Hysterical Paranoia Strikes Again!

What is most sad about this is that this story is coming from Australia. I've not heard any mention of this here in the States until now.

The goverment is now going to have a bunch of volunteer citizen spies. Oh wonderful! So that nosely old lady that lives next door will now have government backing for sticking her nose in your business. This is exactly the sort of thing we SHOULDN'T do. The idea is that it'll help the goverment know about terrorist plots and other criminal activities. That's all fine and dandy if you buy into the "if your not doing anything wrong, whats the problem" ideology. Personally I think that is flawed. This is simply Big Brother keeping an eye on you through the use of Little Brothers.

What about those who will abuse this program. Do you really think the government is going to have a strong qualification program for those who wish to participate? If you think they will you're fooling yourself. The application process will likely be screened by ill trained local agents who will let voyuers, thieves, spies and other agents who have NO business having this kind of authorization.

The local voyuer may simply flash his credentials in the TIPS program and be let off easy for peeping in windows. Thieves will be able to legally scope out a potential target. When someone approches them, they can just say they are part of the TIPS program and be left at that.

This isn't the Neighborhood Watch Program here. This could go a LONG way to damaging our freedoms. We don't live in Nazi Germany. We don't need citizen spies! I urge you to write your government officials and fight this!