News > Politics > A "Neighborhood Watch" for Terrorism?

news
MONDAY JUNE 27 2005 5:00 PM

A "Neighborhood Watch" for Terrorism?

Submitted by commonman

Edited by legionnaire

Researchers Bill McKelvey and Max Boisot have created a framework for individuals to become a part of the fight against terrorism. They call it Global Neighborhood Watch. It envisions citizens being equipped with everyday items like cell phones that possess technologies that can detect dangers and automatically report them to the authorities, as in this example:

A salesman, traveling by train from Dulles International Airport to Union Station in Washington, hears a beep emanate from his mobile phone. He's startled, because the sound indicates that a chemical sensor in his briefcase detects the presence of penthrite somewhere in the train car . . . at the next stop, a woman boards . . . and a pager-like device strapped to her waist also emits a beeping noise.. . . As each rider's sensor detects penthrite, it alerts an agent in the National Counterterrorism Center, the U.S. government's fusion point for all terrorism intelligence. Seeing two alarms go off, the agent calls the salesman and sends a text message to the woman, asking them to describe, independently, what they see. . . The agent then enters their observations into a powerful computer. The machine quickly churns the information and looks for meaningful patterns, which, hopefully, will reveal whether there's a real attack in the offing.

This system gets around a major problem in anti-terrorism work, which is connecting different pieces of information ("dots" together to form patterns that can be analyzed. The inclusion of thousands or even millions of individuals in the data collection process

while possibly becoming a giant dot collector, would marry the filtering and cognitive power of human beings with the computational power of advanced technology - something the professors call a "socio-computational" approach to intelligence analysis.

The system would be designed around an individual human being's ability to filter out extraneous information and concentrate on the important factors that could be clues of potential terrorist threats. These clues would then be processed by computers to match them with patterns of terrorist behavior.

McKelvey and Boisot readily admit the global watch's most obvious drawback: "It requires ordinary citizens to take on the role of secret agents and to snoop on other citizens' neighbors." In 2002, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft proposed a nationwide snooping program called the Terrorism Information and Prevention System - Operation TIPS - that was ridiculed and effectively dismissed. But McKelvey and Boisot aren't Washington insiders, and so likely feel more emboldened to offer up controversial and, some might say, heretical ideas.

The researchers see this system being adopted worldwide, and believe that people will accept the loss of personal privacy necessary to make it work because of the substantial shared benefits in curbing terrorism.

Comments

Sick

Minneapolis, MN

June 2003

JUN 27, 2005 05:04 PM

Oh, brilliant. What next? Children reporting their parents for "suspicious behavior?"

MrStitches

Sag Harbor, NY

November 2003

JUN 27, 2005 05:13 PM

Well, if it were just chemical sensors and the like which only detected substances that had no real benign use. . .maybe I wouldn't find it too bad.
But I don't think I could see something like this turning out well.

lostarchitect

Brooklyn, NY

January 2004

JUN 27, 2005 05:17 PM

tell you what, if my cell phone indicated there were explosives on a train i was on, i'd pull the fucking emergency brake and get the hell out of there.

[Edited on Jun 27, 2005 by lostarchitect]

Mthrsuperior

Victoria, BC

November 2002

JUN 27, 2005 05:26 PM

Is this sort of like when 3 cop cars in full lights and siren mode pulled me over, guns drawn becuase some dill-hole called crimestoppers and said I was smoking a crack-pipe while driving???

It was my asthma inhaler.

Or is it like the time my band got swarmed by a SWAT team at a gas station because the attendent called 911 to report a terrorist sighting.

We were all dressed in black.

RandomNerd

Albany, NY

January 2005

JUN 27, 2005 05:39 PM

The researchers see this system being adopted worldwide, and believe that people will accept the loss of personal privacy necessary to make it work because of the substantial shared benefits in curbing terrorism.

Y'know, Benjamin Franklin said something about this sorta thing....

skeptik

New Orleans, LA

February 2004

JUN 27, 2005 06:24 PM

RandomNerd said:
The researchers see this system being adopted worldwide, and believe that people will accept the loss of personal privacy necessary to make it work because of the substantial shared benefits in curbing terrorism.

Y'know, Benjamin Franklin said something about this sorta thing....

But see, terrorism is different, 'n stuff.....

bean

STAFF

Los Angeles, CA

JUN 27, 2005 06:27 PM

Yeah, because I want my cell phone automatically contacting the feds without any input from me.

Um...no.

blacktambourine

United Kingdom

April 2005

JUN 27, 2005 06:35 PM

No, seriously, i'd hate to make this comment, but it's cliche, but it's the gestapo all over again. You know how many "denunciations" by ordinary people will be for personal gain? And, you've got the problem that all this information would mean that the us government on the off chance might rely on only denunciations. Then everyone will be screwed.

You should of voted Kerry

robosagogo

State College, PA

September 2004

JUN 27, 2005 06:36 PM

But who do I report my sasquatch sightings to?