First, we had neighborhood watches.  They were designed to have neighbors keep an eye out for all the bad things that could happen while you were away.  Everyone thought it was a good thing.  Now, Los Angeles police Cmdr. Joan McNamara and police Chief William Bratton have developed iWatch, which they call their 21st century version of Neighborhood Watch.

The Major Cities Chiefs Association, headed by Bratton and composed of the chiefs of the 63 largest police departments in the U.S. and Canada, endorsed iWatch at the group’s conference Saturday.

Using brochures, public service announcements and meetings with community groups, iWatch is designed to deliver concrete advice on how the public can follow the oft-repeated post-Sept. 11 recommendation, “If you see something, say something.”
Program materials list nine types of suspicious behavior that should compel people to call police, and 12 kinds of places to look for it. Among the indicators:

–If you smell chemicals or other fumes.
–If you see someone wearing clothes that are too big and too heavy for the season.
–If you see strangers asking about building security.
–If you see someone purchasing supplies or equipment that could be used to make bombs.

The important places to watch include government buildings, mass gatherings, schools and public transportation.

You could be called a terrorist for watching these places too.  Not only are we supposed to stalk our neighbors’ every move, now we’re supposed to know all the components in making a bomb?  And how does knowing that information not make us suspected terrorists too?  How are we to prove that we only know this information because the government asked us to know it to find terrorists and that we aren’t terrorists ourselves?

The program also is designed to ease reporting by providing a toll-free number and Web page the public can use to alert authorities. Los Angeles put up its Web site this weekend.

We now have a toll-free number that will get people calling saying, “I saw a Muslim looking man asking about building security.”  The man ends up being harassed because he’s really Hindu and he was asking about building security because he was supposed to report there to pick up a badge that allowed him in a building.  People are going to use their own racism, stereotypes, biases, and bigotry to get innocent people into trouble with the law.

If someone reports something based on race or ethnicity, the police will not accept the report, and someone will explain to the caller why that is not an indicator of suspicious behavior, McNamara said.

Instead of reporting, “some Muslim looking guy” the person will just describe what the person is wearing.  Bias isn’t removed from the equation.  It’s just given a wink and a nudge and we pretend we aren’t being racist bastards.

The Bush Administration tried to do this with postal works, firemen, emergency workers, and others and it failed because it was too intrusive on individual privacy.  The fact is people hold too many biases to make informed decisions.  They are rash, jump to conclusions, and rarely gather and facts before accusing someone of being a terrorist.

People reporting things that are out of place is not a bad thing.  Encouraging people to scrutinize ever thing another human being does is.  We should have erred on the side of caution when initiating such a program instead of enlisting the help of normal, every day people who are not qualified or trained in dealing with the identification of who may or may not be a terrorist.