Need Quick Cash? Just Finger Your Neighbors to the Feds!
Here's an easy way to earn some extra cash: just participate in one of the many "paid informant" program run by various U.S. government agencies.
Think your neighbor...or that brother-in-law you don't like is a tax cheat? Call the IRS to report the violation, and then download IRS Form 211 to claim your reward - up to 15% of the "additional taxes, penalties, and fines collected as a result of the informant's information."
Not satisfied with 15%? If information you provide to the Drug Enforcement Administration or other government agency leads to a property forfeiture, you're eligible for a commission up to 25% of the amount recovered.
Not satisfied with 25%? In numerous cases, informants have negotiated "sweetheart deals" with government agencies to submit information in return for commissions as high as 50% of the assets seized.
Of course, not all informants act for money. In Iowa, anonymous tipsters can call a toll-free number to report littering. In New York, "naughty nannies" can be reported. In Akron, Ohio, people smoking in no-smoking areas are under the informant's spotlight.
Just about every city in the United States has a "Crime stoppers" number you can call anonymously to report your suspicions that your friends, neighbors or family members are doing something illegal.
Naturally, given the "success" of the informant system, the Bush administration wants to expand it. In 2004, President Bush instructed the FBI to develop a greater "human intelligence capability." In response, the FBI came up with a plan in late July to recruit 15,000 additional covert informants, at an estimated initial cost of US$22 million. Their job? Reporting to FBI officials anybody who is "suspicious."
If this sounds familiar, it should. Back in 2002, the Bush administration unveiled its proposed Terrorism Information and Prevention System, or TIPS, in which millions of Americans would be recruited as domestic informants. Had the program gone into effect, the United States would have had a higher percentage of citizen informants than the former East Germany did through its infamous Stasi secret police.
One consolation, I suppose, is that the FBI's new informant proposal is far less ambitious than TIPS. A further consolation is that the FBI has decided not to put domestic spies through the same training courses used by the CIA. That's a good thing, since U.S. intelligence officers abroad can use bribery, extortion and other illegal acts to coerce informants into working for them. This is supposedly illegal in the United States, although if paying informant commissions isn't bribery, I don't know what is.
It's also predictable who the informants will tattle on - anyone whose political views or lifestyle they don't approve of. We can therefore expect reports to pour in to the FBI of the suspicious activities of animal rights activists, fringe religious groups or anyone else who seems "different."
Does that make you feel safer from terrorism or other criminal activity? It shouldn't, any more than the KGB or the Gestapo made citizens of the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany feel safer.
Here's an easy way to earn some extra cash: just participate in one of the many "paid informant" program run by various U.S. government agencies.
Think your neighbor...or that brother-in-law you don't like is a tax cheat? Call the IRS to report the violation, and then download IRS Form 211 to claim your reward - up to 15% of the "additional taxes, penalties, and fines collected as a result of the informant's information."
Not satisfied with 15%? If information you provide to the Drug Enforcement Administration or other government agency leads to a property forfeiture, you're eligible for a commission up to 25% of the amount recovered.
Not satisfied with 25%? In numerous cases, informants have negotiated "sweetheart deals" with government agencies to submit information in return for commissions as high as 50% of the assets seized.
Of course, not all informants act for money. In Iowa, anonymous tipsters can call a toll-free number to report littering. In New York, "naughty nannies" can be reported. In Akron, Ohio, people smoking in no-smoking areas are under the informant's spotlight.
Just about every city in the United States has a "Crime stoppers" number you can call anonymously to report your suspicions that your friends, neighbors or family members are doing something illegal.
Naturally, given the "success" of the informant system, the Bush administration wants to expand it. In 2004, President Bush instructed the FBI to develop a greater "human intelligence capability." In response, the FBI came up with a plan in late July to recruit 15,000 additional covert informants, at an estimated initial cost of US$22 million. Their job? Reporting to FBI officials anybody who is "suspicious."
If this sounds familiar, it should. Back in 2002, the Bush administration unveiled its proposed Terrorism Information and Prevention System, or TIPS, in which millions of Americans would be recruited as domestic informants. Had the program gone into effect, the United States would have had a higher percentage of citizen informants than the former East Germany did through its infamous Stasi secret police.
One consolation, I suppose, is that the FBI's new informant proposal is far less ambitious than TIPS. A further consolation is that the FBI has decided not to put domestic spies through the same training courses used by the CIA. That's a good thing, since U.S. intelligence officers abroad can use bribery, extortion and other illegal acts to coerce informants into working for them. This is supposedly illegal in the United States, although if paying informant commissions isn't bribery, I don't know what is.
It's also predictable who the informants will tattle on - anyone whose political views or lifestyle they don't approve of. We can therefore expect reports to pour in to the FBI of the suspicious activities of animal rights activists, fringe religious groups or anyone else who seems "different."
Does that make you feel safer from terrorism or other criminal activity? It shouldn't, any more than the KGB or the Gestapo made citizens of the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany feel safer.
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