iWatch – Problems, Concerns, and Hazards
What is iWatch?
The neighborhood watch has gone digital, 2.0 . The idea is simple, use the web as an easy portal to capture citizen reports of possible terrorist plots. What are the chances a program like this could have any measurable success? If a person truly thought a terror plot was being devised would they not make the phone call because of the hassle? Could this type of reporting inundate departments?
Prevention of terrorist acts is unconvincing. Rather, the iWatch more likely represents a new digital twist on the neighborhood watch.
I dislike the concept of turning neighbors against each other. Fear and suspicion of other people subverts community ties. Research has shown a correlation between relationships in the community and relative safety. In the period of the declining community, could iWatch cause deterioration of these needed ties?
One person spoke highly of a traditional neighborhood watch…
We’ve started a neighborhood watch where I live. We have rotating shifts of 4 adults patrolling the streets. We write down all license plates of all cars and keep a database so if anything happens we can give this information to the police. If we see that some ones lights are off but they don’t turn on a porch light, we will knock on their door and politely ask them to turn it on. It’s just safer that way. The people feel safer because they don’t have to think about it when they’ve got reliable people taking note of everything. It’s met a very warm reception amongst the members of the community.
A community working together surely is preferable to administrative police agency mining residents for incriminating data. It may be that iWatch actually could backfire and see a long term influx of crime. At the minimum I would hope additional information about this program becomes available before widespread deployment.
The iWatch program could also function in another capacity. It may enable the LAPD to create far reaching “reasonable suspicion” method. With the new ease and anonymity (at least people think) of web crime reporting, neighbors would inevitably a bevy send e-mails about suspicious behavior. Police would be negligent if they didn’t check out the situation. Imagine police have a strong intuition about gang operations but do not have any reasonable license to engage in a simple search. Could you imagine a judge being sympathetic and tossing a case for constitutional protections when confronted with several electronic reports of criminal activity? Maybe we got the bad guys today, but disregarding protections against unreasonable search is very much a slippery slope.
A great example is the expansion of FISA where officials stated,
“Law enforcement officials say the additional surveillance powers have been critically important in ways the public does not always see. Threats can be mitigated, they say, by deporting suspicious people or letting them know that authorities are watching them.”
FISA critic James Dempsey responds, “Yes, the technique is useful, but it remains highly intrusive, and it requires controls that have been consistently weakened at the judicial and legislative levels and weakened by misleading claims by the government about its effectiveness”, policy director for the Center for Democracy and Technology. Ignoring civil rights protections has historically been very effective in combating crime. It is, however, antithetical to a free state when innocents are unjustly swept up in crime control efforts. iWatch dresses in anti-terror clothing, but it seems unlikely for that to be the sole objective.
Consider the denial rate on the applications to wiretap citizens when thinking about the potential abuses of iWatch.
My suspicion is that police are going to use this iWatch less for terrorism and more for enhanced police power. The real issue here revolves around the type of society we enjoy. Do we find it morally repulsive to ignore civil rights to achieve the greater good of reducing crime? (Which as I discussed can be self-defeating)
When the chiefs of the 63 largest police departments in the U.S. and Canada met to endorse iWatch at a conference last Saturday, they cited the case of Najibullah Zazi — the Denver man suspected of having ties to Al Qaeda who has been accused of plotting to use a weapon of mass destruction within the U.S. - FOX NEWS
I think the question of police tactics needs to be constantly engaged as there is a tenuous line. I personally want to live without fear of crime, but also realize the need for police power. Pareto Optimal solutions, balancing acts, are required to create good policy. iWatch seems to violate this principle by tipping the power to far to the side of authorities.
I support any program that encourages neihgbors to assist with the policing of their communities.Most people do not want to get involved,and that’s how a lot of criminal behavoir goes unchecked, like the Cleveland mass murder for years until it is discovered, and the more inner city the nieghborhood, the worst it gets,because of fear of retaliation.The police need our help,they have lost a lot of funding.
The elderly lady that lives across the street from me,is always checking my property when I am away, and she has proven to be very helpful.
That said,I can see how this could go wrong.Some people do not know their neighbors, or may have some sort of ‘issue’with them.
I think of the Harvard Professor Henry Gates that got into an argument with an officer that was answering a possible burglary call that a neighbor had made, when she did not recognize the Professor as her nieghbor.
He looked like a burglar, at that moment,and she called the police…
I think the city is called Cambridge.
Now, all that happened after that was unnecessary from both the gentleman involved,but if I look at thr basis for the call, a neighbor being concerned, well, I think that the lady should be commended.
The only problem is that she did not really know her neighbor, and at the moment she did see him from a distance, he looked like a burglar.
I see the only issue here is that there may be a lot of mistaken perceptions in some of the calls to this iWatch program, but is this not just another form of neighborhood watch,which is a popular program in my own neighborhood,and I feel safer knowing my neighbors feel free to call the police for any suspected suspicous behavoir.
I am willing to have any mistake sorted out in court,if it should go that far.I think most people that are mistakingly arrested,may not like it,but just as long as everyone is professional,the system usually works.Nothing is fool proof, but with the budgets being cut out here in California for the policing, the police need the publics help,or we may fall victim to all these criminals we got out here.
I try to remind people,when I was in India, a country where terrorism happens all the time, I got searched and detained regularly, because they hav to check people for bombs.I am cool with that, but we don’t have any thing like that going on over here.It gives us some perspective.Our police are easy on us, even when they get bad in contrast.
So, to be clear, I think we need to side with the lesser of two evils, and instead of having people afraid to ‘get involved’ chief Bratton has created a way for people to get more involved anonymously…
It would be more work for the courts, but these young attorneys need as much practice as they can get, and I have no problem expanding the legal system, more than the prison, or victim system,if you get that point.
Chief Bratton had a lot of good ideas for LA, and we are a better city for it.He was fair.I am sad to see him leave that position of Police chief, but the new chief has a good act to follow, and learn from.
Don’t be afraid of this program,it’s probably going to nab more buglars than terrorist,but either way,get them off the streets.
Cast a big net, and see what shakes out…and if someone is falsley accused or detained, then the lawyers will work it out.