Spotters?

Finally found an article that has been bouncing around in my head for about three years, thanks to Glenn Reynolds.   It was about how citizen pajamahadeen can help guard critical facilities by monitoring surveillance cameras from the comfort of home.

Spotters? These are ordinary people who enlist to screen pictures over the Internet. They sign up online and can work whenever they like, for five hours or five minutes. Sitting at home or anywhere else with Web access, they log on to HomeGuard’s site and look at pictures, saying only whether they see a person or vehicle in the pictures that appear. Crucially, these spotters have no idea what they’re seeing pictures of. One image might show a length of chain-link fence, the next a door, the next a catwalk. All they do is say whether they see a person or vehicle and then click. Next picture.

HomeGuard never took off, but the idea of regular people being able to do something useful in the Jihadi War from their computer is resonating throughout the blogosphere.  Many people are coming to the realization that our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen can’t win this war without help.  Technology and imagination allows people who can’t pass a PT test to contribute to the war effort.  Blogging is one way to participate.  Enemy psychological operations are sapping the will of the American people to stay the course.  An Army of bloggers, can do something about that.