Police are asking mail carriers and garbage collectors to spy on citizens

Antioch, CA  – The shorthanded Antioch police department is enlisting the help of local garbage collectors and letter carriers tospot crime on city streets.

Employees of the local trash collector, Republic Services Inc., as well as U.S. Postal Service employees have been given tips on how to act as effective witnesses to crimes. The program, dubbed  “We’re Looking Out For You” aims to add some experience eyeballs looking out for the city’s 105,000 residents.

As part of the training, drivers received a list of questions designed to help them identity criminal activity, as well as a laminated copy of the police department’s non-emergency phone number.

“It’s a huge resource multiplier for us,” said Lt. T. Brooks of the Antioch Police Department. “These are people who are actively engaged in the community and are actively participating in making Antioch a safer place.”

The police department isn’t encouraging anyone to take crime fighting into their own hands, but simply to keep an eye out for activities that seem out of the ordinary along their route.
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2013/06/10/

Suspect and vehicle reporting information neighborhood watch:
http://www.ci.antioch.ca.us/citygov/police/

DHS is training firefighters, bus drivers and telephone repair personnel to spy on the public:

The Fire Department of New York (FDNY) will now be on the lookout for “material or behavior that may indicate terrorist activities” during their day-to-day work.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is training NYC 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 FDNY and DHS 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.
 http://bravest.com/2001/spy.cfm