When Disrupting Terrorists, LAPD Prefers Inoffensive to Effective
Are you “iWATCHing” yet? No, it’s not some new product from Apple, but rather an innovation from the Los Angeles Police Department that, like a local neighborhood watch program, enlists citizens across the country in the effort to ferret out any potential terrorists who might be lurking among us.
Boiled down to its essentials, the iWATCH program asks citizens to report, via a toll-free telephone number or website, any suspicious activity that might indicate that some terrorist plot is afoot. It was just such a tip, authorities say, that led to the September arrest of Najibullah Zazi, the Denver man suspected of having al-Qaeda connections. Zazi came under investigation after purchasing large quantities of chemicals from Denver-area beauty supply stores. When a curious employee at one such store asked him why he was buying the chemicals, Zazi reportedly answered that he had “lots of girlfriends.”
And maybe he does, but it seems more likely he was looking forward to an afterlife of rollicking with the 72 virgins he was promised after blowing up himself and as many New Yorkers as possible with the truck bomb he was planning to detonate before he got himself pinched.
We must note here, for you surely never would have expected it, that Zazi is a Muslim — born in Afghanistan and raised in Pakistan before America threw open the golden door for him in 1999. Purely a coincidence of course, because as all right-thinking Americans know, there is no connection whatsoever — none, none, none! — between the Islamic faith and terrorism.
And the folks down at iWATCH headquarters want you to bear that in mind as you keep your eyes peeled for any signs of an embryonic terrorist plot. Responding to criticism of the program from — surprise! — the American Civil Liberties Union, LAPD Commander Joan McNamara said police would not accept reports based on race or ethnicity, and that operators at the iWATCH centers would explain this to any callers so ignorant as to assume dark motives in their peace-loving Muslim neighbors.
So, although Zazi and his collaborators were undone by a tip from an appropriately curious citizen, one can well imagine that the iWATCH program, once it’s thoroughly bureaucratized and hamstrung by politically correct policies, will fail to connect some important dots, especially if those dots happen to wear beards and come from Afghanistan, Pakistan, or thereabouts. If you doubt this, you probably haven’t traveled by commercial airline lately, for if you had you would have seen small children and pensioners alike taken aside for added scrutiny at the security checkpoint even as swarthy young men of apparent Middle Eastern heritage were whisked through with nary a raised eyebrow from the screeners.
In another version of this scenario, the Concerned Caller is, himself, the Pakistani neighbor, casing local security measures and satisfying himself that his bomb plot will meet no obstacles.
Here’s yet another scenario: A bomb is detonated and many lives are lost. The perpetrator(s) are discovered and found to be Muslim. There was a tip about the perpetrator(s) that was ignored by the “PC” tip line. The public is outraged that officials didn’t do their job to prevent it because they didn’t want to offend someone. The perpetrator(s) feel they’ve been wronged, all charges are dropped, get the ACLU to file suit against the city, win and are awarded a huge amount of money on the day the last victim of the bombing is laid to rest.
The D.A. Steve Cooley has publicly said he is going after medical marijuana dispensaries that make a profit, no political correctness for pot smokers, but if you want to be a terrorist, c’mon down, the weather is fine this time of year, bring your plastic explosives, your crazy religious beliefs, whatever you need to kill people, just don’t bring your bong.
I bet I’d go on their watch list. White, Christian, Veteran, Gun owner, Strong Conservative views… If my neighbors turned me in, the call taker would probably wet their pants.
Not all Muslims are terrorist bombers, but all terrorist bombers have been Muslims. Beware of Muslims with clean feet, wearing white and bearded. They just might be on their way to Allah. All Christians also want to go to heaven, just not right at the moment.
Hey, that’s how we can close Gitmo and take a holiday from history again! We issue every citizen an Ipod for Iwatching, and then we can release the prisoners of war on house arrest with electric monitors cuffed to their legs. May I suggest Martha’s Vineyard, an up scale island with mostly white faces? As we all know, if you’re not an agent of the state, a citizen can racially and ethnically profile, and report suspicious face behavior to the police, like boating while Muslim off the Kennedy compound at Martha’s Vineyard. Isn’t that where all those green wind farms were canceled?
How long until these people learn that being PC does not work? I’m not sure 30,000 dead from islamic terrorists will be enough. The ACLU is a problem that will end up getting good people killed. This nation has had logic replaced with feelings and it endangers us all.
Of course, since were talking about LA Pd, how about the thriving metropolis of Avalon on Catalina for those Gitmo Muslim POWs? It’s is a sunnier climate than the east coast, there is a court and Sheriff’s substation on site, electronic monitoring of POW’s should be a piece of cake. 26 miles accross the sea, sunny Catalina is waiting for me. The island of romance. Love is the answer.
Well hell I’d be on the terrorist watch list as well. White, veteran, gun owner, has bumper sticker critical of Obambi on my Jeep, writes letters to congress critters. Wouldn’t surprise me if my name was there already.
Really, though – who *is* the greater threat to Obama’s Presidency?
White veteran gun-owners who revere the Constitution and are critical of Obama, or powerless little uneducated throwbacks pining to meet their 72 not-blonde virgins on the wings of a blast of peroxide?
I used to laugh at the various DA’s amd high police officials portrayed in the Clint Eastwood Dirty Harry movies. Good grief! It was really true.
The FBI already has a tips program and its barely managable and mostly useless (not to mention understaffed to run down all these “hot” leads).
While I’m sure some sort of statistical analysis could, over time, be used to correlate, rank and prioritize these “leads” it would take a lot of time and money to do so and the data input would probably be so thin as to be worthless. Bottom-line, its sounds ike a good idea but its just political window dressing. “Hey folks, were doing something! See, we care.” As any intel analyst will tell you, its an obvious low quality data source. Its about PR and careerism.
Like the “report a smoking muffler” or the Dept of Children and Family Services’ (DCFS) “Suspected Child Abuse Report” program in CA, this program can be harnessed for use by any member of the public to harrass those they wish to harrass.
I agree with the ACLU. iWatch IS a danger to a democracy. Any STASI style system of routinely reporting on your neighbors as suspected terrorists will result in govt databases of suspects based on unsubstandiated facts requiring a huge bureaucracy to vett and open to statistical manipulation by simply calling in volumes of reports on those targeted rightly or wrongly.
Its not is this a good idea (its not). Its about, can’t we spend limited resources (money) in more effective and efficient ways to achieve better results? The answer is Yes.
At best, iWatch will be prove to be more PR than substantial and functionally useless. Its embarassing to have our beloved department’s name used to promote such a lame-brained idea. Bratton knows better but he also knows any PR is better than no PR and he’s got a new gig to sell – international anti-terror police force builder.
iWatch will fade after an embarassing performance. Doesn’t America deserve better than these lame-brained ideas? We really need qualified, military anti terrorist experienced and/or college educated people at least vetting if not running these programs. A mind is a terrible thing to waste.
“The American tapestry is all the more vibrant for the threads interwoven from countries like Pakistan.” Lines like that are why you’re just not the average bear, Br’er Jack!
Seriously, as a LEO, I’ve reported two things I found alarming since Homeland Security was created.
1. Twor swarthy and bearded young men videotaping the crowd and facility _ not the game _ at an Atlanta Braves home; while off-duty local officers busied themselves watching hotties.
2.
Ooops. The second event was as follows:
Two swarthy young men practicing full magazines dumps with a Ruger 9mm at our local indoor range. They were blasting 16 rounds at a time as fast as they could yank the trigger on a B-27 hanging 3-7 yards away.
In both incidents said youngsters were talking excitedly in, um, Derka Derka tongue.
Never heard anything after the first return call on the Atlanta incident.
In the second, FBI passed it to the local campus police as the bullet hosers go there (as does my son!). Said campus cops called up rather perturbed that I was worried about swarthy Middle Eastern students practicing NSRs; kind of implied I might be non-PC. This university also has a policy off-duty LEOs attending class or just visiting are NOT to be armed.
P.S. This after both Virginia Tech and NIU shootings, BTW.