As noted below, Jeff over at Caerdroia has a good post on the logic of distributed systems and redundant networks, and how we can apply some of that thinking to combating terrorist attacks. I’ll take his idea, that:

bq. “the government needs to encourage the population to arm itself with handguns and long arms; to offer training in spotting bombs, recognizing vulnerabilities, emergency medical care, planning in advance for contingencies and the like; and to give us the information we need to understand and react to threats”

…and differ in two places: [1] I’m reluctant to ‘encourage’ people to arm themselves without some measure of training (as opposed to ‘not interfering’), and [2] I think that the giving of information needs to be a two-way street. I think that the government needs to come up with some good communications channels that can go from citizen upward, as well as from local agency upward, since the local sheriff or firefighter is likely to be the first on the scene in the event of any kind of threat or attack.

Over the last few days, I’ve had some experience on how that shouldn’t be done. Let me tell you a story.I have a long commute from Thousand Oaks to the South Bay; one of the perks is that I get to ride my motorcycle through the Santa Monica Mountains, which have some of the most beautiful (and entertaining) roads in the nation.

About a week ago, I was commuting home up one of the canyon roads, and started closing on a car. Looking up, I saw that it was a big white car. As I got closer, I noticed that it was a Crown Victoria (a model of Ford favored by law enforcement). I slowed my progress, looked more closely and realized that it had a civilian license plate, as opposed to the ‘exempt’ plates police cars and other local agency public cars have. I looked, and decided that it probably wasn’t a police car, and so was safe to (illegally) pass, and moved up still closer. And saw that it had a cage (barrier in between the front and back seats), spotlights, and an antenna. Definitely not a civilian, but what? I have a fair amount of experience with law enforcement; two of my dearest friends are a working LEO and a retired one. UC cars don’t have cages, and typically aren’t Crown Vics. Command cars have exempt plates, and some agency markings on them. I puzzled for a moment, then decided not to pass and fell back and followed the car until it turned up into a driveway. I rode away going “huh?” and forgot about it.

Until the following Tuesday, when I drove in to work, and happened to catch the tail end of a news story about someone at large who had been imitating a police officer, and who drove – a white Crown Vic. A bell went off in my memory, and I wondered what to do. I’d decided to call one of my LEO friends and ask, when I pulled up next to a LA Sheriff patrol car. I beeped, rolled my window down, and asked for a moment of his time.

Note: when you do something like this, obey their instructions, and before he gets out of the car, roll your window down and make sure both forearms are on the sill…why make the officer nervous?

I told him what I’d seen and heard, asked him what to do, and he replied that frankly, he had no idea, but he’d pass my contact info on to the detectives when he went off shift. I gave him my card, and drove off.

No one called, and I put it out of my mind, until Saturday, when the L.A. Times ran a story:

The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department is investigating reports that a group of about six men masquerading as law enforcement agents … and calling themselves “the posse” … has been falsely arresting and robbing motorists in Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

OK, now I’ve got to do something, I called my LEO friend at home, and told her what I’d seen, asking if maybe it was something she knew about…LEO vehicles with civilian plates. She berated me for not getting the plate, and said that yes, I should call it in to the San Bernardino Sheriff ASAP, particularly as I’d seen it drive up a driveway and could probably find it again.

So I called. No one could take a message on a Saturday, and I didn’t have the name of a detective to ask to be sent to his or her voicemail.

This morning, I called again. I was told that I couldn’t be transferred to the Detective Bureau, they didn’t take calls. After protesting that I was calling in response to a story in the Times about a crime they were investigating, I was transferred to the Public Affairs Division, whose mission is to serve:

as a departmental emissary by fostering relationships between the organization and the communities. Division staff works closely with media sources, citizen groups, labor units, residents, schools, and the faith community to facilitate the flow of information between the Sheriff’s Department and the citizens we serve.

In other words, I left a message about an active investigation with the guy who I’d ask to come speak to my son’s second-grade class.

Now, based on my knowledge of cops, they take the crime of ‘imitating an officer’ damn seriously, as they should. I have no reason to believe that the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department feel any differently.

But it’s pretty obvious that they don’t have a clue…and here I’ll bet they aren’t alone…on how to take information from the public that’s not of the 911 call variety.

I have no idea whether the car I saw was legitimate, or might have been associated with the investigation they have underway. But I can tell you for sure…and I have two sworn police officers who I’ve discussed it with who agree with me…that it’s information that the investigating officers ought to have.

And until we can build structures that make that kind of communication easy, useful, and pervasive, the kind of distributed defense that Jeff discusses, and Instapundit pushes aren’t going to be able to leverage on the existing safety and security infrastructures. Instead, we’ll get centralized bureaucratic systems that will shut out the information they aren’t interested in hearing.

And when that doesn’t work, they’ll get more and more intrusive and sadly, they won’t work any better.

As for my mystery car, I’m having lunch with my LEO friend tomorrow, and she’ll call San Bernardino when she goes back to the office; when she calls, they’ll listen.

(cleaned up grammar)