18 - 24 July 2002 Issue No. 595 International	Current issue Previous issue Site map
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875		Recommend this page

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"THE EROSION of civil liberties and freedom that has been a feature of life in the United States since 11 September continued with the recent announcement of a new plan to turn one in every 24 Americans into citizen- informants. The plan is grand in scale, involving volunteers recruited primarily from among those whose work provides access to homes, businesses or transport systems. Letter carriers, utility employees, truck drivers and train conductors are all prime candidates. The scheme will tap into a potential pool of a million workers, who, in the daily course of their work, are in a unique position to serve as extra eyes and ears for law enforcement. The move has elicited much criticism, including this quote from a scathing editorial in the Washington Post: "Americans should not be subjecting themselves to law enforcement scrutiny merely by having cable lines installed, mail delivered or metres read. Police cannot routinely enter people's houses without either permission or a warrant. They should not be using utility workers to conduct surveillance they could not lawfully conduct themselves. Ritt Goldstein writes that the US will have a higher percentage of citizen informants than the former East Germany through the infamous Stasi secret police.

In the Washington Times, John Whitehead, executive director of the Rutherford Institute, says, "This is George Orwell's '1984'. It's an absolutely horrible and very dangerous idea." Another Washington Post writer suggests that a balance must be found between the needs of security and liberty."

Courtesy of www.shrinkingglobe.com

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