Bush's Secret Army of Snoops and Snitches

By Matthew Rothschild, The Progressive

A new class of everyday spies, from paramedics to utility
workers, are being recruited to be "terrorism liason officers."
The full scale of Bush's assault on our civil liberties may not be known
until years after he's left office.
At the moment, all we can do is get glimpses here or there of what's going
on.
And the latest one to come to my attention is the dispatching of police
officers, firefighters, paramedics, and utility workers as so-called
"terrorism liaison officers," according to a report by Bruce Finley in the Denver Post.
They are entrusted with hunting for "suspicious activity," and
then they report their findings, which end up in secret government databases.
What constitutes "suspicious activity," of course, is in the eye
of the beholder. But a draft Justice Department memo on the subject says that
such things as "taking photos of no apparent aesthetic value" or
"making notes" could constitute suspicious activity, Finley wrote.
The states where this is going on include: Arizona,
California, Colorado,
Florida, Illinois,
Tennessee, Wisconsin,
and Washington, D.C.
Dozens more are planning to do so, Finley reports.
Colorado
alone has 181 Terrorism Liaison Officers, and some of them are from the private
sector, such as Xcel Energy.
Mark Silverstein of the Colorado ACLU told
Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! that this reminds him of the old TIPS
program, which "caused so much controversy that Congress eventually shut
it down. But it is reemerging in other forms." Silverstein warns that
there will be thousands and thousands of "completely innocent people going
about completely innocent and legal activities" who are going to end up in
a government database.
On the web, I found a description for a Terrorism Liaison Officer
Position in the East
Bay.
Reporting to the Alameda and Contra Costa Counties and the city of Oakland,
these officers "would in effect function as ad hoc members" of the
East Bay Terrorism Early Warning Group, which consists of local police officers
and firefighters.
The "suggested duties" of these Terrorism Liaison Officers
include: "source person for internal or external inquiry," and
"collecting, reporting retrieving and sharing of materials related to
terrorism. Such materials might include ... books journals, periodicals, and
videotapes."
Terrorism Liaison Officers would be situated not only in agencies dealing
with the harbor, the airports, and the railroads, but also
"University/Campus."
And the private sector would be involved, too. "The program would
eventually be expanded to include Health Care personnel and representatives
from private, critical infrastructure entities, with communication systems
specifically tailored to their needs."
In this regard, Terrorism Liaison Officers resemble InfraGard members. (See "The FBI Deputizes
Business".) This FBI-private sector liaison group now consists of more
than 26,000 members, who have their own secure channels of communication and
are shielded, as much as possible, from scrutiny.
Terrorism Liaison Officers connect up with so-called "Fusion
Centers": intelligence sharing among public safety agencies as well as the
private sector. The Department of Justice has come up with "Fusion Center
Guidelines" that discuss the role of private sector participants.
"The private sector can offer fusion centers a variety of
resources," it says, including "suspicious incidents and activity
information."
It also recommends shielding the private sector. "To aid in sharing
this sensitive information, a Non-Disclosure Agreement may be used. The NDA
provides private sector entities an additional layer of security, ensuring the
security of private sector proprietary information and trade secrets," the
document states.
As if that's not enough, the Justice Department document recommends that
"fusion centers and their leadership encourage appropriate policymakers to
legislate the protection of private sector data provided to fusion centers."