July
18, 2002, 8:45 a.m. I
Spy
The Spy-on-Every-Street-Corner-Corps.
By Robert A.
Levy
IPS, or Terrorism
Information and Prevention System, is the latest brainchild of the Bush
administration in the war against terrorism. If the media accounts are
to believed, TIPS is crafted to transform us into a nation of meddlers,
busybodies, and snoops — each of us spying on the rest. By next month,
the administration plans to recruit a million volunteers to serve as government
informants in ten test cities. If the plan works, the goal is to enroll
four percent of all Americans, or about eleven million domestic spies
across the nation.
Evidently, the focus
will be on truckers, mail carriers, utility employees, and others whose
jobs take them to a variety of places. But those same jobs often allow
access to private homes, and that concerns civil libertarians. According
to press reports, the government recruits will be well positioned to recognize
suspect activities. Never mind that your typical letter carrier or utility
worker — with all due respect to both professions — possesses
neither the experience nor the expertise to pass judgment on what might
be considered suspicious. Despite that, the new breed of federal informants
is going to identify potential mischief and potential mischief-makers,
then report directly to the Justice Department, where all that information
will be stored in a central database — yet another database containing
names of persons who have not been charged with any wrongdoing. Attorney
General John Ashcroft and his staff will, in turn, make the database available
to state and local authorities, for who knows what purpose.
The administration
has been quick to disavow any intent to deputize a pack of private moles.
Homeland Security Chief Tom Ridge told radio reporters, "The last
thing we want is Americans spying on Americans. That's just not what the
president is all about, and not what the TIPS program is all about."
And Justice Department spokeswoman Barbara Comstock insisted that "None
of the Operations TIPS materials … made reference to entry or access
to the homes of individuals; nor has it ever been the intention of the
Department of Justice, or any other agency, to set up such a program.
Our interest in establishing the Operation TIPS program is to allow American
workers to share information they receive in the regular course of their
jobs in public places and areas."
Perhaps so. But if
the administration merely seeks more and better information from diligent
citizens, then why not simply publish a phone number where questionable
behavior can be reported? That would reach 285 million Americans, not
just a paltry eleven million. Instead, the Justice Department will identify
a special cohort of citizens who are presumably able to perform investigative
work that the rest of us aren't positioned or equipped to perform. The
administration's motives may indeed be pure. But the law of unintended
consequences is apt to prevail. We will soon have meter readers entering
our homes, supposedly to do what we expect them to do, then rummaging
around our private residences only to file a report with the Justice Department
about anything they deem questionable. If police officers wanted to do
the same thing, they'd have to convince a judge or magistrate that there
was probable cause to issue a search warrant. TIPS may not raise Fourth
Amendment concerns, but it comes pretty close.
What's worse, the
program almost certainly won't work. In fact, it is more likely to be
counterproductive. With limited resources to battle terrorists, federal,
state, and local authorities definitely don't need an avalanche of worthless
tips. Maybe there will be a nugget or two of useful information somewhere
in the heap. But law-enforcement officials won't ever get to the nuggets
without wading through the rubbish. Naturally, that's not to say citizens
should keep it to themselves when they observe suspect behavior in plain
view. But the answer isn't a legion of federal emissaries serving essentially
as undercover agents. Terrorists are not stupid. They will not invite
a letter carrier in to spot the latest weaponry. That means the meter
readers and letter carriers will, for the most part, be observing ordinary
Americans doing ordinary things. The fear is that more zealous or malevolent
informants will somehow find a national-security risk lurking behind everyday
conduct — an assessment that will occasionally be driven by outright
prejudice or personal vendetta.
Every 20th-century
dictator appointed civilian armies to watch over their neighbors. The
Bush administration would do well not to follow in those footsteps. We
can do without block fuhrers — a spy on every street corner.
—
Robert A. Levy is senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato
Institute.
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IPS, or Terrorism
Information and Prevention System, is the latest brainchild of the Bush
administration in the war against terrorism. If the media accounts are
to believed, TIPS is crafted to transform us into a nation of meddlers,
busybodies, and snoops — each of us spying on the rest. By next month,
the administration plans to recruit a million volunteers to serve as government
informants in ten test cities. If the plan works, the goal is to enroll
four percent of all Americans, or about eleven million domestic spies
across the nation.
