Re: [iwar] [fc:Ashcroft's.Master.Plan.to.Spy.on.Us]

From: e.r. (fastflyer28@yahoo.com)
Date: 2002-08-06 21:50:41


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On the AG: This guy is frightening, but take heart in the fact that all three branches of government NEVER agree on much.  Mr. Ashcroft may be the only powerful man who lost his elected role in government to a dead guy.  The worrisome part is he has greater power as the AG than he did as a Senator.  The good people of Missouri were sending all American's a foreboding message by voting against his then dead opponent,  Essentially-do not trust this man.  If he was fighting for racical segregation to continue in Missouri into the 1980's, this is not on a mission from GOD. He may think so, but whatever mission he is on I have never see in the Bible, or the Constution of this country.  He is a political loose cannon that believes his own press. 
The FBI was involved in domestic spying in the 60's and 70's and that came to an abrupt halt when  the Church Hearing met. The Intelligence Community was told to quit violating the Constutional right s of all American's and do the job of being concerned about the threat that foreign nationals pose to the US-IN SOME VERY LIMITED CASES.
Mr Ashcroft has begun to look as unreasonable as did Bill Casey-Reagan's CIA Director and I hope that his continual transgressions onto the rights of American's gets him tossed out of office.  
 Fred Cohen wrote:Ashcroft's Master Plan to Spy on Us
Nat Hentoff
Village Voice

Friday, 2 August, 2002

'Citizens Will Not Become Informants'

The July 17 editorial in The Boston Globe--not one of my columns in the
Voice--was headlined, "Ashcroft vs. Americans." It began: "Operation
TIPS--The Terrorism Information and Prevention System--is a scheme that
Joseph Stalin would have appreciated. Plans for its pilot phase, to start in
August, have Operation TIPS recruiting a million letter carriers, meter
readers, cable technicians, and other workers with access to private homes
as informants to report to the Justice Department any activities they think
suspicious."

This newest John Ashcroft battle plan in the war on civil liberties would
have us join the citizens of China, Cuba, Kazakhstan, and other countries
where there is ubiquitous surveillance for signs of disloyalty to the state.
Not only Joseph Stalin but also George Orwell would have understood what
John Ashcroft had in mind. As The Boston Globe went on to say, "Ashcroft's
informant corps is a vile idea not merely because it violates civil
liberties . . . or because it will sabotage genuine efforts to prevent
terrorism by overloading law enforcement officials with irrelevant reports
about Americans who have nothing to do with terrorists. Operation TIPS
should be stopped because it is utterly anti-American." I was first alerted
to Operation TIPS by Matt Olson in Isthmus, a lively alternative paper from
Madison, Wisconsin. Then the May issue of The Progressive--a national
monthly magazine also out of Madison--ran the full story by Bill Berkowitz,
a regular contributor to Working Assets' workingforchange.com.

This time, John Ashcroft was so confident of public applause for his plan to
smoke out the lurking terrorist "sleepers" among us that he didn't keep it
secret. On May 29, on the government Web site
(www.citizencorps.gov/tips.html) there it was! Meet Big Brother:

"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. . . . 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."

By July 16, that government Web site had removed the listing of specific
kinds of worker-informants who would be watching us, but it noted that all
the tipsters had to do was "use their common sense and knowledge of their
work environment to identify suspicious or unusual activity." There was no
definition of "suspicious" or "unusual." The president endorsed Operation
TIPS, as did Homeland Security's Tom Ridge and Senate Republican Minority
Leader Trent Lott. The ACLU, of course, opposed Operation TIPS. As usual,
there was no word of alarm from Tom Daschle or Dick Gephardt. But Democratic
congressman Dennis Kucinich, ranking Democrat on the Government Oversight
Committee's National Security Oversight Subcommittee, told Bill Berkowitz in
The Progressive: "It appears we are being transformed from an information
society to an informant society."

Where were Al Gore, John Edwards, John Kerry, Joe Lieberman, Charles
Schumer, and Hillary Rodham Clinton?

Suddenly, however, Operation TIPS seemed to crash. On July 19, Ellen Sorokin
reported in The Washington Times that a prominent conservative, "House
Majority Leader Dick Armey, in his markup of legislation to create a
Homeland Security Department . . . scrapped a program that would use
volunteers in domestic surveillance."

The Postal Service, in part because of the pressure from its unions, had
already refused to permit its letter carriers to participate in Operation
TIPS.

What follows is from Dick Armey's markup on the "Freedom and Security"
section of the Homeland Security Bill. He wrote: "Because the [Homeland
Security] Department has a singular mission of protecting the freedoms of
Americans, specific legal protections will ensure that freedom is not
undermined. . . . Citizens Will Not Become Informants. To ensure that no
operation of the Department can be construed to promote citizens spying on
one another, this draft will contain language to prohibit programs such as
‘Operation TIPS.'"

Armey also canceled a cherished Bush-Ashcroft anti-terrorism weapon, a
national ID card. Wrote Armey: "The federal government will not have the
authority to nationalize drivers' licenses and other ID cards. Authority to
design and issue these cards shall remain with the states. The use of
biometric identifiers and Social Security numbers with these cards is not
consistent with a free society."

Also, Armey--described in The Almanac of American Politics 2002 as often
driving a pickup truck, wearing cowboy boots, and quoting country music
lyrics--established, in his markup of the Homeland Security Department bill,
"A Privacy Officer. Working as a close adviser to the Secretary, this
officer will ensure technology research and new regulations from the
Department respect the civil liberties our citizens enjoy. This is the
first-ever such officer established by law in a cabinet department."
(Emphasis added).

Despite Dick Armey's rejection of the Bush-Ashcroft plan for what
conservative Republican Bob Barr calls an official "snitch system," the
Department of Justice declared that Operation TIPS will continue. I called
Ashcroft's spokeswoman, Barbara Comstock, and she explained that since the
Senate was still debating its version of the Homeland Security Department
bill, Armey's revisions had not become law; and until--if and when--they are
enacted, Operation TIPS will go forward.

Next week: How Vermont senator Patrick Leahy tried to get Armey's rejection
of Big Brother into the Senate bill, but was betrayed by Joseph Lieberman
and Tom Daschle. We may not know until September, when the Senate returns,
if we are all under government surveillance.


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