Surveillance - Part 2: Concepts and Definitions

To further our discussion of the world of surveillance and counter measures, we need to establish some standard terminology. Different practitioners around the country and around the world maintain their own definitions for different bits of the business but, for the sake of consistency here, let us use the following:

Intelligence - useful information on an adversary which helps you be better informed and prepared to counter whatever threat or opportunity they pose. Secret intelligence is what is not publicly available and has to be gathered by covert or clandestine means. Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) is publicly available information, though it may require paid access to certain databases and sophisticated skills to unearth. Aggregation and analysis of data and intelligence can provide additional value.

Clandestine and Covert Activity - in the strictest sense, clandestine operations are those which have a normal public face ie. a convincing and plausible cover story to hide the subterfuge behind. Think the spy who has dinner with the traitor at a public restaurant while passing money and receiving secrets under the table. Covert operations are more in the dark, hidden from view, such as the ninja clad team of tier one Special Forces operators conducting a Close Target Recce of an enemy compound in the dead of night. Shine a light on them and you'll likely get shots fired in your direction. There is, of course, a spectrum of degrees of covert and clandestine in the wide variety of secret squirrel activities and, in reality, the two terms are often used somewhat interchangeably.

Surveillance - the continuous watching or listening (overtly or covertly) of people, vehicles, places or objects to obtain intelligence concerning the activities, intentions and identities of individuals.

Overt Surveillance - open observation of a target or population of potential targets, conducted in their full view and with their awareness. Acts as a deterrent to nefarious activity. Marked police patrols and business video security cameras fit into this category.

Covert Surveillance - secretive observation of a specific target such that neither the target nor any third party bystanders are aware of the presence of the surveillance team or their activities.

Rural Surveillance - specialist surveillance in low population areas and a wide variety of environments and climates including farmland, forest, mountains and desert.

Static Surveillance - overwatch of a specific location from a vehicle, a building, a hedgerow or other position. Can be short or long term. Human eyeballs can be supplemented or replaced with modern remote covert camera technology.

Observation Point (OP) - the position from which static surveillance is conducted. This can include a custom fitted surveillance van, a foxhole dug into a clump of trees with a camouflage net over it or an apartment window with net curtains. Not dissimilar to a sniper's hide for laying in wait to ambush a target.

Foot Surveillance - following a pedestrian target, matching their pace and trying to anticipate their route to position team members at the most advantageous points to ensure full coverage of the target's actions and interactions and missing nothing, without alerting the target or raising any suspicions in others present.

Mobile Surveillance - following a target who is driving or being driven, anticipating their route and destinations as much as possible in order to keep eyes on them at all times as well as to prepare for any stops and transition to foot surveillance. A covert tracking device (beacon) can help enormously with being able to follow at a discrete distance without exposing surveillance vehicles to the target. Such devices can be purchased quite inexpensively these days. They are even on Amazon and Ebay.

Technical Surveillance - Any electronic means of gathering intelligence including, but not limited to: tracking beacons; drones; listening devices (bugs); computer hacking; cover cameras; and telephone intercept. Often used in conjunction with or support of physical surveillance.

Covert Entry - breaking into a property without leaving any trace to search for evidence or intelligence or to plant a technical surveillance device. Requires the black arts of lock picking, alarm defeat, security camera defeat, guard dog defeat and clandestine search. As well as surveillance to control the whereabouts of the occupants to avoid any surprise return.

Close Target Recce - comprehensive short range surveillance of a target location to gather intelligence for some future action (assault, detention, covert entry, technical surveillance, setting up an OP). Objectives will include mapping, outside and inside layout, exterior lighting, presence of animals, alarm systems, cameras, level of security awareness, ingress and egress paths, utilities, neighbors, security patrols etc.

Anti Surveillance (AS) - the measures an individual takes to detect surveillance on themselves. These measures can be clandestine (so as not to alert the surveillance team) or obvious and overt (to increase the odds of detection and send a clear message to the surveillance team that they have been compromised). The spy who leads the surveillance team on a shopping trip but includes several stops, funnels and choke points which cause problems for the team but do not make them think they are deliberate might well spot surveillance without giving the game away. But the person who drives a couple of times around the roundabout or blows through a red light will leave the surveillance team in little doubt.

Counter Surveillance (CS) - the measures your friends, colleagues or allies take to detect surveillance on you. More often than not, this is clandestine rather than overt and is geared towards protecting someone who is going to a dangerous meeting. Think intelligence officer meeting a spy in a terrorist group: the spy themselves might be a double agent bringing his terrorist buddies along to kill or kidnap the case officer; or the terrorist group might be keeping tabs on their own and following the member to see where he/she goes. Either way the terrorist spy would be told in real time to walk a certain route across a part of town where the counter surveillance team could observe (either from ground level or from raised vantage points) his movements and spot anyone following him. Only if the team gave him a clean bill of health would the meeting proceed.

Surveillance Defeat - spotting surveillance is one thing, losing it is another. And being confident that you have truly lost it is yet another. The problem is that the life of a surveillance team is 95 percent utter boredom and most of them have quite the ego about being the unseen professional. So catching them out, rubbing their noses in it and embarrassing them in front of their bosses tends to bring excitement, vindictiveness and considerable motivation to the job. At this point, it is game on and the team are unlikely to give any future quarter to the target. Of course, there can be times when this can be used to advantage by the target. But invoking the wrath of a state surveillance team should not be done lightly.

Surveillance Detection Route (SDR) - the foot and/or mobile route used during Anti or Counter Surveillance to detect hostile surveillance. Such routes are planned carefully in advance to incorporate features which stress surveillance teams and their protocols, leading them to possibly show their hand. Going from crowded to open areas and vice versa forces a surveillance team to dramatically change the pace of their follow. Funnels with alleyways or bridges (pedestrian or vehicle) limit options for parallel routes and can channel at least one of the team to follow closely while everyone else catches up. Going into a multistory building with many exits might cause the team to temporarily lose the target and huddle together to formulate a plan. If the target has planned this in advance and heads immediately to a vantage point, they might catch the team out.

Surveillance Detection Teams - a specific term used by US State Department's Diplomatic Security Bureau for the local hires at embassies and consulates around the world who hang around outside the buildings and mingle with the lines of visa applicants and consular cases to look out for unusual behavior. A similar concept to the "dickers" in Catholic areas of Northern Ireland and the "lookouts" in any other tribal neighborhood (think of the kids working for the drug dealers in the projects in Chicago) who report any outsiders and possible law enforcement in particular. A form of Counter Surveillance.

Narc and Tiered Surveillance - not all surveillance teams are created equal and some are deliberately created differently. Basic law enforcement surveillance tends to be simple and unsophisticated, a reflection of the low level street criminal they have in their sights. It takes much time, money and resources to build an advanced surveillance team. But some nation states (and some larger law enforcement agencies) play games with different teams too. A Narc team consists of deliberately crude operators who do not try too hard to remain hidden and fit more into the "harassment" category: the target knows that they are there and generally just has to tolerate them. The Russians are masters of this (among many other things). A new Western diplomat in Moscow gets treated often to the Narc team and, possibly, begins to relax when the Narc team is not present. The domestic security service (MBR), however, will then put their much harder to spot "A team" on to the same diplomat to see if they try to do any spy stuff when they think there is no surveillance. FBI are no different.

Operational Clandestine Point (OCP) - fancy word for a safehouse. But let's use it.

Emergency Response Plan - so, you have noticed some form of hostile surveillance taking an interest in you. Obviously what you do next depends on the totality of the circumstances. If you are on the street and a thug or two are watching your every move you might cross the street to see if they follow or dive into a store and call the police. If you are driving in a bad part of town and have a "tail" you might go straight to the nearest police station and certainly not back to your hotel or home. As a diplomat or spy in a foreign country you might carry on business as usual as long as you were confident it was the local security service and not a terrorist outfit. If the car at the end of your street is full of empty donut boxes and belongs to glowing federal agent taking a close interest in your every move, you might send your dog off to stay with relatives for a few weeks and tidy up your affairs. Whatever the circumstances, however, it pays to have already thought through possible scenarios and have a few plans worked out in advance. It is much easier to refine an existing plan that to create one from scratch when every second counts. Play that "what if" game with yourself and your trusted group.

Surveillance can have many objectives:

- gather evidence of illegal or unauthorized activity

- obtain detail about a target's pattern of life

- develop leads for investigation

- know where a target is physically located at all times

- confirm the reliability of other information

- locate people who are missing or are trying to hide

- provide information for a search warrant

- identify unknown persons of interest

- identify vulnerable points in a person's routine in order to detain, kidnap or attack them

- map the physical layout of a location and study its security features prior to a robbery, raid or arrest

- catch suspects red handed in the commission of a crime or in activities deemed a threat to the state

Detecting and defeating surveillance can help protect you from all of these threats. Fortunately, you get to decide (after study, practice and training) on whether to be a very soft target, a very hard target or somewhere in between:

Unaware - Someone who would never think that they would ever be under any form of surveillance by either criminals or law enforcement. They are generally oblivious to their surroundings and complacent about their life. Comfortable in their Normalcy Bias.

Semi-Aware - A person who may be motivated to look for surveillance on occasion due to something in which they are involved but lacking in the skills to really know what to look for. Willing to pay attention to what is going on around them, when it suits them, usually at only certain points of their routine.

Aware - Someone who takes a professional approach to the threat of surveillance, realizing that they may well be the subject of a hostile team at any time, for whatever reason. They will always take the time to scan their environment and they pride themselves on noticing anything that is out of place or unusual/tell tale behavior. They have a knowledge of both surveillance and anti-surveillance tactics which they put to good use. They have a good sense about what to do if they spot anyone watching them.

Hidden - Think criminal or terrorist mastermind with significant resources. Someone who is more of a recluse, rarely leaving their castle and only with a bodyguard team and deploying counter-surveillance assets. They live either deep inside their own tribal community or somewhere they have a long stand-off from the general public. There is a grave mistrust of outsiders. Such a target is an extreme challenge for surveillance. Nevertheless, interesting for us to be aware of.

Our objective, over the rest of this series of articles, is to make you firmly "Surveillance Aware."