Catch a Terrorist, Win $1,000

Awhile back DARPA got into trouble for trying to start-up something like a terrorist stock exchange where you would get people to in effect vote on where the next incident would occur in the world.   At risk of getting the same treatment for a strange and radical idea,  I propose that video of the security screening done by the worlds airports be available on the internet and that people get $1,000 every time they spot an explosive device or a gun in someone’s luggage or on their person.  There would have to be some strict rules in order to keep people from getting their friends to smuggle stuff so they could get paid.

First and foremost, you never get the feed from your own country.  In fact, in addition to the fact that the feed is not from your own country it is randomized so that every time you logon you will see bags  and people from a different airport in a different nation.  Hits on the system will only be accepted from people who have registered with the system.

Registration requires full a full security check of you, your family, your spouse, your friends, your spouses friends, your coworkers, your past, your fingerprints and your police and military records.  When you report a hit one of the first things that will be done is we will check to see if the person with the supposed weapon is someone you know.

A person is allowed only one hit per year.  If security agencies have reason to believe that the person is very good at screening bags via video, even though he already has his one hit per year, the security agencies are free to investigate him once again then to hire him if they wish.

If a pilot program of letting “outsiders” scan video security screens works then it could be expanded to government, chemical, oil, nuclear power, and other facilities.  If the problem comes down to figuring out whom you can trust to do this right or well or without corruption, then figure that out.  Who can you trust?   Once you know that, run the program just with people you trust.  For instance, let us suppose that you decide that the only people you can trust are CIA agents, FBI Agents and soldiers.  Then offer some kind of bonus if they scan 5 minutes per day.  Offer a bigger bonus if they spot something that proves to be of significance.  Sooner or later we may have computer programs to do all this kind of work reliably but it is possible that for some time, given that our adversaries will change what they are doing and how they are doing it, it is possible that only human beings are adaptable and imaginative enough to do this job well.

The reason why we might pay the bonuses for say 5 minutes of scanning per day from this limited trustworthy pool is that we seek to avoid the sort of boredom and fatigue that would ruin the results of the program.  In addition, we don’t want people continually sneaking a peek when they are supposed to be doing their work.  You can get access for only 5 minutes per day and you can only get the bonus for that 5 minutes.

Everything about the screened videos should be anonymous as possible.  For instance, for this kind of screening, the people on the video or their silhouettes should be headless so that there is no way for the screener to identify them.  Given that a bad guy knowing this will hide something in his mouth or in his hair, let there be one set of screens just for floating heads without bodies.  So privacy issues of knowing exactly what person X looks like naked or knowing that person X have no fewer than 17 prosthetic devices, never come up because the  internet screeners never get to match a head with a body.

To further allay security concerns, it shall be against the law to point the security screening video cameras at any place wherein people have a reasonable expectation of privacy.   So you can’t point them at or into houses or apartments.  They also will not operate inside bedrooms or bathrooms.

In exchange for giving up this level of privacy we should not be forced to fly naked or go to the bathroom barefoot, or any of that silly stuff they are making us do or that they plan to make us do.   In return for seeing nearly, anonymously naked, you stop hassling us and hassle the terrorists instead.

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