ZGram - July 5, 2004 - "Patriotism = Snitching"

[zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org]

ZGRAM - Where Truth is Destiny:  Now more than ever!

July 5, 2004

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

This comes to us one day after Independence Day!  For shame!

[START]

Homeland Security 'Highway Watch' Stasi Program Trains Americans to 
Spy on Each Other

Time Magazine | July 5 2004 Issue

On a blazing hot morning last week, 75 men and women of the highway - 
bus drivers, truckers and van operators - convened at a nondescript 
office building in Little Rock, Ark., to be trained as terrorist 
hunters. The Department of Homeland Security this year gave $19.3 
million to the American Trucking Associations, which is based in 
Alexandria, Va., to recruit a volunteer "army" called Highway Watch. 
So far, 10,000 truckers have signed on to become amateur sleuths. 
Over the next year, the goal is to add tollbooth workers, rest-stop 
employees and construction crews, creating a corps of 400,000 people 
drawn from every state.

Waiting for the training to begin, Jo Anna Cartwright, who manages 
the rural public bus system in northern Arkansas, said she had not 
yet encountered any terrorists in her job, as far as she knew. "We 
got a terroristic phone call the other day," she said, "but it turned 
out it was just the boyfriend of an employee." Her bus drivers pay 
special attention to a gentleman from Afghanistan who recently 
married a regular rider, she said. Cartwright had come to the 
training to learn what else she could do.

The tutorial was led by Jeffrey Beatty, a security consultant, 
formerly of the FBI and CIA. He started by showing clips of alQaeda 
training videos. "They are out there training for operations in the 
U.S. homeland. Make no mistake about it," he said, warning that 
Little Rock cannot afford to be complacent. "You're getting a 
presidential library here - for a President who launched cruise 
missiles against al-Qaeda," Beatty said, referring to Bill Clinton. 
There are not enough police and federal agents to protect all of 
America, but transportation workers could be a "force multiplier," he 
said. "We want to turn the hunters into the hunted," he intoned for 
the first of four times that day.

So how exactly does one spot a terrorist on the highway? Members of 
Highway Watch are given a secret toll-free number to report any 
suspicious behavior - people taking pictures of bridges, for example, 
or passengers handling heavy backpacks with unusual care. "We want to 
hear from you when something just doesn't look right," Beatty said. 
"Say you're out at a truck stop and you see someone hanging out near 
your truck, wearing a jacket. Maybe it's too hot out for a jacket. Go 
back inside, alert someone and check him out through the window."

But - and this is important - Highway Watch members are just 
messengers, not superheroes, Beatty said. The hotline call center in 
Kentucky logs the information it receives in a database and contacts 
law enforcement when necessary. It usually isn't. Of the 200 or so 
calls that come in each month, only about 10 have anything to do with 
suspected terrorism. Most callers report abandoned vehicles, stranded 
motorists or roadway hazards. Highway Watch members are instructed to 
look for certain kinds of behavior - not certain kinds of people. 
"Profiling is bad. Bad, bad, bad," Beatty said.

Still, listening to his ominous warnings and the bravado that comes 
easily to the former Delta Force commander, one has no difficulty 
imagining an empowered civilian getting carried away. And Americans 
generally have not reacted well to institutionalized nosiness. In 
2002 the Justice Department proposed something called Operation TIPS, 
which would have encouraged not just truckers but also cable 
installers and mail carriers, among others, to report suspicious 
behavior. But before the program could begin, it was buried in 
opposition from the left and the right. Americans did not want to 
become a "nation of snitches," as the libertarian Cato Institute put 
it.

Highway Watch, which will receive an additional $22 million next 
year, preserves the part of TIPS concerned with monitoring behavior 
in public space. The Department of Homeland Security has also 
launched Port Watch, River Watch and Transit Watch. Then there are 
the familiar Neighborhood Watch groups, many of which have expanded 
their missions to include homeland security. In New York City, 
government outsourcing of surveillance has even trickled down to 
doormen and building superintendents, thousands of whom are being 
trained to watch out for strange trucks parked near buildings and 
tenants who move in without furniture.

After the session in Little Rock, two newly initiated Highway Watch 
members sat down for the catered barbecue lunch. The truckers, who 
haul hazardous material across 48 states, explained how easy it is to 
spot "Islamics" on the road: just look for their turbans. Quite a few 
of them are truck drivers, says William Westfall of Van Buren, Ark. 
"I'll be honest. They know they're not welcome at truck stops. 
There's still a lot of animosity toward Islamics." Eddie Dean of Fort 
Smith, Ark., also has little doubt about his ability to identify 
Muslims: "You can tell where they're from. You can hear their 
accents. They're not real clean people."

That kind of prejudice is hard to undo, but it's a shame Beatty's 
slide show did not mention that in the U.S., it's almost always Sikhs 
who wear turbans, not Muslims. Last year a Sikh truck driver who was 
wearing a turban was shot twice while standing near his tractor 
trailer in Phoenix, Ariz. He survived the attack, which police are 
investigating as a hate crime.

The Highway Watch website boasts that the program is open to "an 
elite core [sic] of truck drivers" who must have clean driving and 
employment records. In fact, their records are not vetted by the 
American Trucking Associations. At the Little Rock event, some came 
in off the street without preregistering. However, the organization 
is highly security conscious about other parts of its operations. It 
refuses to disclose the exact location of its hotline call center or 
the number of operators working there. "It could be infiltrated," 
says Dawn Apple, Highway Watch's director of training and recruitment.

What's clear is that Highway Watch is a morale booster for drivers. 
"I don't want to sound too hokey, but truck drivers are a very 
patriotic bunch," says Mike Russell, a spokesman for the 
organization. "It made sense for us to take advantage of what we do 
every day - which is, basically, patrol major highways through a 
windshield."

Just three days after his training in Little Rock, veteran Wal-Mart 
truck driver Danny Ewell found cause to call Highway Watch. On 
Father's Day, as he was leaving a Red Lobster in Johnson City, Tenn., 
he saw a young man walking between two cars with an orange T shirt 
draped over his arm. Peeking out from under the T shirt was a 
semiautomatic weapon. "Because of the training, I knew to look at his 
height and his hair color, and I got the make and plates of his car," 
Ewell says. "Normally I would have just looked at his clothes. But 
now I know to look for things that won't change." Ewell called 911 
and Highway Watch. Local police responded but were unable to find the 
man. Ewell, at least, had done his part.

[END]

http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/july2004/020704highwaywatch.htm