Terrorist dry runs:another argument for citizen involvement
The news of a variety of chillingly-similar incidents at airports around the country involving suspicious packages that included bomb components but where the “fuel” was bricks of cheese is a reminder that Al-Qaeda:
- is extremely patient
- puts a lot of emphasis on dry runs to check its plans
- and that — unless these incidents are just caused by pranksters, which seems highly unlikely — there really are sleeper cells in the US, and the warnings several weeks ago that Al-Qaeda really is planning a “summer spectacular” might be true.
If all that is true, why — sorry for being so insistent about this, but our lives may depend on it — do DHS and the FBI continue to do such a pathetic, negligent — you supply the adjective — job of trying to productively involve the general public in detecting and reporting possible attacks?
To summarize, here are the key points in my argument:
- in a country as large as the US, there’s a good chance it will be you or I, not a police officer, who spots a possible terrorist act in the planning stages (remember that it was ambulance drivers, doing their regular jobs, who averted the potential bombings in London recently)
- we’ve got the tools (cell phones, but especially camera- and videophones) with us at all times to report critical real-time, location-based information to authorities
- in places with more experience with terrorism than the US (e.g., the UK and Israel) authorities provide extensive information on what the public should look for and how to report it. Here at home, the state of Pennsylvania has taken the lead with an excellent web-based program that educates people both about what terrorism is and is not (reminding us of the Bill of Rights and that what may seem strange to us may be legitimate exercise of one’s religion or ethnic practices)
- Even without formal policies and guidance, members of the public are already using their personal communication devices to report important information about criminal acts
- New York City is about to institute a process for the public to attach cameraphone and videophone pix to 311 and 911 calls, so the methodology to handle this kind of citizen involvement exists
- by contrast, DHS and the FBI have, IMHO, been negligent and irresponsible in their abysmal failure to provide guidance to you and me about what to look for and how to report possible terror act in the making (please, prove me wrong by showing me anything on either web site other than the FBI’s inane tips page, which seems more focused on getting us to voluntarily get added to their data bases — yeah, right… — than to guide us, that really addresses this issue.Sorry, Sec. Chertoff, vague (and misspelled!) advice such as “Everyone should take notice of their surroundings and report suspicions (sic!) items or activities to local authorities immediately” ain’t enough. As for reporting anything to Alberto Gonzales, let’s not even go there…
Get with it, guys. If the threat is this serious, and it appears it is, create mechanisms and the proper web-based education that would help us be valuable assets to the terrorist search, instead of treating us like babies. I won’t get any satisfaction from saying I told you so if there’s another 9/11 and it turns out that a vigilant public could have prevented it — but you’ll have innocent blood on your hands. Hope you sleep well tonight…
Technorati tags:
homeland security DHS FBI Department of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff War on Terror terrorism antiterrorism smart mobs swarm intelligence emergent behavior networked homeland security government IT collaboration Al-Qaedalocation-based services geo-spatial webweb 2.0 disaster planning
