ashcroft, his tips idea, and a certain slate editor
an article found here on slate.msn.com reviews the vote by the house of representatives to shoot down atty. gen. john ashcroft's tips idea. if you're not familiar with this proposal, in summary, it basically elevates every civil servant in america to the position of "official anti-terrorist" snoop, moving them to rat out neighbors, stops on their postal routes, and customers of cable companies. you get the idea [tips stands for "terrorism information and prevention system"]. the ramifications of this proposal are obvious to anyone that can point to the color brown, yet certain individuals who would clearly prefer the usg to run their lives for them still herald the idea as a wonderful solution to our present predicament. the following are direct responses to the article i linked above:
1. yes, it is a bad idea.
2. you say that if a pizza guy had called in a tip on mohammed atta last august, our world might look quite different today. i ask you, what exactly would the pizza guy have called in about? that there were arabs living in an apartment together? prior to 9/11, what had they done that a domino's delivery boy would have known about [they were here legally, they had licenses, passports, the works]? and if he had seen something worth informing authorities about, he could have just called the police. that's what they do, remember? so now you want to have literally millions of government and professional employees calling in to the usg against the guy they saw in the supermarket who bought too much cardamom [it's a spice used in afghani cuisine]? you see the problem with your mentality is that a person is not a criminal until they commit a crime.
3. you cite several times that we already have laws [you like to use the word "mandatory" a lot] that require us as responsible citizens to report things like child abuse. i am completely in favor of those laws, however they don't apply here. the difference is that in those cases, criminal acts have already been witnessed, and that's not what tips is about [again, if it was, they should just call the police]. what does the "p" in tips stand for? prevention. it's not about solving crimes, it's about preempting them. this in and of itself is not a bad thing, but to employ an entire nation of kindergarten teachers, postal workers, and dmv employees to carry it out is far from an intelligent pursuit. i do not attribute to the average postal carrier a discerning eye capable of preempting the terror that might strike my neighborhood, city, county, state, or country.
4. you state that current caseworkers dealing with crime tips are often overwhelmed and, as a result, are not able to follow all possible leads. you also say that cops "shouldn't be dispatched each time the mail carrier hears me play my greatest iraqi dance hits cd". your example only proves my point that much more. how is playing an iraqi cd a potential threat? obviously, it's not. so the cops shouldn't waste their time on it anyway, the case workers shouldn't even be pursuing it, and the mail-carrier shouldn't even be reporting it.
5. i end with this: you state that no one disputes that we must sacrifice some privacy to root out terrorist cells. hello? i dispute that. that's stupid. is it worth my sacrifice of privacy and freedom of pursuit so that uncle sam can keep tabs on how many times my middle eastern neighbor takes his garbage out in a given week or which porn magazines he subscribes to? i don't think it is. go crawl back under your govenrment issue security blanket. Matt @ 3:02 PM