Some Maine truck drivers are part of a national project to put more eyes on the lookout for suspicious behavior.

Highway Watch, which is administered by the American Trucking Association, intends to train millions of truckers to be ad hoc watchers to combat terrorism while they travel the nation’s highways. The program has received $40 million in government homeland security grants and is active in all 50 states. It got started in Maine earlier this month with its first training session and enlists the “road smarts” of truck drivers, toll booth attendants and highway workers, among others, to spot suspicious activities and vehicles. According to the Associated Press, 12 people participated in the initial course, which teaches drivers what to look for and how to make reports. The state coordinator of the program said he hopes to have between 1,200 and 2,000 watchers trained in Maine this year.

We accept that the people who volunteer for this program are acting out of good intentions. They want to do their part for homeland security and to protect their communities from the threats of terrorism.

“Anybody who’s a good American will get involved in this program,” one of the participants told the AP. “It’s not like you’re out there spying on people. You’re out there doing good.”

We’re not trying to pick on this one person, but it’s exactly like spying on people. Regular citizens, carrying out their normal daily activities, are being turned into agents of the government, on the lookout for parked cars and people acting strangely. Despite its noble intent, the Highway Watchers program makes us uneasy.

We won’t make over-the-top comparisons to the Stasi, the East German secret police force that used nationalism and threats to turn neighbor against neighbor and ordinary people into spies. The Highway Watchers program isn’t so nefarious. But taken as part of larger efforts to turn the citizenry into junior G-men, there’s reason for legitimate concerns.

Announcements at the airport urge us to remain on guard against stray baggage and to report suspicious activities. Highway signs on major roadways in metropolitan areas make the same pleas. Concrete barriers and checkpoints clog the streets surrounding the Capitol and White House in Washington. For a nation that had grown accustomed to walking unmolested on the steps of the Capitol Building, the changes are dramatic.

Writing in Tuesday’s Los Angeles Times, Mark Kurlansky identifies the dangers faced when a country turns its citizens against one another. Talking about Russia after its revolution, East Germany during the Cold War and Cuba during the 1960s, Kurlansky writes: “This practice of turning as many people as possible into government snitches rotted these societies from within, and turned civic-mindedness into a base instinct rather than a lofty one. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the most despised people from the old regime were not the officials, not even the secret police officials; they were the informants.”

In 1993, after the collapse of East Germany, Kurlansky visited the country and talked to idealists who believed in the merits of communism and had willingly snooped for their government. “They complained of their plight and explained that they had simply been defending their country,” Kurlansky wrote. “One of them asked me, If you were told that your country was threatened, wouldn’t you give information to your government to help it?'”

Sound familiar?