IP: Nation of tipsters answers FBI's call

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Seems to me Nazi Germany and Stalin USSR used tipsters extensively with 
great success djf

> Date: Thu, 22 Nov 2001 00:44:32 -0500
> To: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
> From: Monty Solomon <monty () roscom com>
>
> Nation of tipsters answers FBI's call
>
> Citizens offer good leads, but is U.S. now society of snitches?
>
> By Ann Davis, Maureen Tkacik and Andrea Petersen
> THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
>
> Nov. 21 - Maybe it was something, maybe it was nothing, thought
> Himanshu "Bobby" Shah, manager of the Best Western Maryland Inn in
> College Park, Md. On the very day that terrorists staged attacks on
> the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Shah noticed that a hotel
> guest had abandoned his folding suitcase and backpack outside Room
> 157 on the ground floor. The man, who had paid $77 cash for his room
> and shown an Egyptian passport as I.D., had checked out a few hours
> earlier.
>
> SHAH WALKED PAST the bags, sitting in a covered outdoor
> walkway, several times. "You don't just leave your luggage outside
> half a day," he thought to himself. After a maid and a groundskeeper
> also mentioned the bags, the 28-year-old native of Gujarat, India,
> began to worry: What if his employees doubted his patriotism? "I want
> them to understand that I care for their safety. They might be
> thinking, 'Bobby's a foreigner. Why isn't he taking the right step?' "
>
> Taking the right step has become a lot more complicated in the weeks
> since Attorney General John Ashcroft asked Americans to report any
> suspicious activity that might involve terrorism. Law-enforcement
> authorities have fielded 435,000 tips as of Nov. 6, and detained more
> than 1,100 people. The Justice Department recently drew up a list of
> 5,000 Middle Eastern men it wants to question further.
>
>
> ...
>
> http://www.msnbc.com/news/661366.asp


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