If you are serious about your personal security, basic counter-surveillance procedures should be part of your daily routine. The reason you need to understand counter-surveillance is to identify anyone who has you under surveillance. Always take precautions when you leave and enter your home or office and especially when you’re meeting with strangers, informants or sources.

In nearly all burglaries, muggings, robberies, assassinations, or kidnappings the criminals or terrorists will put their target under surveillance to assess their target’s routines and the level of personal security. If you’re operating in an area where professional organized criminal groups or narco-terrorists are active you can be assured, they will be employing multi-layered surveillance programs to identify threats to their organizations and to identify potential targets for kidnapping or extortion.

Counter-surveillance is the base skill for all personal security programs. In this short chapter, I am going to highlight some of the main considerations for a counter-surveillance plan and detail some simple but effective street drills that will enable you to identify if you are under surveillance.

Many supposed security professionals put a lot of time, effort and money into firearms and unarmed combat training, but very few spend any time or effort on their surveillance and counter-surveillance skills.

Professional surveillance operatives put their targets into three categories: unaware, aware and professional. Most people, I would say at least 75%, fall into the unaware category: you can follow them around all day, and they won’t realize you’re there. Give it a try the next time you’re out at the mall! About 24% of people would fall into the aware category and would realize, after a while if someone was watching or following them. The 1% left would fall into the professional category; they take active counter-surveillance measures and would spot people acting suspicious, watching or following them.

You can start training while you’re reading this chapter. Look around where you are now, if you’re in an office look out the window. Are there any people hanging around on the street or sitting in parked cars for no apparent reason? If they are still there in 30 minutes and there is no logical reason, what are they up to, what’s their body language saying, are they being over observant? People don’t hang around the streets and sit in parked cars for no reason unless they are on surveillance or up to something!

Learning to read people’s body language is an extremely important skill. If someone is on surveillance or looking to commit a crime, the chances are they will be acting differently than those around them. Most people do not pay attention to their surroundings, so if someone is over observant, what are they up to?

When you are out at the mall or in a restaurant or bar, watch the people around you and try to identify what mood they are in or what type of discussion they are having with others. It should be easy to identify if a man and a woman are on a romantic date or two business people are having a heated discussion. When in a coffee shop try to determine what people are looking at on their laptops; are they concentrating or goofing around. Learning to read body language is of paramount importance because it will help you identify, avoid and if necessary, react to potential threats.

A basic counter-surveillance plan for your home, business or office would be to simply look around the general area and identify the location(s) from which you could be watched, then check it from time to time. If someone is hanging around that area take note; if they are there for an extended time or show up regularly, what are they doing?

These days if you’re drawing up a counter-surveillance plan you need to take surveillance cameras into consideration. There is a vast array of affordable surveillance cameras on the market that can be used either defensively, to watch potential surveillance locations you’ve identified, or offensively, by someone intent to spy on you. For example, at a very basic level, why sit outside someone’s house and watch them when you can place a $100 hunting trail camera in their garden? Retrieve it after a few days and you will have photos/video of all their comings and goings. If your budget allows it, why not place a camera connected to a GSM network that will send real-time images to your cell phone or email? Here I am talking about regular commercial hunting cameras available at Wal-Mart, not specialized remote surveillance cameras. But no worries, as I am sure everyone reading this regularly sweeps their gardens and parking lots for surveillance cameras, right?

Orlando “Andy” Wilson

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