ZGram - 7/15/2002 - "America - in need of snitches?"

[irimland@zundelsite.org]

ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny

July 15. 2002

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

A real wake-up call!  One wants to plead, "Please say it isn't true" 
- but this simply odious piece of news is posted everywhere, and it 
does come from the Sunday Morning Herald in Australia ...

[START]

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.

[end]

(Source:
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/07/14/1026185141232.htm)l