CHAPTER 5
ASURVEILLANCE DETECTION RESPONSE CAN VARY FROM simple things done by the individual to a complex plan managed by professionals. But before moving toward formal, calculated responses, there are some rather simple responses that might be effective. They are obvious, common sense approaches.
Ami Toben, a professional who makes money developing and managing complex plans, suggests several low cost/no cost options. A first step is to demonstrate that you practice situational awareness and will not be a soft target. This means avoiding areas that seem to invite danger. It will always be dangerous to travel through a dark alley where pre-attack surveillance could begin. If you feel that someone is paying more attention to you than is dictated by your physical appearance, look directly at them. As you do this, it is likely that the observer will go away. If the surveillant does not look too dangerous, a personal confrontation might be sufficient to cause him to back off. If you tell him you will call the police, that will add to the credibility of your response.
Maintaining a low profile is another way of avoiding surveillance. Exhibiting flamboyant behavior and driving around in expensive automobiles will attract attention that is better avoided. If possible, it is a good idea to vary the routes you take going to work or any other place you routinely frequent. Sometimes this may not be possible. During a terrorism scare, personnel stationed at the Special Operations Command (Europe) located at Patch Barracks in Stuttgart, Germany were instructed to vary their routes when coming to work. Unfortunately, only one road served the main entrance to the post, thus making this impossible. In order to mitigate that risk, soldiers were directed to go to work in civilian clothing and change into uniforms in the office. This still did not make much difference.
However, some modest variations will help. One example of this would be if you take care to enter your office building through a different door from the one you use leaving the office. Another helpful practice is to stay on the move as much as possible. This means you should avoid positioning yourself in a static location for an extended period of time. If you decide to have lunch in a sidewalk café, it is likely that you can be observed from a great many comfortable locations for surveillance personnel. If you arrange to meet someone, avoid meeting them at an outside venue. It is much safer to meet inside a restaurant at which you and a colleague may have lunch. Equally effective, if you have the time and are in an appropriate location, is to spend as much time as possible in one place. Surveillance is often extremely tedious and not the least adventurous. If he is not a highly trained, well-paid professional, you might be able to bore the surveillant into leaving.
A variation on this is to establish a comfortable pace in which it will be easy to keep track of you and will reassure the surveillant that you are an easy target. You want to be noticeable and seem predictable. Look for a site at which you can break his view of you for just a few seconds. This could be something as simple as turning a corner. The time when you cannot be seen will give you an opportunity to change your appearance. Change you head covering, your shirt, or your manner of walking. By the time the surveillant expects you to reappear, your physical indicators will be different, and you will be lost to the surveillance operative. In this respect you are like an illusionist who manages to make his audience look in the wrong direction.
Yet another way to end the surveillance is to simply move away quickly. This can be either at a run or a fast walk. It is important that you don’t want to flee into a remote isolated area. If you go into a crowded store or get on a bus that is about to leave, you become a more elusive target. Perhaps the surveillant will decide you are more trouble than you are worth. This is another example of what is sometimes called surveillance evasion.
Keep in mind that by itself surveillance is not more than the collection of information. Although this will make most people uncomfortable, it is not a threat until it is linked to a hostile plan. It is reasonable to assume that if some entity is devoting the time to collect this information, there is a motive behind the activity. At this point, you need to move beyond the overt responses that you have made on your own.
After you have assessed your situation and determined that you are under surveillance, it is necessary to prepare your surveillance detection response. If Savvas Savopoulos, the victim in the 2015 “mansion murders,” had developed such a response, he could have survived the home invasion that led to his death.
This plan should deal with five basic issues. The first is what type of SD will be employed? It can be static or mobile. The second issue is when will the SD be conducted? Will it run for twenty-four hours a day or just for certain times? The third item is to determine who will conduct the SD. Will you hire professionals or rely on family members and employees? The fourth issue is whether you will conduct the SD from your home, your workplace, or in between. Finally, you need to have a plan for how you will store and use the information you have collected. While you don’t want to be in a panic, it is crucial that you are serious about this endeavor.
The most basic plan is focused on the needs of an individual, his family, or his workplace. His SD should accommodate specific needs of all those concerned with protection of the family and the home. By conducting SD from the house, it is possible to prevent attacks, a home invasion, or a kidnapping. The plan should focus on the transition times such as leaving for work and returning home at the end of the day. Before leaving the house, the individual can simply look out the window to see if anybody is watching. As he leaves, his wife can watch to see if anyone is following him. When he returns home, his wife can check to see if there is any suspicious activity taking place.
Development of an SD plan should involve identification of the best observation points in the house. Once you have identified the most likely routes for the arrival of trouble, you can match those locations to the windows used as observation points. As you are conducting this SD, it is important to be discreet so you do not scare off the surveillance. It is always to your advantage when the surveillant does not know of an SD. It is also important that your SD plan covers drop off and pickup times for any children in the family and creates contingencies for how to respond to an attack. This means that before anything happens, it is helpful to inform local law enforcement about this situation.
The next level of complexity for an SD plan is one designed for a small business. Like the individual SD, this one begins with a threat assessment. If the business has several buildings, each one will need to be studied as part of the threat assessment. The threats faced by a small business will vary according to the product being produced or marketed. If it is a controversial one, such as hunting supplies, you can predict which interests will threaten it. With modern technology, the small business can set up a monitoring device and designate certain individuals to be responsible for recording threat information. If the business is in a neighborhood plagued by crime, the threat may be a simple as shoplifting. The individual responsible for keeping track of the security system will probably be the owner, manager, or some other trusted individual. It is probable that a small business would not have the budget to bring in a specialist for this task. Like the individual who runs his SD out of his home, the small business can conduct his SD from his premises. Something as basic as security cameras can cover most of the needs of the establishment.
The small business SD is more complex than the individual’s SD, but the corporate SD can draw from an abundance of resources. The assets of a corporation can easily run into many millions of dollars or even more. In addition to property, a corporation is likely to have a large work force that will also have interests that must be protected. Therefore, the corporation has a lot to protect and is obligated to institute an elaborate and detailed SD plan. The corporate plan will require the designation of specific individuals within the chain of command to be responsible for maintenance of SD procedures and will employ specialists with experience in this field. The specialists will take the lead in establishing comprehensive, complex arrangements to safeguard property and employees of the corporation. Because insurance for protection against terrorist acts is so costly if it’s even available, it is better for the corporation to develop programs that offer a realistic prospect of protecting the corporation against such attacks.