United States Copying Gestapo and KGB Domestic Surveillance?
The Department of Homeland Security made national headlines in December after forming a new “partnership” with Walmart, using a 40-second video statement by DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano to ask Walmart shoppers to inform on their neighbors. Napolitano says in the video message, which is being played in Walmart stores across the country: “If you see something suspicious in the parking lot or in the store, say something immediately. Report suspicious activity to your local police or sheriff.” But the video is only one part of a vast and well-funded national program creating a nation of government informants from individuals, corporations, churches, and community organizations. And the eerie part of the program is that it is focused upon getting people to inform when there is no visible crime being committed.
The “If You See Something, Say Something” campaign is being run under the auspices of the U.S. government’s Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative (NSI). The Department of Homeland Security lauded Walmart for engaging in a “new partnership between DHS and Walmart to help the American public play an active role in ensuring the safety and security of our nation.” The NSI is selling the hometown informant concept with the claim that the agency is also “ensuring the protection of citizens’ privacy and civil liberties.” But keep in mind that this is the same federal government that is routinely recording millions of Americans’ telephone calls without a warrant and permanently storing every e-mail being sent by citizens — despite an explicit prohibition in the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment on government searches without “probable cause” and a court warrant “particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” Three federal courts have already decided that the NSA warrantless wiretapping program constitutes a blatant violation of the Fourth Amendment.
Moreover, the point is repeatedly emphasized that the focus on gaining informants would be almost exclusively in “minority and immigrant communities,” raising the ugly spectre of racism. For example, a Justice Department study entitled “Guidance for Building Communities of Trust,” funded by the federal Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program and posted on the NSI website, explained:
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