If your main sources of information are mainstream press "pundits" and journalists, you may think TIPS is a good idea. True experts, however, - as opposed to the media anointed variety - will disagree vehemently. As soon as I heard the details of the TIPS program, I contacted a 
group of my professional colleagues - serving and retired federal agents and cops - men and women who have spent a good portion of their lives actually handling informants with demonstrable success. These aren't the think-tank wonks that the mainstream media presents as "terrorism experts" or "intelligence experts," nor are they bureaucrats like the CIA's George Tenet, whose first allegiance seems to be the preservation of his agency's image and power. The group whose opinions I used are true experts. Besides their long experience in the field, every one of them has qualified numerous times as an expert in the arts of Informant Handling and Covert Operations, in federal and state courts across the land. 

The bottom line of my ad hoc survey is the following:

- The immense flood of raw information about to gush from the Citizen Stool Pigeon Program, will clog an already inadequate human Intelligence system, now manned by inept amateurs. The FBI and CIA have already blamed their intel failures leading up to 9/11 on the massive flow of useless information that they were "forced" to sift through. TIPS will greatly increase that flow.

- This increased flow will result in large amounts of information being rapidly processed and disposed of with little scrutiny. Terrorists will find it significantly easier to execute their deeds undetected and "under the radar," so to speak.

- With TIPS, An old problem plaguing all informant systems will become a nightmare. All law enforcement officers involved in informant handling are aware of the high incidence of Informants furnishing false information for many reasons, i.e., revenge, jealousy, mental illness, to get rid of criminal competitors, to con payments our of government agencies, etc.. This fact of life requires highly skilled investigations of all informant information. As a result of the drug war alone, there are already tens of thousands of cases involving tragedies inflicted on innocent Americans at the hands of informants that have gone unreported in the media. This number will explode out of control, as will the ensuing cover-ups by the very same bureaucrats and "experts" now "explaining" the failures leading to 9/11. 

- The cover-up of informant misdeeds by corrupt and inept law enforcement and covert agents who handle them, is already at an epidemic level. (Please see the "King Rat" article on the web site for an example of what is meant here - Also Into The Buzzsaw, edited by Kristina borjesson). Under the new patriot and secrecy laws, a drastically expanded corps of Citizen Informants can be expected to wreak havoc, not only on our Constitution, but on the very 
nature of our way of life and the way we perceive government. The TIPS program will literally give the power of an avenging god to any clever stool pigeon with an inept handler and/or a corrupt political connection. Regrettably, there are still plenty of both in this country.

Is this the America you want? Neither do I.

At the moment, my colleagues and I are working on the formulation of a systematic program of Intelligence gathering that will directly address each of the factors that made our nation vulnerable to the events of 9/11; facts of life in the business of Human Intelligence that the current administration seems to be ignoring completely. The following are only a few:

- Recognizing as all law enforcement knows (internally), that the talent for handling and evaluating human intelligence is as innate, God-given and measurable as the ability to play football; that it is as much art as it is science and that no amount of budget or Draconian laws can improve on the inept handling of the intelligence that might have prevented both attacks on 
the World Trade Center as heard on the CD "Final Warning." 

- Recognizing that unless a system is devised to scout the best talent available in the nation for the front lines of the war on terrorism, all current efforts must fail and that this talent is one that can be measured and evaluated much as one would evaluate a lawyer of a ballplayer's stats.

- Recognizing what history has already taught us many times: that the power and authority to manage any Intelligence Gathering Program that has a rapid response factor, must be placed in a single agency with no reliance whatsoever on inter-agency cooperation.

- Recognizing that, had anyone paid attention to the warnings of  professionals, addressing each of the above, as early as November of 1998,  there is a good chance that 9/11 would have been prevented. (I urge every reader to listen to the CD "FIRST WARNING" - three hours of interviews with four federal agents, predicting the WTC disaster in November, 1998: available at http://www.expertwitnessradio.org

There, of course, is much, much more that I could comment on right now, but, as I said, the plan is in the works. It is sad that none of us have the confidence in any of our nation's traditional "watchdogs" - mainstream media, congress, the national security establishment—to approach them directly. So our ideas will be presented through private industry where, 
hopefully, political and bureaucratic careers and egos will have, at least, a lessened affect.

In the meantime you can help try to end the madness of a Citizen Informant Army by e-mailing this piece far and wide and by joining this web site as a member to help us to spread the word.