How is Surveillance Conducted?
Welcome to part two of my series on surveillance.
As I mentioned in my previous article, surveillance is an effective way to identify information in national security investigations. It can be the difference between identifying a real threat, and stopping a terrorist act from occurring, to establishing that previous concerns are unfounded.
Surveillance from an intelligence organization is typically conducted by a group or team of highly trained professionals. This is not to say that all intelligence organizations around the world have the same level of professionalism, but typically in order to be a good surveillant, you must be well-practiced at your craft and know your target.
Surveillance is typically broken down into two separate categories, on foot and mobile. Foot surveillance consists of individuals, you guessed it, walking! A foot surveillant must keep enough distance from the target to keep out of sight, but close enough to ensure that they have eyes on the target. Trained surveillants are adept at looking natural and blending in. This can be the gal at the bus stop texting on her phone, to the businessman waiting in line at the coffee shop, looking at his watch.
Communication is key to successful surveillance team operations. Like a well-choreographed play in sports, every team member must have an idea of where the target (puck, ball, what have you) is and what the anticipated move will be.
It is the job of the surveillant who has the target in sight, to keep the rest of the team informed and updated as to what is happening and if there is any change in direction, contact with, an activity involving, etc., the target.
Foot surveillants can work in teams and can be sent to public locations, usually working alone or possibly in pairs. This is heavily dependent on the target. If the target is known to use public transportation and doesn’t have access to a vehicle, then the focus may be on the foot team. But this doesn’t mean that a mobile team isn’t ready. In the scenario of a target that is known and likely to continue walking to locations, the mobile team is set up to provide further assistance by picking up the foot team member / s and transporting them to another location if needed.
Mobile surveillants are typically highly trained individuals behind the wheel, they must be able to multitask during driving, this includes communicating with the other team members, remaining in a location that isn’t in direct line of site with the target, and navigating busy roads and streets.
Working in a mobile surveillance team is no easy feat. Pedestrians, road work, stop lights, street conditions, heavy traffic, and weather can be just some of the issues that factor into the requirements of the mobile team to continue to maintain visual contact with the target.
Just like foot surveillance, the mobile team must be aware of the potential that following the target too closely or for too long can compromise their operation. As such, another team member must be able to take over if required, and this can be difficult if the target is only being followed by one surveillant at the time.
If a target is lost, a call to try and regain control of the “eye” or confirm a visual of the target is made. This can include doing a sweep of the area where the target was last seen, to sending team members to previously known locations where the target spends time.
With this in mind, the concept of losing rather than being burned is often used by both foot and mobile surveillance teams. What this essentially means is, that rather than take the chance that surveillant is identified as following the target, it is better to move away or hold back from the target.
This may seem counterintuitive, but by giving a target suspicion, or confirming their suspicion, that they are being followed, the team is jeopardizing compromising the surveillants, the vehicles, and potentially future operations against the target. This is yet another reason why the team must try to maintain contact with each other and allow for another member to take over the lead and “the eye”.
Many targets, whether they be hostile intelligence agents or terrorists, may have both a level of training and a justified sense of paranoia that could spell disaster for a surveillance team, and further compromise intelligence operations, if they are readily identified.
This isn’t to say that surveillance team members don’t get burned, it happens. But surveillance teams are constantly working to improve their skill set in order to make the target as unaware as possible of their presence.
