Guest Editor: Rehan Allahwala Ahmed (First published on Nov. 2, 2008 at http://blogs.rehan.com)

Background:
Most of the people that the governments are looking for are already known to them ie Mr Osama Bin Ladin.

80 % of the people in the lower income tribal areas of Pakistan and almost 99% of the people in Afghanistan can not read or write their name, they are not watching the television, the are not on the internet, there is no radio, they are totally out of touch with the world that we all in metro cities live in.

The Primary Problem:
The problem that govt faces is that the local people do not help them in identifying the people they are looking for, and therefore any and all information is used to identify any suspects and then they go ahead and bomb down the target that any one even with little confirmation is passing to them, causing a lot of civilian casualties.

My Solution:
The tele-density in Pakistan has grown from 5% to almost 50% in the recent years, and it can further be increased to reach the masses of Pakistan, especially in the tribal and mountain area’s where education and other basic infrastructure are not available to the masses, and where the so called TERRORIST are hiding.

Once the mobile networks are available in these area’s the Army and other agencies should subsidize the cost of a camera mobile phone which already is very low and should be available for like $5 or $10 to be purchased in these area’s

If you are in US or Canada the idea of this maybe strange to you, however in Pakistan a new connection cost’s 2$ and the incoming is no charge, its totally free to receive the call. Unlimited Data cost’s 5$ a month in Pakistan on your mobile, that you can use to email, map or send videos.

Once we have these phones, the density of the phone network will grow organically, and the army and the security agencies can simple Telecast the picture of the person who is WANTED to these phones in those area’s.

The phones can very easily be identified by the cell phone networks based on which cell tower is being used, and the picture message or video message can say, we are looking for this person, and if you have seen him, we will give you 100,000$ to spot him, just call this number and report to us.

Another thing that it will do is allow the govt agencies and army to listen in and record the calls and scan them for keywords that are important, and then a person who is talking about a WANTED person can easily be tapped into.

But ALL this can only be done if the rapid telecom growth is constantly encouraged and funded, no matter what it cost, it will still not cost more than a cost of a drone plane which goes down every other week, and cost’s 100’s of millions of dollars to do that.

I think once this is done, it will be extremely difficult for any one to hide.

This way you will have the WANTED person very quickly and without killing any innocent people.

My 2 cents.

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