TIPS Rises From the Ashes

Remember TIPS ? Oh, you gotta remember TIPS ! It was a John Ashcroft proposal to protect us all from terror. Or each other. Or both.

C'mon. Think back. The Terrorism Information and Prevention System (TIPS). The idea was to have lettercarriers and repairpersons and many others specially trained to keep watch for suspicious activity. Your suspicious activity. Well, considering how popular neighbor narking programs have been in places like Soviet Russia, East Germany and China it is no surprise that TIPS was shouted, hooted, jeered and generally disrespected into oblivion. Like Mr. Ashcroft.

But it's BAAAAAAAAAACK ! Smaller version, same idea, already underway. It's called School Bus Watch , part of a larger DepHomeSec program called "Highway Watch" that has been going since 2003. 2003 !? We're training school bus drivers to watch parents for tell-tale signs of terrorism, so probably a bad idea to carry your RPG launcher when escorting Ashley to the bus. Oh, yes, Best Beloved, and that's not all.

There's Real Estate Watch to train realtors to look for funny business, ("Why, exactly, are you interested in such a large basement, Mr. Bin Laden ?") and then our favorite, CAT Eyes, or Community Anti-Terrorism Training Institute. Now that's your basic neighbor-to-neighbor hated and distrust program, building communities the old fashioned way.

Perhaps we shouldn't say that TIPS is "back", maybe it never really went away.

Are we feeling more secure or does this news just make you want to

Stay Naked ?
JD