Anyone that has been reading this blog for any time knows that I am a firm believer in counter-surveillance operations (see: “Counter-surveillance in Operation”). I saw a news report today about the latest efforts by the homeland security folks in Nevada to try to enlist the aid of Joe Citizen to widen their terrorist counter-surveillance efforts. They have produced a video; “The Seven Signs of Terrorism
The video is out on DVD. The only place that I have found it on the Web is on a Nevada TV station web site. It isn’t even available on YouTube yet. If you want to obtain a copy of the Nevada DVD you can contact the UNLV’s Institute for Security Studies at 702-939-4644.
DVD Review
The production values on this DVD are pretty decent. They use a local news anchor for much of the talking head stuff, but she is certainly a familiar face to Nevada residents so that provides a certain level of verisimilitude to the presentation.
The information provided is not original to the institute. You can Google® “The Seven Signs of Terrorism” and get links to pamphlets and videos prepared by other state security agencies. The Michigan State Police video is easier to get to; it is on YouTube.
Both of these videos provide useful counter-surveillance information, but I prefer the Nevada production. Both videos suffer from the same problem; they give local contact numbers to report suspicious behavior. That’s fine if the viewer is in Nevada or Michigan respectively. That problem could be corrected by each state or major metropolitan area producing their version of the video with local contact information.
Promoting Citizen Involvement
With the country heading into an apparent period of increased terrorist attack potential (see: “What’s the use of Intelligence?”) the more eyes we can get involved in counter-surveillance the better. Needless to say police and security agencies will be chasing a lot of useless leads, but that is part and parcel of counter-surveillance. If it results in even a single terrorist attack being prevented it will be worth the effort.
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