FDNY Spies

[marmar]

from In These Times:



News > February 18, 2008
FDNY Spies
By Colin Meyn


In New York City, the Department of Homeland Security is training New York City firefighters to assist in gathering intelligence information during routine inspections and emergencies.

In November, the Associated Press reported that in New York, Homeland Security was testing a program called the Fire Service Intelligence Enterprise (FSIE) to help identify “material or behavior that may indicate terrorist activities.”

The Fire Department of New York (FDNY) and Homeland Security hosted a September 2007 conference in New York City to discuss plans for the new intelligence program. There, chief officers from fire departments in Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and 12 other U.S. cities met with NYC fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta and officials from the Homeland Security Office of Intelligence and Surveillance. “Real-time intelligence and information leads to a heightened state of situational awareness,” Scoppetta said at the conference. “And situational awareness is key to saving lives.”

“We are not training firefighters to be intelligence gatherers or special agents,” says Jack Tomarchio, Homeland Security’s deputy undersecretary of intelligence and surveillance. “We are helping to provide crucial information to those people who are often the first responders.”

In 2002, the Bush administration proposed having bus drivers, mail carriers and telephone repair personnel spy on the American public as part of Homeland Security’s “Citizen Corps” initiative. The program, called TIPS (Terrorism Information and Prevention System), never made it past Congress. But because the FSIE is managed at the city level, it has bypassed federal regulation altogether. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3532/fdny_spies/

[baldguy]

1. Emergency services personnel should be concerened with one thing.

Serving people involved in emergencies.

[HeraldSquare212]

2. If they're being used as law enforcement agents, wouldn't they need a warrant?

[baldguy]

3. A fireman doesn't need a warrant to break down the door of a burning building.

Its precisely because emergency workers have that ability that the fascists want to use them for their own nefarious purposes..