Editing Operation TIPS (section)

== Overview ==
The program's website implied that US workers who had access to private citizens' homes, such as cable installers and telephone repair workers, would be reporting on what was in people's homes if it were deemed "suspicious."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/jul2002/nf20020725_8083.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020803054424/http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/jul2002/nf20020725_8083.htm|url-status=dead|archive-date=August 3, 2002|title=Some TIPS for John Ashcroft|date=25 July 2002|work=Bloomberg.com}}</ref> The initial start of the program was to be August 2002 and would have included one million workers in ten US cities and then to be expanded.<ref>Chang, Nancy. <u>Silencing Political Dissent</u> (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2002) pp 97</ref>

Operation TIPS was accused of doing an "end run" around the [[United States Constitution]], and the original wording of the website was subsequently changed. President Bush's then-[[United States Attorney General|Attorney General]], [[John Ashcroft]] denied that private residences would be surveilled by private citizens operating as government spies. Mr. Ashcroft nonetheless defended the program, equivocating on whether the reports by citizens on fellow citizens would be maintained in [[government database]]s. While saying that the information would not be in a central database as part of Operation TIPS, he maintained that the information would still be kept in databases by various [[law enforcement agency|law enforcement agencies]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://lists.jammed.com/politech/2002/07/0097.html|title=politech 2002/07: FC: Ashcroft backs away from TIPS informant p}}</ref>

The databases were an explicit concern of various [[civil liberties]] groups (on both the left and the right) who felt that such databases could include false information about citizens with no way for those citizens to know that such information was compiled about them, nor any way for them to correct the information, nor any way for them to confront their accusers.

The [[United States Postal Service]], after at first seeming supportive of the program, later resisted its personnel being included in this program, reasoning that if [[mail carrier]]s became perceived as law enforcement personnel that they would be placed in danger at a level for which they could not reasonably be expected to be prepared, and that the downside of the program hence vastly outweighed any good that it could accomplish.  The [[National Association of Letter Carriers]], a postal [[trade union|labor union]], was especially outspoken in its opposition.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/07/18/operation.tips/index.html|title=CNN - Breaking News, Latest News and Videos|work=CNN}}</ref>