The Neighborhood Network Watch is intended to be a voluntary program that allows people to monitor network traffic on wireless networks and analyze it using a package of applications provided to the volunteers by the DHS, according to a video now posted on YouTube. Basically you grab the wireless traffic being broadcast all around you and then compare the words contained in that traffic against a list of keywords contained in the somewhat infamous Echelon word list which has been "updated to deal with the current, pressing threats from around the world." You know, words like "democrat", "free speech", and "sexy naked women". Depending on how many hits the traffic that any given volunteer grabs gets against that list, the network and area around it is given a rating similar to the ultra-effective rainbow of terror developed way back at the begining of this decade by our very first Secretary of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge. It even uses the same colors, how convenient!

Apparently this idea was left on the back burner for a bit while the DHS got its shit together (a task scheduled for completion sometime right before or possibly just after the Apocalypse), but current Secretary of Homeland Security (and creepy-looking SOB) Michael Chertoff thought it was so great he brought it back to life. Obviously modeled after the Neighborhood Watch program developed in the 60's (except with a much larger dork factor), the first chapter of this organization was started last March in New York City and monitored the networks of such hives of scum and villany like Think Coffee, Theeee [sic] Coffee Chamber (perhaps the extra E's stand for Terroreeesm), the Bowery Poetry Club, the SoHo Apple Store, and Starbucks (you know, right by the Starbucks). Apparently the chapter believes that terrorists really like caffeine, shitty open-mic spoken word, and iPods. Somehow the Starbucks managed to achieve a status of Elevated (yellow) while a coffee shop called Rapture Coffee got as far as High (orange). The video shows a map indicating that quite a few folks in the East Village of Manhatten are surfing with terror.

So after your local NNW chapter establishes that your friends and neighbors are downloading bomb plans to perpetrate the final jihad along with their porn, you can shoot an e-mail off to your local law enforcement or DHS itself and they can start hanging around the area with large flowers in their lapels, if you know what I'm saying. So why not get started right now? Of course, by reading this article you've already set off a half-dozen flags of your own. Hooray for freedom!