Lisa Vaas posted an entertaining piece today with the title: Are Miami cops really flooding Waze with fake police sightings?. Apparently an NBC affiliate (not FOX, amazing) tried its hand at FUD, alleging that Miami police officers were gaming Waze.
There is a problem with that theory, which Lisa points out quoting Julie Mossler, a spokes person for Waze:
Waze algorithms rely on crowdsourcing to confirm or negate what has been reported on the road. Thousands of users in Florida do this, both passively and actively, every day. In addition, we place greater trust in reports from heavy users and terminate accounts of those whose behavior demonstrate a pattern of contributing false information. As a result the Waze map will remain reliable and updated to the minute, reflecting real-time conditions.
Oops!
See Lisa’s post for the blow-by-blow account of this FUD attempt by the NBC affiliate.
However foolish an attempt to game Waze would be, it is a good example to promote the sharing of intelligence.
Think about it. Rather than the consensus poop that emerges as the collaboration of the senior management in intelligence agencies, why not share all intelligence between agencies between working analysts addressing the same areas or issues? Make the “crowd” people who have similar security clearances and common subject areas. And while contributions are trackable within a agency, to the “crowd,” everyone has a handle and their contributions on shared intelligence is voted up or down. Just like with Waze, people will develop reputations within the system.
I assume for turf reasons you could put handles on the intelligence so the participants would not know its origins as well, just until people started building up trust in the system.
Changing the cultures at the intelligence agencies, which hasn’t succeeded since 9/11, would require a more dramatic approach than has been tried to date. My suggestion is to give the Inspector Generals the ability to block promotions and/or fire people in the intelligence agencies who don’t actively promote the sharing of intelligence. Where “actively promotes” is measured by intelligence shared and not activities to plan to share intelligence, etc.
Unless and until there are consequences for the failure of members of the intelligence community to put the interests of their employers (in this case, citizens of the United States) above their own or that of their agency, the failure to share intelligence since 9/11 will continue.
PS: People will object that the staff in question have been productive, loyal, etc., etc. in the past. The relevant question is whether they have the skills and commitment that is required now? The answer to that last question is either yes or no. Employment is an opportunity to perform, not an entitlement.