cam . # .

John Robb has convinced me: Makes sense to my eyes. So how does a nation-state combat it. Using the nation-state over-whelming monopoly on violence, domestically and on the world stage, is not working. The national security state will fail against these attacks, the expeditionary military attack is also failing, witness Iraq.

You ask the question can we have crowd wisdom in policing, a kind of neighbourhood watch with statutory teeth? That may not be necessary in Australia, nor even the UK or the US; but Iraq is probably ripe for that kind of innovation. Security is incapable of covering everything there, so a civil-militia/police would be the right kind of civil innovation to self-manage community and collective security.

If the Iraqis manage a self-sustaining flash-mob-police-force there will be serious future repercussions. Iraq is now representing the failure of the nation-state. If they manage to create sustainable self-policing structures then hello direct democracy and anarchy. Greg Egans \"Stateless\" might not need the water rich environment of the Pacific, and instead will flourish in the deserts of the Gulf.

So how do you establish a smart-mob, anti-terror force, that is civilly focussed and tyrannically restrained?

The bazaar needs a doer first. These are the yellow data points in the cloud graph . Do they register on a community equivalent of sourceforge ; with a result, an idea, or a project? A blog can serve this function well enough. Or do they need a fund raising environment like globalgiving ? Where communities, companies, nations, individuals (from anywhere in the world) can fund a local anti-violence program.

Unfortunately nation-states have attacked terror in the private space (not public) and used intelligence forces, special forces, secrecy etc to combat it without exposing the process to the citizenry. If it was in the public space, we would have a better idea of what is needed.

cam