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Homeland Security bill avoids Operation TIPSCompiled from Times wires© St. Petersburg Times published July 28, 2002 WASHINGTON -- The Homeland Security Bill passed by the House of Representatives appears to kill Operation TIPS, the administration's controversial effort to encourage millions of Americans to report suspected terrorists to authorities. The 200-page bill, which passed by a 295-132 vote, bans programs such as the proposed Terrorism Information and Prevention System. TIPS was part of President Bush's recently released homeland security plan, but it drew fire from Republican conservatives and from the American Civil Liberties Union, which charged that it would encourage "government-sanctioned peeping toms." The House bill, masterminded by Rep. Dick Armey, R-Tex., the House majority leader, is intended to prevent "citizens spying on one another," said Armey aide Richard Diamond. The Senate version of the homeland security legislation, to be debated this week, is not likely to include a reference to TIPS, Diamond said, meaning that the proposal is dead. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has compared TIPS to a ghetto informant program run by the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover in the 1960s. Agents hired neighbors of suspected political protesters to spy on them. Attorney General John Ashcroft defended the controversial TIPS proposal. Under questioning from Leahy on Thursday, he said that the program would merely "be a referral agency that sends information that is phoned in to appropriate federal, state and local law enforcement agencies." Elsewhere . . .WALL STREET JOURNAL RETURNS: Scattered in offices from South Brunswick, N.J., to midtown Manhattan since its headquarters were damaged Sept. 11, the Wall Street Journal's staff of 400 begin returning to their offices in the World Financial Center on Monday. The offices have been refinished, refurnished and repeatedly cleaned. MAINE DONATES ANTIQUE FIRE WAGON: A painstakingly restored 19th century fire wagon was presented Saturday to the New York City Fire Department as a post-Sept. 11 gift from the people of Maine. The wagon will be used as a funeral caisson to honor fallen New York City firefighters
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From the Times wire desk
From the AP |
