In today’s dangerous environment, security professionals must understand the hostile surveillance threat and advise clients regarding the appropriate countermeasures to protect against these invasive efforts.
Even the average citizen has security concerns and can benefit from an understanding of the concepts of surveillance countermeasures that enhance personal protection. However, the application of surveillance countermeasures without a sound perspective regarding the threat-specific surveillance techniques they are intended to defeat can be counterproductive, and potentially dangerous. For this reason, the practitioner of surveillance countermeasures must think like a surveillance operator in order to anticipate how an operator would act based on specific circumstances.
Surveillance Countermeasures
Actions taken by an individual or security detail to identify the presence of surveillance, and if necessary, to elude or evade the individual or group conducting the surveillance. Surveillance countermeasures consist of surveillance detection and antisurveillance. In basic terms, surveillance countermeasures are actions taken to identify or evade a surveillance effort.
A sound understanding of how a surveillance effort operates, thinks, and reacts establishes the perspective necessary to execute effective surveillance countermeasures. Unfortunately, many security professionals and individuals who regard themselves as security experts are really masters only of the tactics, and not of the theory behind the tactics. The application of surveillance detection and antisurveillance measures is only marginally effective when the individual or security detail does not understand the concept, cause, and effect on which the measures are based. Books and manuals abound with various tried-and-true methods and tactics to detect and evade hostile surveillance efforts, but in many cases, the rote practice of textbook methods without the full appreciation of the “art” and “science” of surveillance detection and antisurveillance measures can lead to costly — and even lethal — consequences. The mere application of such techniques is amateurish by design if not planned and executed within the context of how surveillance countermeasures theory applies to surveillance practices.
The prolific range of sophisticated hostile threats dictates that security consultants and individuals striving to achieve the highest level of personal protection attain a deep understanding of surveillance procedures and concepts, and leverage this understanding through the employment of threat-specific surveillance countermeasures techniques and procedures to effectively detect or evade hostile surveillance efforts.
The Prolific Hostile Surveillance Threat
The first step in understanding the hostile surveillance threat is an understanding that virtually anyone can be the target of hostile threat actors. The contemporary threat environment is characterized by a wide range of unconstrained elements that reflects the ever-growing and pervasive underworld of dangerous actors. The plethora of acute threats to the personal privacy and security of average citizens consist of common criminals and stalkers, private and corporate investigators, government-sponsored espionage and other covert agencies, and international crime and terrorist organizations. In virtually all cases, the elements that threaten individual, corporate, or national security conduct surveillance operations to further their objectives, or as the primary means to an end.
At the most basic level, criminals “case” potential targets to develop information to maximize their probability of success in committing a crime. Well-resourced criminal organizations, to include terrorist organizations, conduct more extensive surveillance efforts to develop information on individuals they intend to intimidate, exploit, or terminate. In preparation for criminal or terrorist acts, surveillance is employed to determine when and where the target is most vulnerable.
The threat has also expanded at the other end of the spectrum in that methods of international espionage have become much more aggressive toward nonmilitary and nongovernment targets. To a large degree, the intelligence services of foreign countries, both friend and foe, are competing in a global war based on economics. This increased importance of economic and commercial technology advantage increases the number of individuals who are the potential targets of espionage due to their professions and business affiliations. This expanding threat is further compounded by the ever-increasing practice of industrial/economic espionage conducted between competing businesses.
With the expansion of these varied threats is the development of surveillance capabilities that were traditionally associated only with government-sponsored intelligence and security agencies. As such, these covert practices developed by players with unwritten rules of decency have now been adopted by nefarious elements which recognize no such boundaries. In virtually all cases, these elements conduct surveillance of intended victims as an integral component of attack planning. Terrorist elements are a very relevant reflection of this dynamic due to their well-documented employment of target surveillance in attack planning.
Many terrorist organizations have the resources to conduct comprehensive surveillance operations and appreciate the importance of surveillance-developed information in support of complex attach planning efforts. The fact that these elements have training facilities and doctrinal manuals reflects a degree of proficiency that presents significant challenges to the community of security professionals. Terrorist organizations conduct comprehensive preoperational surveillance to maximize the probability of successful attacks. For example, three of the seven stages of a terrorist operation (intelligence gathering and surveillance, preattack surveillance and planning, and operation rehearsal) involve the collection/development of information on the intended target, and require that the threat element conduct surveillance by placing assets (operators/vehicles) in the proximately of the potential target. Ironically, these efforts to determine the vulnerabilities of a target are also the points at which the threat element is most exposed and vulnerable to detection/compromise. In most cases, surveillance efforts in preparation for these attacks can be readily detected, and in fact, post-event investigations of actual attacks regularly determined that there were detectable signs that the victims overlooked or disregarded due to a lack of surveillance awareness.
The overall increase in the sophistication of hostile surveillance capabilities highlights the requirement for proficiency in surveillance countermeasures. In addition, assuming that the threat is a sophisticated and capable one would portend that any efforts to counter the hostile threat be even more sophisticated and professionally applied. Conversely, surveillance countermeasures that are executed in an ad hoc and isolated manner – as opposed to a preplanned as a part of a methodical surveillance countermeasures process – will likely be ineffective and potentially counterproductive.
Understanding Threat Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures
The effectiveness of surveillance countermeasures is based on a keen understanding of the surveillance techniques employed by a capable and determined surveillance effort.
Surveillance is the systematic, discreet observation of an individual (target) to develop information regarding the target’s activities. An effective surveillance effort is orchestrated in a systematic manner, employing tactics and techniques that best ensure discreet coverage of the target. These time-tested procedures are based largely on an understanding of how the average person observes his or her surroundings while undertaking routine activities.
A surveillance effort employs a systematic approach that involves common tactics, techniques, and procedures. Whether the surveillance effort is a single person or multiple operators/vehicles, there is basically a set system of methods that the effort applies in reaction to the target individual’s movements. With multiple operators, this systematic approach becomes even more important, because each individual operator acts based on a common understanding of how all the operators can be expected to
react to a given situation. This ability to understand how each operator can be expected to react makes a surveillance operation a system.
Effective surveillance countermeasures are devised to exploit, manipulate, and isolate surveillance operators/vehicles for surveillance detection or antisurveillance purposes.
Surveillance countermeasures are based directly on the surveillance tactics, techniques, and procedures they are used to detect or defeat, and thus a broad understanding of the opposition’s operating processes is essential to their effective execution. Any potential target of a surveillance effort must understand how the system operates to enable the detection or evasion of the components of the system.
The Threat-based Surveillance Countermeasures Methodology
There are many various surveillance detection and antisurveillance maneuvers, but it is the underlying conceptual basis that makes them effective. The most effective surveillance countermeasures are based on the comprehensive analysis of hostile surveillance threats. With this level of understanding, the range of surveillance detection and antisurveillance techniques to counter a hostile surveillance effort is limited only by the knowledge of fundamental concepts and the resourcefulness of the practitioner. The specific tactical applications are relatively limitless to the practitioner whose expertise is grounded in the “art” and “science” of the process.
Understanding how the surveillance threat thinks and reacts is the basis of effective surveillance countermeasures. Surveillance countermeasures techniques must be conducted with an appreciation that the surveillance effort they are directed against has a strategy, is proficient, and can react and adapt based on the situation. Understanding how a surveillance effort will perceive and react to these countermeasures is vital to the effective application of specific surveillance countermeasures techniques. The ability to detect or evade a hostile surveillance threat in an effective yet inconspicuous manner can also have life or death implications.
As a general rule, the more sophisticated approach to surveillance countermeasures is for the individual concerned with potential surveillance coverage to execute surveillance countermeasures in a manner that would not be perceived by the observing surveillance effort as surveillance consciousness. Therefore, it is generally to the individual’s long-term advantage that the surveillance team not suspect he or she is conducting surveillance countermeasures.
In general, an individual suspecting surveillance has many more options and can exploit many more vulnerabilities against a surveillance effort that does not suspect that the target individual is surveillance conscious and practicing surveillance countermeasures. A surveillance effort will tend to exercise less diligence and likely expose itself to a greater risk of compromise if it perceives that the target individual is oblivious to the threat of surveillance.
In addition to providing more opportunities to isolate surveillance operators/vehicles for detection or antisurveillance purposes, there are very pragmatic reasons to employ more discreet practices that would not be perceived as surveillance countermeasures by an observing surveillance effort. The potential target of surveillance must also consider how the surveillance effort would react when perceiving that the target is practicing active surveillance countermeasures. The observation of surveillance countermeasures may lead the surveillance effort to conclude that the individual is employing operational tradecraft in an effort to conceal activity of interest. These observations would likely result in a more determined approach on the part of the surveillance effort, such as the use of more operators or more advanced measures such as technical surveillance capabilities.
The most extreme risk of conducting surveillance countermeasures in an amateurish manner without a sound perspective of how a hostile surveillance effort reacts and adapts is when a surveillance effort perceives that it has been detected by the individual under surveillance or that the target individual is attempting to evade the surveillance effort by employing overt antisurveillance techniques.
Such a perception on the part of the hostile surveillance effort may compel it to react in a high-risk or violent manner. For example, a surveillance effort that is being conducted to determine where a target would be most susceptible to attack may react by moving directly into the attack phase of the operation if it observes actions that indicate that the target is attempting to detect or elude surveillance, and they may not have another opportunity if these attempts are successful.
As a practical application, by foot the 180-degree turn is among the most effective surveillance detection methods because it is one of the few methods by which an individual can observe for following surveillance operators. However, the surveillance detection opportunity will likely be lost if executed by an individual who does not understand precisely how a surveillance effort would react to such a maneuver, and is therefore not able to observe for individuals who react in a manner indicative of a capable surveillance effort. In addition, if the individual executes the 180-turn without incorporating a logical reason for having reversed directions, the surveillance effort may perceive this as an overt surveillance detection maneuver and react in a manner that is not in the individual’s best safety or security interests.
Conclusion
When I attended basic and advanced counterintelligence agent training (many year ago), I was taught to employ surveillance detection techniques such as “stopping after a blind corner” or the “three sides of a box” surveillance detection route. I was instructed to execute these tactics and observe for individuals who reacted in a conspicuous manner. It was not until a few years later when I commanded an elite covert surveillance team that I realized how a tactically proficient surveillance capability would actually react to such surveillance countermeasures efforts. This was when I realized that these type tactics, executed in isolation, were amateurish and only served to confirm to my team that the individual under surveillance was employing basic surveillance countermeasures tactics, and therefore did in fact have something to hide. This dynamic only served to intensify the effort against the individual until an eventual arrest. Although my team was operating in the best interests of national security, the majority of elements conducting target surveillance are not, and may therefore react to such indications of surveillance consciousness in a more immediate and aggressive manner.
Tactical applications are the fundamental basics, but an understanding of advanced concepts enables the target of surveillance to enter, manipulate, and disrupt the hostile surveillance threat element’s decision cycle and operational process. The sophisticated application of surveillance countermeasures enables the target to “flip the script” and become a “master of puppets” in regard to a hostile surveillance effort. The ultimate objective of a practitioner operating at the “master’s” level of surveillance countermeasures execution is the employment of advanced surveillance concepts to manipulate the surveillance effort’s systematic approach in a manner that transforms it from the hunter to the hunted.
The Professional’s Approach to Countering Sophisticated Hostile Surveillance Threats
By Aden Magee
Aden Magee is a widely recognized national security expert. Mr. Magee specializes in full-spectrum threats to U.S. national security as a senior consultant/advisor to the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. His most recent books include The Cold War Wilderness of Mirrors and Surveillance Countermeasures: The Professional’s Guide to Countering Hostile Surveillance Threats. Aden Magee is a retired U.S. Army officer and a veteran of foreign wars.
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