A Nation of Informers

New York Times ^ | 9/23/02 | ADAM LIPTAK

[kattracks]

HAT should Eunice Stone have done?

As she was having breakfast at a Shoney's restaurant in Calhoun, Ga., one day earlier this month, she said she overheard a conversation among the three men in the next booth that alarmed her.

So Ms. Stone, a nurse from Cartersville, Ga., called the police and said that she heard the men discussing terrorism plans. As a consequence, law enforcement officials closed down the Interstate highway known as Alligator Alley and detained the men for the better part of a day. The men, who were Muslim medical students on their way to a hospital in Miami, endured a thorough search of their cars for explosives and intense public scrutiny before they were released.

Ms. Stone has been praised for her alertness as well as criticized for what civil-liberties advocates said was paranoia. She has hired lawyers. Yet Ms. Stone was clearly heeding the call of government officials, from President Bush on down, who have asked citizens to be vigilant and report anything suspicious.

It is hard to know how to calculate the costs and benefits of encouraging tips like that of Ms. Stone's, said Cass R. Sunstein, a law professor at the University of Chicago.

"There are two things to balance," he said. "One is the likelihood that you'll get good information that will prevent harm. The other is that you will get people in trouble who don't deserve to be or that you will create a culture of surveillance."

It is not difficult to identify in hindsight tips that should have been made but were not. After Sept. 11, 2001, for instance, a federal Department of Agriculture official in Florida was criticized for failing to report a charged encounter in 2000 with Mohamed Atta, believed to be the ringleader of the terrorist attacks. Other people came forward after Sept. 11 with stories about disturbing encounters with the hijackers that they did not report.

Last week, after the arrests of six Arab-American men from Lackawanna, N.Y., who are accused of being members of a Qaeda cell, New York state established a toll-free hotline for reporting suspicious activity. Information from within the Yemeni community in Lackawanna seems to have played a role in the arrests.

James McMahon, the superintendent of the New York State Police, said people should err on the side of passing along information, even if it is based only on "instincts and intuition."

But is it possible to be too vigilant? Does the flood of resulting tips obscure or even reduce, as the boy who cried wolf learned, the truly valuable information?

Even Gov. George E. Pataki sounded a little wary about the hotline when he announced it, asking people to use it "responsibly and with common sense."

Civil libertarians said that may be asking too much of the public.

"We will find ourselves falling into anarchy if we ask ordinary people to play the role that only law enforcement officials can play properly," said Anthony D. Romero, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

But others say such comments exaggerate and overreach.

"Informing in a country where thought crimes are criminal is one thing," said Charles Fried, a law professor at Harvard. "Informing in a country where the only crimes are menaces to public security in a physical sense is very different."

Mr. Sunstein said there was no need for alarmism. "I think our culture is strong enough that the likelihood that this will create serious problems for our freedom is very low,"` he said.

Those upon whom suspicion is cast have little legal recourse. It is permissible to contact the authorities with leads based on misunderstandings or ill-founded suspicions.

Various legal claims may be available in theory, experts said, among them defamation, infliction of emotional distress and malicious prosecution. But they are not likely to succeed. In most states and in most situations, plaintiffs must prove not only that the tip was false but that the informer knew or suspected that at the time and meant to harm the subject of the tip.

In the current environment, said Prof. Rodney A. Smolla of the University of Richmond School of Law, "there is not much realistic exposure to liability, though it would depend on the pointedness of the tip." A purposefully false accusation of training pilots for terror missions, he said, might be treated differently from the voicing of more generalized suspicions.

It gets more complicated when suspicions result in fights and imprisonment, as in the case of two men of Indian descent who were jailed in Arkansas earlier this month after a Northwest Airlines flight attendant grew concerned about their trips to the airplane bathroom. They may be able to sue the airline and the government for malicious prosecution or false imprisonment.

"It all turns on the question of probable cause," said Richard D. Emery, a civil rights lawyer.

Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said untrained civilians are more likely to engage in racial stereotyping.

"There is a real chill in the Muslim community about what will be taken as an innocent comment," Mr. Hooper said.

And not all tips are made in good faith, he said.

"We've had reports of cases where people use tips as payback on the job," Mr. Hooper said. "We see it in custody cases, where people make all kinds of allegations against others if they're Muslims."

But false accusations are a part of law enforcement, Mr. McMahon said, and that is where police investigative skills come in. "Whether it comes in as a tip, a 911 call or over a seven-digit number, you're going to get false reports," he said.

If there are to be errors, Mr. McMahon said, they should be on the side of too much information.

"There are probably going to be a lot of tips that come in baseless," he said. "I'd rather hear about it."

[Texasforever]

If truckers want to listen in on my private conversations they're welcome to follow me home and voice their complaints to my 12 gauge.

LMAO.

[Diddle E. Squat]

but until the day I die I reserve the right to joke about anything in a hamburger joint over a cup of coffee and piece of pie.

Do you have the right to joke about fire in a crowded theater?

[nopardons]

Did you know anyone, who was murdered on 9/11/01 ? Do you even give a damn about what happened and what might happen still ?

Just WHAT freedoms, have you given up ? Please enummerate them. Oh, and NO, you have no absolute " right " to fly, nor even one that states that you have a " right " to fly and not be screened; no matter how stupid the screeners are, nor how uncomfortable it makes you. That isn't in the BoR, nor the Constitution ... no matter how you may care to twist the words.

[DentsRun]

What part of " just in case ", are you having abject difficulty in comprehending ?

If her son could tell they were fooling with her, she should have been able to see it too. In fact, she could see it, it just pissed her off. So she struck out at them for what she saw as their arrogance.

[Texasforever]

Because she did it to Muslims here on Free Republic we celebrate it.

How is that a bad thing?

[DentsRun]

Did you know anyone, who was murdered on 9/11/01 ? Do you even give a damn about what happened and what might happen still ?

I'll tell you one thing. I'm not so panicky over 9-11 that I'm willing to keel before the authories and beg them to please please protect me from will o' the wisps.

[nopardons]

If she'd " done it " to a black , I would have applauded her. There are many blacks, who belong to The Nation Of Islam and to for real Islamic sects. Jews wouldn't have joked about 9/11.

You're quite the little bigot and racist and anti-Semite . Keep your day job ; your mindreading skills ( re what would have been said on FR ) stink.

Let me guess, you're a Libertarian; right ?

[DentsRun]

How is that a bad thing?

Because racism is always bad. It was bad when we did to German-Americans, Italian-Americans and Japanese-Americans in WWII and its still bad when we do it to Muslim-Americans today.

[nopardons]

By endlessly repeating this, you only PROVE what a jerk you are. Having fun ?

[DentsRun]

If she'd " done it " to a black , I would have applauded her. There are many blacks, who belong to The Nation Of Islam and to for real Islamic sects. Jews wouldn't have joked about 9/11.

You're quite the little bigot and racist and anti-Semite . Keep your day job ; your mindreading skills ( re what would have been said on FR ) stink.

Your bigotry isn't acceptable just because it's directed toward Muslim-Americans.

[Texasforever]

I'm not so panicky over 9-11 that I'm willing to keel before the authories and beg them to please protect me from will o' the wisps.

Then by all means, go to a public place and make your voice heard. No one is stopping you. Say it loud; say it proud and stop whining.

[DentsRun]

By endlessly repeating this, you only PROVE what a jerk you are. Having fun ?

If you don't want people to call you on it, don't put up bogoted posts.

[nopardons]

Oh, and do you know about the Kitty Genovese case ?

It seems that quite a number of decades ago ( around 4 ), a girl was coming come, a man stalked her, attacked her, killed her and no one, not a single soul ( and many , many people heard and some saw it from windows ) called the cops. Kitty could have been saved, if one alert, thoughtful person had called the police. There are many such stories. This isn't, unfortunately, an isolated incidence. Yes, this is more than just talk; however, it isn't all that far a strech, from what YOU are babling on about.

[Texasforever]

If you don't want people to call you on it, don't put up bogoted posts.

Which of the hijackers were Christians or Jews? BTW, bigoted is not the same, as racist but don't let that stop you.

[nopardons]

Of course you aren't, you don't know anyone who was murdered on 9/11 and don't think that you can be involved in an attack. Now, it makes sense. You don't give a damn about this country, nor its populace, or even your fellow FREEPERS. Thanks for you input.

I assume that you mean : kneel ". Be that as it may , there are NO " will o' the wisps "; there are ; however, nut jobs, who are willing, ready, and able to attack this country. You, obviously, either don'/t care, or don't believe that it could happen again. That doesn't speak well for you. Neither do your posts on this thread.

Now, let me see IF I get exactly where you're coming from. Let's, for sake of argument, say that you are in your local greasyspoon. Three men, sitting close enough to you, are talking about something, which could be interpretted as sounding as though they were planning on blowing up the White House, or some such place. They're wearing long, trimmed beards and a Muslim skullcap. They are speaking in English, so you can understand every word they say. You won't call the police, because you are going to lose your freedoms and it might just be a " joke ".

Great, wonderful, fantastic ... you have now earned a nice, rotten, worm ridden apple of shame. Poltroon.

[DentsRun]

Which of the hijackers were Christians or Jews? BTW, bigoted is not the same, as racist but don't let that stop you.

None of the three muslims who make jokes in the coffee shop were hijackers either. Bigotry (including racist bigotry) should never acceptible in American (though it seems to be the norm here on Free Republic).

Besides if a waitress were giving me strange looks because I were wearing a headdress, I would be pissed off too. Thirty years ago I had just gotten off six years of active duty in Naval Aviation and one cold night I stopped for coffee in the south (wearing my leather flight jacket) and a bigoted waitress swore at me because I had a (light) beard. To the establishment's credit, a young waitress came over and apologized and poured me my coffee. That's what I mean when I say there are bigots everywhere and I see no reason to put up with them on the grounds it's okay to be a bigot if we do it for security.

[nopardons]

Bigot ? You wanna see a bigot ? Go look in the nearest mirror and say a big " HI " to a bigotted racist and anti-Semite.

[DentsRun]

Oh, and do you know about the Kitty Genovese case ?

It seems to me that people who would succumb to their prejudices and accuse innocent people are the same kind who would refuse to respond to Kitty Genovese's cries for help. In short, miserable cowards.

[DentsRun]

Bigot ? You wanna see a bigot ? Go look in the nearest mirror and say a big " HI " to a bigotted racist and anti-Semite.

It's anti-semitic to defend innocent people from bigots?

[nopardons]

Eunice Stone is NOT a " waitress ". She is, in point of fact, a nurse, who was sitting next to the three stooges and did NOT serve them, in any way, shape, manner, or form.

The Muslims are caucasoids, so it can't be racist, for another caucasoid to call the police on them. They aren't Jews, so, even though Arabs are Semites ( and two of the stooges are of Pakistani heritage, which also makes them caucasoids ; but NOT Semites ! ) , the phrase " anti-Semite " is only conferred on Jew hating slanders.

Now, words have specific meanings. You can't change the meanings, just so they can fit neatly into your argument. Facts ARE facts, whether you like them or not, and you are putting words into Eunice's mouth, as well as impugning her actions, with your OWN suppositions. That doesn't hold water.