Ding Dong, the wicked witch is dead!

Operation Tips, the Justice Department and Ashcroft's proposal to make Americans spy on their neighbors and customers and then call the Government and drop a dime on them, is DEAD.

"The Homeland Security package approved by the Senate last week and slated to be signed by President Bush includes language explicitly prohibiting the government from implementing the controversial initiative. It was hounded by criticism from civil libertarians and targeted for elimination by key lawmakers."

"... as details about the program began to leak out, parties as divergent as the American Civil Liberties Union and House Majority Leader Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.) rallied to condemn the effort. They argued it would encourage citizens to snoop on one another while doing little to safeguard the nation."

"The initiative quickly became a public-relations disaster for Attorney General John D. Ashcroft and other Bush administration officials. It served as a symbol for anti-terrorism policies that many Democrats and civil liberties groups considered heavy-handed."

Our view: This was a proposal that would have encouraged searches of our residences without a warrant or even probable cause. It would have cost the Government (and us, the taxpayers) a lot of money to follow what likely would be mostly useless tips. And it had the potential for fueling vigilantism and racial profiling.

We especially liked this from the July 17 Boston Globe editorial, Ashcroft vs. Americans:

"Ashcroft's informant corps is a vile idea not merely because it violates civil liberties in a narrow legal sense or because it will sabotage genuine efforts to prevent terrorism by overloading law enforcement officials with irrelevant reports about Americans who have nothing to do with terrorists. Operation TIPS should be stopped because it is utterly anti-American. It would give Stalin and the KGB a delayed triumph in the Cold War - in the name of the Bush administration's war against terrorism."

Good riddance to Operation Tips, and may the Total Information Awareness (TIA) program meet the same fate.

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