Redden: Not only expanded but changed direction. That was one of the greatest challenges of writing Snitch Culture, trying to keep on top of the developments that were breaking all the time.

It didn't take me long to realize that individual informants are just one small part of the much larger surveillance society described by Frank Donner in his landmark 1980 book, The Age of Surveillance (New York: Knopf, 1980), which I encourage everyone to read. But so much has changed since Donner's book, especially the technology used to track everyone.

Tips from informants now going into massive, interlocking computer databases that are used by local, state, federal and even international law enforcement agencies. Closed circuit video cameras now line the streets and are built into retail stores, shopping centers, banks, just about anyplace people gather or do business.

While I was writing Snitch Culture, the National Security Agency was forced to confirm the existence of ECHELON, the satellite-based surveillance system that can monitor all electronic forms of communication around the world. The FBI announced its Carnivore system for wire-tapping the Internet. A private business developed the Digital Angel, a computer chip which can be placed under your skin which can be tracked by Global Positioning Satellites. And the government shifted its domestic surveillance programs from militias to the emerging anti-corporate globalization movement after the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle.

I wanted to include all these revelations in the book, which required constant rewrites and updates. But at the same time, I wanted to include information on the origins and history of the surveillance society. A lot of people have heard about the FBI's COINTELPRO operations, for example, but they donšt know the details or significance. In the end, I included all these subjects in Snitch Culture, and a lot more, too.

In fact, I wanted to put so much in the book that Adam got worried it would be too long. I agreed, because I felt the book should be a quick read, an introduction to all these topics for people who haven't been following this stuff as long as me. So we compromised and agreed to post some of the longer documents cited in the book on the Feral House Web site where anyone can download them. Four appendixes are available at FeralHouse.com for free.

Disinformation: During the last decade, events ranging from the 1993 World Trade Center blast to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing involved highly prominent agent provocateurs. Do you predict further instances of violent crime involving individuals acting on behalf of the federal government?

Redden: Absolutely, and not just because of the credible reports of government agents involved in the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City bombings. The truth is, therešs a long and sordid history of government operatives committing the very crimes they are suppose to be preventing. I've cited numerous examples in Snitch Culture, including Gary Rowe, a Ku Klux Klan member who reportedly helped murder at least five African-Americans while spying on the Klan for the FBI. The New York Times has reported that Rowe was took part in the 1963 church bombing which killed four school children in Birmingham, Alabama. I've included his story in a chapter titled "What Did They Know, And When Did They Know It?" That chapter also includes details on government operatives involved in both the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City bombings.

Disinformation: Snitch Culture uncovers numerous instances of individuals shot and killed by law enforcement due to botched raids based on bogus tips. Why isn't there a greater public outcry about these senseless deaths?

Redden: That's a good question, because you're right: law enforcement agencies kill people on drug raids all the time, and hardly anyone but National Lawyer Guild types seem concerned about it.

I think one key is the role played by the mass media, which I discuss in the book. Americans get most of their news from the establishment press these days, and if a story is not reported, or is under-reported, no one knows about it. That's what's happening with most of these killings. The local press might mention them, but they hardly ever make national news.

And even when they do, the establishment press has so demonized drugs that even alleged users are viewed as threats to society. All the police have to say is "drug raid" for many people to conclude the suspects were dangerous. And sometimes they probably are.

But I found numerous examples of people killed by police who didn't have weapons or even drugs, people who were shot by accident or because informants fingered the wrong person.

Disinformation: You astutely note that the use of wartime rhetoric facilitates an "end justifies the means" mentality which subsequently breeds greater snitching. Is this a conscious act on behalf of our political leadership, or is the public simply more responsive when a social cause is depicted as "fighting a war"?

Redden: Both. When the government declares war, the vast majority automatically supports it. This was obviously a good thing during the first and second world wars, when America and its allies faced totalitarian aggressors. It also happened during more dubious wars, such as those in Vietnam, the Persian Gulf and the Balkans. So politicians know they can count on a certain level of support if they use the rhetoric of war when launching domestic law enforcement initiatives, such as the War on Drugs.

But there's a tremendous difference between a real war and a domestic operation. All's fair in a real war, including spies who lie, cheat, steal and murder to do their jobs. But that's not supposed to happen in a law enforcement initiative, where the enemy, the criminal suspects, are presumed to be innocent.

The trouble is, the government is currently using domestic informants just like they use wartime spies. As documented in the book, informants are routinely breaking the law to build cases against criminal suspects, and they are even allowed to get away with murder.

In a case that's currently unfolding in Boston, FBI agents looked the other way while two Irish mobsters-turned-informants murdered over a dozen people, including an ex-girlfriend. This should be a national scandal, but the lines are now so blurred between real wars and domestic law enforcement operations that it's little more than a juicy local story.

Disinformation: You consider the FBI's 1999 Project Meggido report a "fiasco." Why?

Redden: Because it was totally, 100 percent wrong.

Project Megiddo was a year-long FBI intelligence-gathering operation which predicted a wave of far right domestic terrorism starting on New Year's Eve, 2000.

The FBI released a report commonly called Project Megiddo in October 1999 which said racists, militias and right wing religious fanatics were planning to start a race war to fulfil their version of the Apocalypse. The report talked about specific groups and tactics, and portrayed their leaders and followers as doomsday martyrs willing to die for their cause. But nothing predicted in the report happened. Nothing. The only credible terrorist threat at the dawn of the new millennium came from a couple of Algerians who crossed the Canadian border into Washington, and they weren't even mentioned in the report.

We're posting the full Project Megiddo report on the Feral House Web site, and I encourage everyone to read it. Keep in mind that it was released just two months before the end of the year. If all these Bible-thumping hillbillies were such a threat then, what happened to them?