism, but this sentence: "It seems likely that with more programs like Operation TIPS in effect, the very spirit of a free people that should be viscerally disgusted by such programs will be reduced to a half-remembered ghost." Doherty is worried about a "spirit" being reduced to a "ghost"? And how can a "spirit" experience any feeling "viscerally"? Can't Doherty tell a psyche from a viscus?
Joining the hysterical outcry over Operation TIPS, a proposed nationwide Neighborhood Watch-style program for reporting suspected terrorist activity, is the editorial board of the Boston Globe:
Operation TIPS--the Terrorism Information and Prevention System - is a scheme that Joseph Stalin would have appreciated. . . . After the Berlin Wall came down and communism vanished into the dustbin of history, Czechs, East Germans, Poles, and Hungarians had to suffer through wrenching revelations about the reporting systems their totalitarian regimes had instituted. The Communist Party bosses in those captive nations justified the pervasive recruitment of citizens to inform on their neighbors as a requirement of security and a proof of loyalty to the party, the revolution, or the working class.
If Ashcroft wishes to assess the likely effect of the snooping regime he is about to implement, he could ask postal workers from the old days in Prague to explain what happens to a society's sense of solidarity when everybody on the block assumes that the mailman is telling the secret police that Comrade X has been reading bourgeois books.
For a bit of the shock therapy Ashcroft and his fellow travelers seem to need, they ought to consult some of the citizens in the former East Germany who discovered, when looking into their Stasi files, that under the former regime they had been spied upon for years by a husband or wife. . . .
Operation TIPS should be stopped because it is utterly anti-American. It would give Stalin and the KGB a delayed triumph in the Cold War--in the name of the Bush administration's war against terrorism.
I had no idea the Boston Globe was so anticommunist!
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/198/editorials/Ashcroft_vs_Americans+.shtml
Operation TIPS--the Terrorism Information and Prevention System - is a scheme that Joseph Stalin would have appreciated. . . . After the Berlin Wall came down and communism vanished into the dustbin of history, Czechs, East Germans, Poles, and Hungarians had to suffer through wrenching revelations about the reporting systems their totalitarian regimes had instituted. The Communist Party bosses in those captive nations justified the pervasive recruitment of citizens to inform on their neighbors as a requirement of security and a proof of loyalty to the party, the revolution, or the working class.
If Ashcroft wishes to assess the likely effect of the snooping regime he is about to implement, he could ask postal workers from the old days in Prague to explain what happens to a society's sense of solidarity when everybody on the block assumes that the mailman is telling the secret police that Comrade X has been reading bourgeois books.
For a bit of the shock therapy Ashcroft and his fellow travelers seem to need, they ought to consult some of the citizens in the former East Germany who discovered, when looking into their Stasi files, that under the former regime they had been spied upon for years by a husband or wife. . . .
Operation TIPS should be stopped because it is utterly anti-American. It would give Stalin and the KGB a delayed triumph in the Cold War--in the name of the Bush administration's war against terrorism.
I had no idea the Boston Globe was so anticommunist!
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/198/editorials/Ashcroft_vs_Americans+.shtml
TIPS does sound like a Neighborhood Watch program rather than the Stasi, but there are some flaws in it that should cause it not to be implemented. First of all, my mailman, plumber, cable guy, FedEx deliveryman, and other workingclass people of like profession are some of the nicest I've ever met. Some of these people are in the jobs they are because they never really learned to apply themselves. There are certain personality types that, when having a form of power bestowed upon them, will misuse their position. Do I really want yesterday's high school dropout with a chip on his shoulder to become today's community snitch?
I understand the reasoning behind having people in a nationwide Neighborhood Watch program. Hopefully, if the cable guy goes to an apartment where 8 to 10 Arab men between the ages of 22-45 live together, pipe bombs are in the refridgerator, every table has blueprints of large buildings and box cutters on them, and a picture of Osama bin Laden is hanging over the couch, he'll have enough sense to report what he's seen to the authorities without having to be "deputized" first. Besides that, we run the risk of the "since I'm not a part of TIPS, I don't need to be aware of what's going on around me, that's their job" mentality.
I understand the reasoning behind having people in a nationwide Neighborhood Watch program. Hopefully, if the cable guy goes to an apartment where 8 to 10 Arab men between the ages of 22-45 live together, pipe bombs are in the refridgerator, every table has blueprints of large buildings and box cutters on them, and a picture of Osama bin Laden is hanging over the couch, he'll have enough sense to report what he's seen to the authorities without having to be "deputized" first. Besides that, we run the risk of the "since I'm not a part of TIPS, I don't need to be aware of what's going on around me, that's their job" mentality.
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