Crowdsourcing National Security

Well, it's not quite crowdsourcing, but my guess it that's the next step in this fascinating Global Incident Map website, that visually displays "terrorism events and other suspicious activity." Right now, the website relies on its own staff to upload incidents from news websites and other sources, but I suspect once they realize the limitations of that method, they'll open it up for user contributions.

This wouldn't be the first example of using crowdsourcing for surveillance. As Nicholar Carr writes, it's already been beta tested in border patrol:

In the latest sign of the rapidly expanding scope of Web-based social production, Texas's Virtual Neighborhood Border Watch Program has gone live, in a beta test open to all. The Del Rio News Herald reports that the Lone Star State began streaming video from nine surveillance cameras along the Mexican border on Friday, allowing regular citizens to tune in over the Internet and watch for attempts by illegals to enter the country. Beneath each video stream is a "Report Suspicious Activity" button, which can be used to alert local authorities should any potential mischief be spotted. There is also a button for ordering donuts.

This is also already being brought down to the local level, quite literally. For example, there's the really hilarious Rotten Neighbors website, where you can anonymously rat on bad neighbors (apparently, someone in my neighborhood ships people they don't like off to Gulags in Eastern Europe, or so says the website).