If George Orwell and Steve Jobs joined forces, they likely would have come up iWatch, the new anti-terrorism initiative rolled out this week by the Metropolitan Police Department.

An extension of the “See Something, Say Something” campaign, iWatch is a new website that residents are encouraged to use to report suspicious activity to police:

You can help prevent terrorism in our back yard just by paying attention and speaking up. As you go about your daily routine, if you notice things that appear out of the ordinary — a person in a crowd wearing unusually bulky clothing, vehicles that have been parked for extended periods of time in your block, packages that have been left behind — you can provide instant information to law enforcement to take action, by using the new iWATCH public portal. Making a report takes only about five minutes following the series of on-screen questions. You can also include photos, video, or other attachments that may be helpful in conducting an investigation.

The initiative, which was originally started in Los Angeles in 2010 and expanded to Dallas the same year, asks for detailed information on what possible suspects look like, what they’re doing and where they’re located. With the information, MPD analysts will work to determine whether what was reported is a possible threat (someone stockpiling weapons, say) or relatively innocuous day-to-day behavior that was misinterpreted (like taking photographs, using a map or loitering).

Predicting a likely outcry from civil libertarians and Muslim organizations (which happened in L.A. and Dallas), police officials are taking pains to stress that iWatch won’t be use to profile individuals. “The way the program is set up, it alleviates fear of profiling people because it’s all about behavior,” Chief Cathy Lanier told the Washington Times. But, as the City Paper’s Rend Smith mused yesterday on Twitter, “MPD says iWatch Website won’t profile, but that doesn’t mean those who use it won’t.”

Launching the new tool the same week that residents will observe the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks certainly isn’t a coincidence, and it continues to reflect the difficult balance that local police departments have to deal with in fighting terrorism. Have programs like these — which we’ve seen before — managed to head off the next terrorist attack, or have there simply not been any more serious attempts since September 11? Lanier noted that the department currently receives four tips a day, and that iWatch will likely see that number increase. But does making it easier to submit tips make the tips that are submitted any better?

And most importantly, how long until the makers of the real iWatch sue the District for trademark infringement?