Ahmed: iWatch prompts paranoia, hinders liberties

The attacks on the World Trade Center produced an anxious America. Many strained their eyes for evil. Few let down their guard.

What is there to fear eight years later? Decide for yourself. You might have heard about Najibullah Zazi, a citizen of Afghanistan and legal resident of the United States.

Zazi allegedly tried to buy a large quantity of cosmetic products, hydrogen peroxide and acetone sources. Authorities followed and interviewed him concerning bomb-making instructions found on his laptop and his recent visits to Pakistan.

Ultimately, he was arrested and charged with lying to authorities about a terroristic matter. He is pleading not guilty.

A store clerk’s suspicion of Zazi’s purchases prompted the clerk to inform authorities of his gut instinct. Los Angeles police commander Joan McNamara has cited this incident as something to learn from. Many communities could train for such citizen antiterrorist involvement, creating a sort of “neighborhood watch.”

Together with Los Angeles police chief William Bratton, McNamara developed the iWatch program. Chiefs of 63 departments across the nation and Canada recently endorsed it.

iWatch will use brochures, public service announcements and meetings with community groups to deliver concrete advice on how the public should perceive situations and report them.

Such a comprehensive and expansive program can do nothing but ensure a greater level of safety for us, right? I mean, these sort of actions did work to nab Zazi before he could potentially do harm. So what’s wrong about mass “educating” people to be wary of potential harms?

In this case, a lot.

We need no banners, no slogans and no mock fervor. This kind of activism can lead to loss of rights. We want aggressors to be picked out and stopped, and rightfully so, but what happens when we ourselves become doubted by our beloved public? It trickles down to a matter of what’s more important: freedom or safety.

Everyone wants to feel safe, and the intentions of iWatch might be pure. But the program could cause some to become overzealous and lead to a level of distrust. Just because one man’s was well-founded doesn’t mean that suspicions should be held to a higher degree of respect, that people should go searching for a suspicion to then pursue. Deal with what you get when it comes, like the clerk did. His instinct, something we all have, was enough.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, Raed Jarrar was a victim of this overactive behavior. He was an innocent architect simply flying home. His offense: wearing a T-shirt inscribed with “We will not be silent” in Arabic script. TSA officials refused to let him board unless he removed it. Deemed not a security threat, Raed was singled out because of his ethnicity and the constitutionally protected speech on his shirt.

Behaviors people would be suspicious about in iWatch are often mistakable. Wearing a shirt isn’t criminal.

iWatch also demarcates smelling chemicals or fumes a worthy suspicion. What if a homeowner fumigates his house to kill mites or has gas leakage in his plumbing? Sounds silly, but to the iWatch junkie, the innocent homeowner could be a prime target.

If you see someone purchasing supplies or equipment that could be used to make bombs it is worthy of report. Report forms on the iWatch website are vague. A citizen has to more or less rely on his own judgment to determine what supplies are questionable. Makes you wonder if you can fertilize your lawn without turning heads.

Mike German, policy counsel of the ACLU, thinks that since the questionable activities are such common practices, suspicions will fall onto the all-too-familiar crutch of personal biases and stereotypes.

In the program’s defense, McNamara said reports based on race or ethnicity will not be accepted. It forces one to wonder how the recipients of the reports, the individual personnel, are going to sift out suspicions with merit.

Fortunately, trained professionals will be equipped for the task, according to Art Femister, president and founder of the National Association Citizens On Patrol. Indeed, such discretion is vital to the program’s success.

Still, fear is understandable — inevitable — from those who commonly fall into the trench of racial profiling.

Will citizens’ reports be fair to suspects of, say, Middle Eastern appearance? If a disproportionate number of suspects are of this appearance, is it because they were in fact quesitonable, or were they perceived as more likely to be guilty — a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy? The former would be acceptable.

Harboring constant concern and providing a quick and haphazard means to attempt to resolve percieved threats creates an unpredictable environment. Hostilities could arise that were previously nonexistent, as in Jarrar’s case. Racial profiling could perpetuate from this new surge of activism.

The public needs no overblown program fueling the familiar vehicle of difference and distrust. Let’s have common sense compatible with liberty.

E-mail Abdul at aba24@pitt.edu.