Our President and his advisors keep finding new ways to limit our freedoms, and turn a nation that stands for freedom into something resembling a police state everyday.
It appears that the White House is providing funding, asistance, and training to Neighborhood Watch programs so that they can help ferret out "terrorists" across America. The idea being that people will spy on their neighbors and call the police whenever they see something they don't think is normal, or someone they think is "out of place". I guess that means that if you're new to a neighborhood and look Middle Eastern, you should start expecting a knock on the door from the local constabulary to "welcome" you to the community. Doesn't that sound grand.
The expanded Neighborhood Watch, which now has terrorism "prevention" as one of its main goals, is joined by Operation TIPS, "a nationwide program giving millions of American truckers, letter carriers, train conductors, ship captains, utility employees, and others a formal way to report suspicious terrorist activity." Just think. If you get anything in the mail that your letter carrier deems "subversive", he'll be encouraged to call the Feds.
Operation TIPS will be piloted in 10 cities, and involve nearly 1 million "operatives", that are supposed to report any "suspicious" activity they come across. I wonder if hiking through the woods with a foam sword in an IFGS game will be considered "suspicious"? Will going to an anti-WTO protest be "suspicious"? What about a ltter to the editor criticizing the President?
This is just the beginning of the type of spying on neighbors for the government that Hitler and Stalin used. The invasion of privacy that is just beginning with these programs is the antithesis of what our system of government is supposed to be about.
I'm beginning to wonder if Orwell wasn't just off by 20 years...