[Newspoetry] Citizen Spies

[John Newmark]

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0714-06.htm

US Planning to Recruit One in 24 Americans as Citizen Spies

> 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".

And Tom Tomorrow's Take on it
http://www.thismodernworld.com/weblog/archive/2002_07_14_bloggera.html#78973
337

And his cartoon back in March that was supposed to be satire
http://salon.com/comics/tomo/2002/03/18/tomo/index.html

And the official description from the Government Website
https://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.

Operation TIPS is coming in August 2002.
Volunteer now!"

John
jcnewmark at gavroche.org