Walmart Homeland Security Messages

Citizen Spy Networks to get immunity: House Homeland Security Chairman Pete King introduced the “See Something, Say Something Act” as a shield for those that tip of authorities of potential extremists, in case they report innocent people.

King has introduced a bill that will protect any individual involved in any snoop campaign from lawsuits brought by innocent people wrongly accused of being terrorists or extremists.

King said “Good citizens who report suspicious activity in good faith, should not have to worry about being sued.” He went on to say that the bill would expand protections from individuals “who report suspicious activity anywhere.”

The program was launched with the aid of large screens at Wal-Mart checkouts that play a message from Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano encouraging Americans to report anything unusual to Wal-Mart managers. The program was subsequently expanded to include 9,000 federal buildings, as well as sports stadiums, businesses and communities in general.

Will this simply encourage untrained people to report any behavior whatsoever, no matter how benign, as potential terrorism, creating an army of enthusiastic but hapless citizen spies? After all they need not worry about any mistakes they make. They don’t have to worry about what they say or accuse any innocent individual off, when they are totally immune from any lawsuit brought against them.

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