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". Read the background of the author at the bottom... The thing is that this really isn't new. In the 80's American school children were told to inform the police if they discovered that their parents were using drugs. This sort of program becomes a problem when the people at large decide that they trust the government more then their neighbors. How far are we from that? US planning to recruit one in 24 Americans as citizen spies - smh.com.au |