Tips

From 911Encyclopedia:

Nat Henthoff, Village Voice summed up on August 2nd, 2002: 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." "By July 16, 2002, 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." Source: http://villagevoice.com/issues/0232/hentoff.php

In August 2002 the Department of Justice was forwarding incoming Operation TIPS calls to the Fox-owned "America's Most Wanted" television series. Source: http://www.commondreams.org/news2002/0806-03.htm

Compare: http://www.citizencorps.gov/tips.html