I'd rather not be in Philadelphia

Regular readers of this column will know that I don't like to revisit a topic — at least not right away. I like to give you something new every week. However, I can't let this one go, because I've told only two thirds of the story.

The cities of England (in reality) and the city of San Francisco (in fiction) are not the only ones to be attacked by violent hordes lately. Mobs of teenagers have been terrorizing Philadelphia for months.

Don't let the name fool you: Philadelphia, which is Greek for "city of brotherly love", has long been one of the most dangerous places in America. Every day on average, somebody gets killed there in an act of violent crime.

Most American cities have their slums. Clever tourists ask where the no-go areas are and avoid them. But in Philadelphia, it's much easier to point out the safer areas because there are so few of them. I've walked around in downtown Philadelphia and have driven through the slums, and have seen the contrast. A friend from the area, whom I was spending the day with, got nervous and insisted that we leave the city before dark.

I should mention that this guy was a former Marine, trained to kill people with his bare hands. Yet he was afraid.

The dark side of Twitter

Things have since gotten much worse. In recent months, swarms of teenagers have been gathering in "flash mobs", using Twitter and text messages to summon their friends. Sometimes they're all just looking for an outdoor spot to spend the hot summer evenings. Sometimes they just look threatening. And sometimes they attack random people, knocking them down, hitting them hard and breaking their bones.

The curfew took effect this past Friday. Fifty teenagers were arrested that first night. As in England, there have been cases of parents turning in their kids to police.

It's fascinating to observe that the same technology that gave us the "Twitter revolution" in the Middle East carries such destructive, or at least dangerous, potential. It's also fascinating to observe that the abridgement of the freedom of assembly that's being used as a response is taking place just down the street from where the country was founded in 1776.

Would Americans accept British solutions like putting closed-circuit TV cameras everywhere, detaining people without charging half of them, and gathering evidence from confiscated cell phones? Should we pull the Marines out of Iraq and Afghanistan and send them to Philadelphia? Would it be enough to adopt tactics like those used successfully by Rudy Giuliani in New York City? Or might a Hollywood-style solution one day be necessary?