Every move you make...

...I'll be watching you.

The aftermath of the London bombings were netcast. People nearby had camera phones capable of broadcasting video feed to the net, and they did so.

Shortly after bombs ripped through London's transportation system Thursday morning, U.S. and British television networks began airing the first footage of the aftermath – dim images of shaken commuters streaming through a smoky underground tunnel. The video provided an immediate and intimate look at the scene but was hardly polished or professional. That's because it was shot by passengers with mobile phones – the first widespread use of that technology in covering a major breaking news story....

That's a real Panopticon. And unlike the passive security camera network, every one of these cameras was wielded by a person on the spot, applying intelligence to decide what was interesting. The results were likely a lot better – and they'll only improve as the technology gets more capable and more ubiquitous.

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In order to respond to a terrorist attack, rather than merely document it, it helps if police are on the scene, not in a video room watching monitors. (Big Brother's video system could do nothing without the ability to dispatch enforcers to pick up Winston Smith and detain him.)

Old-fashioned centralized efforts, like networks of security cameras, cost a lot of money and don't contribute much to this sort of a response. Getting citizens more involved in noticing, and responding, to terror threats is likely to do more good.

At the very least, a program of this type could be a parallel track for our anti-terrorism efforts. Put some money into programs that might work, and put more money into programs that demonstrate greater effectiveness.

And decentralized, public surveillance has another advantage: It's not controlled by Big Brother.

A network of security cameras can – and almost certainly will, judging from experience – be abused by authorities. A system that depends on the cooperation of thousands (or millions) of citizens, on the other hand, isn't so easily turned to oppression.