OPERATION TIPS News:
TIPS: "Terrorism Information and Prevention System"
See also: TIA: Total Information Awareness

20020830
• Operation_TIPS - "New life for Operation TIPS:  Blasted for plans to link the spy program to "America's Most Wanted," John Ashcroft has tapped another private firm to run its volunteer hotline. His most fervent supporter: Joe Lieberman." ... "The Richmond, Va.-based nonprofit company, called the National White Collar Crime Center, confirmed Wednesday that it is discussing plans with the Justice Department to operate a hotline that would take calls from citizens that the department signs up in its planned Terrorism Information and Prevention System (TIPS) spy program. Civil libertarians are outraged by the plan to privatize the operation. "It's troubling that the Justice Department would go out of its way to try to get around the Fourth Amendment and the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act this way," says John Whitehead, president of the conservative Rutherford Institute." ... "Meanwhile, a battle is shaping up in Congress over efforts to block funding for the TIPS program entirely. Last month, the House of Representatives passed its version of the Homeland Security bill with a measure added by Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, that prohibited federal funding for programs that would have American citizens spying on each other. But an effort by Sen. Pat Leahy, D-Vt., to do the same thing with the Senate's version of the bill was stymied by Senate Government Operations Committee Chair Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn." -By Dave Lindorff -Salon$

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20020810
• "U.S. Overhauls Operation TIPS Plan:  U.S. Modifies Operation TIPS Program Following Criticism From Civil Liberties Groups." ... "... on Friday, officials said it will not be put into effect until Congress returns in September. The idea is to allow time for consultation with lawmakers, they said." ... "The Justice Department has not decided who will operate the hot line, but a likely choice is the National White Collar Crime Center. The organization is a nonprofit corporation of law enforcement agencies and state and local prosecution offices."  -AP via  -ABCNEWS.com 

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20020809
• "Gov't Modifies Operation TIPS Plan." ... "A proposed government network of anti-terrorism tipsters has been modified to exclude people from industries and government agencies that often have access to people's homes, law enforcement officials said Friday." -By Christopher Newton -WashingtonPost

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20020806
• "When neighbors attack! Volunteers for Operation TIPS, John Ashcroft's citizen spy army, are being steered to the Fox crime show "America's Most Wanted." Is the merger of tabloid TV with the federal snooping operation funny or scary or both?" ... "Has Ashcroft turned his embattled volunteer citizen spy program -- which has been blasted by left and right alike -- over to Fox Broadcasting's "America's Most Wanted"?" -By Dave Lindorff -Salon 

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20020728
• OPINION - "Learning to love Big Brother:  George W. Bush channels George Orwell." ... "The ever-watchful eye of Big Brother kept constant tabs on the citizens of Orwell's totalitarian state, using two-way telescreens to monitor people's every move while simultaneously broadcasting party propaganda." ... "While that technology may not have arrived yet, public video surveillance has become all the rage in law enforcement, with cameras being deployed everywhere from sporting events to public beaches. The Bush administration has also announced plans to recruit millions of Americans to form a corps of citizen spies who will serve as "extra eyes and ears for law enforcement," reporting any suspicious activity as part of a program dubbed Operation TIPS -- Terrorism Information and Prevention System." -By Daniel Kurtzman -SFGate.com 

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20020727
• "Controversial Operation TIPS appears dead." ... "The Homeland Security Bill passed early Saturday by the House of Representatives appears to kill Operation TIPS...." ... "The 200-page bill, which passed by a 295-132 vote, prohibits programs such as the proposed Terrorism Information and Prevention System." ... "The House bill, masterminded by Rep. Dick Armey, R-Tex., the House majority leader, is intended to prevent "citizens spying on one another," said Armey aide Richard Diamond." ... "Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has compared TIPS to a ghetto informant program run by the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover in the 1960s. Agents hired neighbors of suspected political protestors to spy on them." -By Cassio Furtado -Miami/Herald 

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20020726
• "Ashcroft offers TIPS assurances." ... "Amid growing concern over Operation TIPS, Ashcroft sought to assure members of the Senate Judiciary Committee July 25 that reports of suspicious activity will not be retained in a central database, but he said some reports may be kept in databases maintained by various law enforcement agencies." ... "Ashcroft said he advised against creating a database that would be maintained by Operation TIPS, and "I have been given assurances that TIPS will not maintain a database." But the FBI and other agencies might preserve TIPS reports in databases, he said." -By William Matthews  -FCW.com 

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• "Ashcroft: TIPS Plan Won't Have Central Database:  Anti-Terror Information Will Be Passed On, He Tells Committee." ... ""We don't want to see a 1984, Orwellian-type situation here where neighbors are reporting on neighbors," Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) said during Ashcroft's testimony yesterday." -By Dan Eggen-WashingtonPost 

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20020725
• "Senators Quiz Ashcroft on Citizen Watch Program." ... "While Ashcroft said on Thursday he had recommended that the information not be stored in any Justice Department database, earlier statements from the department indicated the information would be kept in a database." -By Niala Boodhoo -Reuters via  -Miami/Herald 

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• OPINION - "Some TIPS for John Ascroft:  Mr. Attorney General, forget your plan for a system to promote Americans spying on Americans. It won't work -- and is un-American." ... "The American Teamsters Union has already signed on. The U.S. Postal Service, which originally said its 800,000 workers would not participate, is also encouraging its workforce to join." ... "Another important -- and still-unanswered -- question is how will the data be stored, and who will have access to it. Will the TIPS program create FBI files on thousands, even millions, of unsuspecting Americans? And where will those files end up? The next time you're passed over for a job or a loan, will you wonder if it's because the cable guy filed a tip about your collection of Middle East travel books? "The U.S. government has a history of abusing information," says [the ACLU's legislative counsel Rachel] King. "These are not hysterical fears."" -By Jane Black -BusinessWeek/Daily

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20020724
• "Buying Trouble:  Your Grocery List Could Spark a Terror Probe." ... "As John Ashcroft's Citizens Corps spy program prepares for its debut next month, it seems scores of American companies have already become willing snitches. A few months ago, the Privacy Council surveyed executives from 22 companies in the travel industry—not just airlines but hotels, car rental services, and travel agencies—and found that 64 percent of respondents had turned over information to investigators and 59 percent had lowered their resistance to such demands. In that sampling, conducted with The Boston Globe, half of the businesses said they hadn't decided if they'd inform customers of the change, and more than a third said outright that they wouldn't. Only three said they would go public about the level of their cooperation with law enforcement." -By Erik Baard  -VillageVoice ed. 20020724-30

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20020721
• "Citizen-spy plan facing opposition in public, House." ... "Plans become more vague." ... "By midweek, the language on the [CitizenCorps.gov/tips.html] Web site had been made more vague. Mention of specific occupations was taken out and the timing for the program's launch pushed back." -By Andy Newman -NYTimes via  -SeattleTimes.NWsource

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20020719
• "Bill would ban public-informant plan:  Part of Bush's security proposal quickly opposed." ... "A controversial Bush administration idea to get millions of Americans to snoop on one another met formidable opposition Thursday when the top House Republican shepherding legislation for a new Department of Homeland Security proposed banning such programs." -By Edward Epstein -SFGate.com 

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20020718
• - OPINION - "Robert Levy of the Cato Institute debates Paul Rosenzweig of the Heritage Foundation about Operation TIPS on MSNBC."  -MSNBC  via  -Cato.org 

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• "Postal officials change stance on Operation TIPS:  In a shift from its position 24 hours earlier, the U.S. Postal Service said Thursday it had decided to meet with the Justice Department to discuss Operation TIPS, a government plan to encourage U.S. postal workers to report suspicious activity as part of the government's war on terrorism." -By Kelli Arena -CNN 

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• "Postal Service snubs Operation TIPS." ... ""The Postal Service had been approached by Homeland Security regarding Operation TIPS; however, it was decided that the Postal Service and its letter carriers would not be participating in the program at this time," said a statement released by the service." -CNN 

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20020717
• "ACLU slams TIPS program." ... ""The administration apparently wants to implement a program that will turn local cable or gas or electrical technicians into government-sanctioned Peeping Toms," said Rachel King, an ACLU legislative counsel." ... "The ACLU said it was concerned that these volunteers would, in effect, be searching people's homes without warrants, that resources would be wasted on a flood of useless tips and that the program would encourage vigilantism and racial profiling." -AP via  -Salon 

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• "Is your cable guy a spy?  On the heels of plans for new powers to patrol people's Web use, the U.S. government is again turning to technology to monitor suspicious activity in the name of fighting terrorism." -By Lisa M. Bowman -CNET /News 

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• "Operation TIPS stirs new eavesdropping fears:  A new program which the government envisions as a tip service for authorities concerned with terrorism is being assailed as a scheme to cast ordinary Americans as "peeping Toms."" -AP via  -CNN 

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20020716
• "CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports:  Will the Government Turn Civilians Into Spies?..." ... "REP. BOB BARR (R-GA), JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: Why do we need to have a government pushing and pushing and pushing people and now funding a program to encourage people to snoop and to report? I think that's a very slippery slope." -CNN/Transcripts 

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20020715
• OPINION - "ACLU Says Bush Administration Should Not Allow Operation TIPS To Become An End Run Around Constitution." ... "The ACLU is concerned that law enforcement will use these new volunteers -- especially those whose occupations allow them to enter homes and monitor citizens - to search people’s residences without a warrant. Also worrisome is the potential for the program to adversely affect the fight against terrorism by wasting resources on useless tips and the possibility that the program would encourage vigilantism and racial profiling." -ACLU.org 

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• "US planning to recruit one in 24 Americans as citizen spies." ... "A pilot program, described on the government Web site 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." ... "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." -By Ritt Goldstein -smh.com.au

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20020714
• OPINION - "What Is Operation TIPS?" ... "Public vigilance is a good thing, and so is encouraging citizens to alert authorities to terrorist activity. It makes sense to educate people who work at potential targets or at places where lethal cargo may be smuggled. But having the government recruit informants among letter carriers and utility workers -- people who enter the homes of Americans for reasons unrelated to law enforcement -- is an entirely different matter. Americans should not be subjecting themselves to law enforcement scrutiny merely by having cable lines installed, mail delivered or meters read. Police cannot routinely enter people's houses without either permission or a warrant. They should not be using utility workers to conduct surveillance they could not lawfully conduct themselves." -WashingtonPost

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"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." -CitizenCorps.gov