A controversial government initiative to recruit Americans to spy on each other in an attempt to prevent terrorist attacks was quietly killed with the passage of the Homeland Security Act.
First announced by the Justice Department in January, Operation TIPS (Terrorism Information and Prevention System), was initially designed as a nationwide reporting system that would enlist one million workers -– ranging from postal employees to truck drivers –- to tattle on any "suspicious activity" by people along their routes.
The program was met with vehement opposition from privacy groups, newspaper editorialists and even conservative legislators. Some likened TIPS to an operative of the East German Stasi, the secret police that used citizen informants to spy on ordinary Germans for more than 40 years.
Caught in a hail of criticism, the Justice Department decided not to engage mail or utility workers in the program. Officials then toned down the TIPS website, deleting references to the one million snoops and excising the exhortation to "Volunteer now!"
In July, House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas), introduced legislation to ban TIPS (Sec. 880). The bill also prevented the Justice Department from using the Homeland Security Act as a launch pad to create a National ID system (Sec. 1514), and to create a Privacy Officer (Sec. 222).
"Mr. Armey was adamant about keeping those provisions in the bill," said Richard Diamond, a spokesman for Armey, who recently retired after 18 years in Congress. "He felt the programs were not consistent with free society."
Despite the backlash, the Justice Department lobbied hard for the initiative.
"We worked with Congress to try to implement the program, but ultimately the language was put in (the Homeland Security Act) to prohibit it," said a department spokeswoman.
News of TIPS' demise has been buried in the deluge of stories arising from the law's passage, including a provision that makes it easier for Internet Service Providers to disclose suspicious activity on their networks to authorities.
Moreover, the Pentagon's newly-minted Total Information Awareness System aims to create massive databases tracking the activities and communications of private individuals in an attempt to track down terrorists.
But critics say the TIPS program was a particularly insidious idea, turning neighbors against neighbors and enlisting untrained citizens to spy for the government.
"This program epitomized the government's insatiable appetite for the surveillance of law-abiding citizens," said Katie Corrigan, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU worried that TIPS would lead to ethnic profiling.
On Tuesday, all that was left of the infamous effort was a Google cache of the TIPS site.
