A tip for Bush: Give me privacy

The president is deputizing you and your grandma. Get ready to serve.\nAccording to The New York Times (April 8, Bumiller), Dubya used a Tennessee speech to push TIPS, short for Terrorism Information and Prevention System. Now, let it be known that I am all for terrorism prevention. I slip my shoes off with glee when asked, and if I have to get to the airport at three in morning for my noon flight, I'll do it for the greater good.\nBut I'm far from enthused about TIPS. The president is calling on all ship captains, utility workers and anyone else out and about to report whatever suspicious comings and goings they see, in the hopes of creating a nationwide network of grannies and gas meter readers who will be ever vigilant in the pursuit of safety.\nDoes this have the potential to take a turn for the worse, or what? Now every nosey neighbor and annoying nudge will have an excuse to poke into your backyard privacy and I will have to live with the fact that while I walk naked around my apartment, someone may be waging the war against Al Qaeda on an intrusive dog-walking and top-secret reconnaissance mission.\nIt used to be that I could depend on the American Civil Liberties Union to look out for me, fight off the pesky un-constitutional intrusions and raise a ruckus when the government tried to infringe on the right to privacy and send civilians to do the jobs of government officials, who have to have warrants for most of their snooping. But after Sept. 11, the ACLU is a dead dog, having died at the feet of an administration enjoying its stay in the polling stats stratosphere. I am sick and tired of turning on the television, only to see simpering civil libertarians and snide constitutional scholars conceding that, well yes, we may have to accept some invasions of our privacy and limitations of our rights in order to facilitate our safety.\nAnd these guys are the liberals! By the way, whatever happened to the right wing's commitment to keeping the government out of our lives? Did I miss a memo about that principle only applying to abortion and big business accounting practices?\nBut apparently, the campaign oratory about keeping government in its place doesn't apply to TIPS. \nThe biggest problem with the creation of a police state is that it simply won't work. No matter how tightly we box ourselves into the trappings of fascism, the so-called "forces of evil" will find an opening and exploit it. It seems to me that we have two choices. Under the specter of terror, we can live in an open society that puts a premium on privacy. Or, under the specter of terror, we can live in a tightly regulated society that sacrifices privacy for the false promise of security. In neither scenario will we be arguably more or less safe.\n Regimes that have promised absolute security -- and, of course, it's the fascist states that spring to mind -- have never been able to deliver peacefulness and in the process of trying to make good on the impossible, have crushed the spirits of their people. \nThe TIPS program may seem a small, innocent step in the direction of reduced privacy, but remember… someone may be watching you.