That was well put John. We have always had the ability to do these things, but now they are saying it's ok?? Wasn't it OK before?? I am curious is there an official definition for "suspicious" activity, and if so is there anything in place to punish those who file false reports? If I choose to do something not considered normal by you, or vise-versa is that "suspicious"? There is an old Twilight Zone that shows a comet falling to earth and most people notice it; and a little boy tells them that it's aliens that did this when no one has any power, then all of the sudden one guy does have power and everyone is 'suspicious' of him, then he tries to get the 'suspicion' off of himself by telling everyone about something he's noticed about his neighbor, and this goes on and on until they all start fighting to kill each other because everyone is suspicious of everyone else. At the end there are two aliens standing on the hill and one says to the other, "It's always like this?". To which he receives the reply, "Always. Just turn off the power, put them in the dark and sit back and watch." He also adds something about it being human nature and how easy it will be to do this all over and let them (humans) destroy themselves. Remember...perception is just that, and easily altered. From "The Twighlight Zone", Dion E. Baird Network Administrator DAS Office of Information Technology (503) 378-4947 mailto:dion.e.baird@private -----Original Message----- From: Christiansen, John (SEA) [mailto:JohnC@private] Sent: Friday, July 19, 2002 11:30 AM To: 'J.Michael Cuciti'; Goerling, Richard J. LT (TAD to CGIC Portland); crime@private Subject: RE: [RE: CRIME Re: TIPS] My POV is that it has always been the case that anyone - cable guy, phone installer, whomever - has had the ability and right to report apparent criminal activity to law enforcement authorities, and that this is a good thing. The difference here would seem to be that such reporting is being specifically encouraged, and a centralized federal reporting and data collection function is being established. There are many potential cultural and social problems with formal, officially sanctioned citizen spy "suspicious activity" reporting systems. I won't comment on those, since they are the focus of most commentary, except to note that the harm they do to social trust seems to considerably exceed their short term national security and/or law enforcement benefits. The Soviet Union and its allies implemented them extensively; the U.S. has only done so sporadically and never comfortably; who's standing now? (Lack of trust was IMO probably *the* single biggest factor in the collapse of Communism.) But apart from these negative effects from a pure data collection and management standpoint the concept seems fundamentally flawed. The analogy to a neighbor calling local law enforcement when they see a potential criminal event, like someone breaking into your house or you hitting your spouse, or for that matter the cable guy stumbling across your marijuana grow operation in the basement, doesn't work. This kind of situation generally resolves through some kind of official fact-finding (either informally on the scene or in formal proceedings) with an identifiable result (let go with a warning, criminal conviction or finding of innocence, etc.). A reporting system for "suspicious activity," however, is problematic from start to finish. In the first place, what are TIPSters supposed to report? A stash of AK-47s or a pamphlet titled "how to make a fertilizer bomb," yeah, I'd probably like the cable guy to tell somebody official. The occupation of an apartment by three swarthy guys who don't speak English very well and have a copy of the Koran? Hmmmm . . . (A couple of weeks after 9/11 an acquaintance whose judgment I have trusted - he's an educated professional - told me that the day before he'd called the FBI because he'd observed a group of Middle Eastern-looking men in a Starbucks who weren't speaking English and "looked suspicious." I'm sure the local office was just thrilled at this hot tip.) If only vague reporting criteria are used at best the vast majority of even good faith reports will be false positives as far as identifying potential homeland security threats is concerned - unlike the situation where your neighbor observes an apparent crime in progress. This will only be made worse by people who do not report in good faith, but do it out of some personal grudge or bigotry, to try to get somebody they don't like in trouble, and by nutcases and paranoids reporting their delusions. So we are establishing a system for the collection of data of inherently unknown quality. And once collected what action will follow the reports? I assume some would include facts indicating they should be investigated immediately, but I would also expect most of these facts would indicate a possible crime anyway (the stash of guns, etc.). In the absence of a lot of funding and investigative staff to do fact-finding, however, I have to assume most reports will not be investigated. But I expect they would nonetheless be put in a database in case they correlate usefully with other information. This raises the question, then, of when and how access to such data would be permitted. Only to a dedicated, well-trained, highly ethical Homeland Security elite investigation team (which does not currently exist and I don't think has been proposed)? To FBI or other federal agents in the course of homeland security investigations? To FBI or other law enforcement agents upon request at their discretion? To state and local law enforcement upon request at their discretion? To agencies or employers working on government projects needing to screen employees for potential national security risks? For that matter, will data subjects be allowed to know if it was used against them, or even know there is a record, much less a right to review and collect it? Once you've got data it becomes very tempting to use it, and in the absence of systems for correction errors take on a life of their own. This system will also tend to miss a lot. As I recall, the Unabomber had neither cable nor a phone, and probably didn't even get meaningful mail; Timothy McVeigh appears to have been sufficiently suspicious of society that there probably weren't many suspicious indicators to the average citizen. Any savvy terrorist (or criminal) - i.e. the really dangerous guys - will quickly figure out not to invite TIPS types in, or to clean up suspicious stuff first. People being the way they are it is no doubt the case that a few suspicious activity reports would pick up dimwit wannabes or crazies who do pose a genuine threat, someday if they can get their act sufficiently together (cf. Padilla). But I wouldn't rest any easier at night knowing we've got a system in place that can catch them while missing the real threats. So TIPS appears to be a system for the collection of mostly unverified personal data of unknown value, to be used under unspecified conditions, for uses which might affect the reputation and/or employment (at least) of subject individuals who may or may not have any right to know if it is being used or what the content is. I may be wrong about the details here, of course - I only know what I see in the papers - but if this is the case it probably bears some pretty substantial public policy debate above and beyond the "citizen spy" issue. -----Original Message----- From: J.Michael Cuciti [mailto:mcuciti@private] Sent: Friday, July 19, 2002 8:33 AM To: Goerling, Richard J. LT (TAD to CGIC Portland); crime@private Subject: Re: [RE: CRIME Re: TIPS] All: Let me put in my $.02: Operation TIPS is an opportunity for millions of ordinary citizens to assist law enforcement to track suspicious activities. Citizen in the United States have always had the opportunity to assist law enforcement agengies. If something did look right or was out of place, citizens can call 911 to report it. There is no law or government program for any of us to do that. What bothers me is the fact that the government may be or the citizens may believe the government is condoning "spying" on your neighbors. Good neighbors watch out for their fellow neighbors and their property. Mine do. I'm sorry, but I see a bit of McCarthyism here and I'm concerned that some "helpful" citizens will carry Operations TIPS too far. Common sense and good jugdment should prevail. Thanks for your time. J. Michael (Mike) Cuciti IT Support Manager Washington State Department of Health "Goerling, Richard J. LT (TAD to CGIC Portland)" <RIGoerling@private> wrote: > --------------------------------------------- > Attachment: > MIME Type: multipart/alternative > --------------------------------------------- Thanks to Todd for the good links re: OP TIPS. I'm very interested in CRIME members perspective. This program was handed to the Coast Guard's National Response Center by US DOJ to field the phone calls from the public. I'll have to reserve my comments for now, but please take a look at the program and let me know what you think. Rich Goerling US Coast Guard Portland, OR -----Original Message----- From: Todd Ellner [mailto:tellner@private] Sent: Thursday, July 18, 2002 2:17 PM To: crime@private Subject: CRIME Re: TIPS Someone asked about operation TIPS. Below are a couple of relevant links: http://www.aclu.org/news/2002/n071802b.html http://www.aclu.org/news/2002/n071602a.html <http://www.aclu.org/news/2002/n071602a.html> http://www.citizencorps.gov/tips.html <http://www.citizencorps.gov/tips.html> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63924-2002Jul12.html <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63924-2002Jul12.html> http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/07/17/usps.operation.tip/index.html <http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/07/17/usps.operation.tip/index.html> http://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/07/17/operation.tips.ap/index.html <http://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/07/17/operation.tips.ap/index.html> Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I hear an old, scratchy, Stalin-era record playing "Comrades! Root out treason and imperialist subversion! Complete the Five Year Plan in three years!" .
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