TIPping off Big Brother: if the Bush administration's citizen informant program "TIPS" is fully implemented, America may end up a nation of tattletales and civilian spies that would make Big Brother proud. (On the Home Front).

Of all the horrors depicted in George Orwell's Fictional dystopian classic 1984, none is more depressing than the fate of Parsons, the dull-witted, good-natured neighbor of the novel's protagonist, Winston Smith. Early in the story, Winston, who has already committed "thoughtcrime" against the totalitarian regime of the Party and Big Brother, comes face to face with Parsons' two fearsome children, who have been indoctrinated in the ways of the Party at a tender age:

"Up with your hands!" yelled a savage voice.

A handsome, tough-looking boy of nine had popped up from behind the table and was menacing him with a toy automatic pistol, while his small sister, about two years younger, made the same gesture with a fragment of wood. Both of them were dressed in the blue shorts, gray shirts, and red neckerchiefs which were the uniform of the Spies. Winston raised his hands above his head, but with an uneasy feeling, so vicious was the boy's demeanor, that it was not altogether a game.

"You're a traitor!" yelled the boy. "You're a thought-criminal! You're a Eurasian spy! I'll shoot you, I'll vaporize you, I'll send you to the salt mines!"

Suddenly they were both leaping around him, shouting "Traitor!" and "Thought-criminal!", the little girl imitating her brother in every movement.

Winston eventually leaves the terrified mother to deal with her ferocious, brainwashed children, reflecting that the wretched woman must lead a life of terror. Another year, two years, and they would be watching her night and day for symptoms of unorthodoxy. Nearly all children nowadays were horrible.... [H]ardly a week passed in which the Times did not carry a paragraph describing how some eavesdropping little sneak ... had over-heard some compromising remark and denounced his parents to the Thought Police."

Soon after Winston's unsettling encounter, Parsons proudly informs Winston over lunch that his little ones take their duties as citizen spies seriously, having recently turned in a suspicious-looking bystander to the Thought Police. In the end, though, Parsons' little daughter denounces her own father to the Thought Police, after overhearing Parsons utter "Down with Big Brother!" in his sleep. Mr. Parsons, brimming with servile pride at his daughter's vigilant "patriotism," is locked in the same cell as Winston Smith, deep within the Ministry of Love, to await the inevitable death sentence.

Orwellian Reality

Orwell did not invent the notion of citizen spies. Orwell's fictional Oceania, a place where parents live in terror of their own children -- where no friendship is completely secure from suspicion, and where neighbors, co-workers, and passersby are all enlisted in a vast network of civilian informants -- resembles conditions that existed in Stalin's reign of terror, and in all modern totalitarian states. Realizing that a cowed and brainwashed populace can carry out surveillance better than a million trained agents, Communist tyrants from East Germany to Cuba created revolutionary circles, youth groups, and other organizations specifically to enable the Party faithful in every walk of life to police everybody else.

Such methods would have been unthinkable in the United States, until recently. In the new topsy-turvy political climate of post-September 11th, the specter of a national system of civilian spies and informants is dangerously close to becoming reality, and all in the name of fighting terrorism. Already, jittery Americans willingly turn in innocent strangers on the strength of overheard snatches of conversation, as occurred on September 13th when Florida authorities acted on a tip from a waitress who claimed to have overheard three Middle Eastern-looking men engaged in suspicious conversation about September 11th and terrorism. A 17-hour statewide manhunt ensued, in which the three suspects, driving two cars, were eventually captured. Because they were "uncooperative," according to officials (they refused to give permission to have their vehicles searched), the three men -- two American citizens and a foreigner with a valid visa -- were forced to stand by while authorities searched their cars and personal effec ts, even detonating a backpack, while news helicopters hovered overhead.

It turned out, though, that the three men were medical students on their way to a training program at a Florida hospital. The hospital promptly canceled their enrollment in the program, while the men pondered whether to take legal action. Said the father of one of the three men, who are all Muslims, "the situation used to be Americans are innocent until proven guilty. Now it's the other way around."

Bush's TIPS Program

Episodes like this one may become routine if the Bush administration's TIPS program is put into effect as planned. TIPS, the Terrorism Information and Prevention System, is but one facet of President Bush's newly created Citizen Corps, an organization designed to help "every American become active in the homeland security effort," in the words of Citizen Corps' website.

According to an early posting on the program's website, TIPS will involve "millions of American workers who, in the daily course of their work, are in a unique position to see potentially unusual or suspicious activity in public places." In its original form, TIPS drew a chorus of protests for proposals to enlist not only federal government employees such as postal workers, but also private-sector workers like cable repairmen and electricians, who have access to private homes and businesses.

The whole point of TIPS is to enlist American citizens in surveillance activities that the state is either legally or physically unable to do. As a July 14th Washington Post editorial aptly put it, "Americans should not be subjecting themselves to law enforcement scrutiny merely by having cable lines installed, mail delivered or meters read. Police cannot routinely enter people's houses without either permission or a warrant. They should not be using utility workers to conduct surveillance they could not lawfully conduct themselves." If we continue to follow the Bush administration's prescription for the war on terrorism, though, we may end up a nation of tattletales and informants. Big Brother would be proud.