Another Look at Counter Surveillance

There is a good article on StratFor.com about the recent preventive arrests of an alleged terrorist in Manchester, UK. Anyone seeking to understand the dilemma of deciding when to break up a terrorist plot should read this article. In the middle of the article, however, is a short section of greater importance to members of the chemical security community. It deals with detecting a terrorist attack in the planning stages. Flawed Tradecraft Under the ‘flawed tradecraft’ heading the article states that “the suspects did not appear to possess any surveillance detection capability — or even much situational awareness — as they went out into Manchester to conduct pre-operational surveillance of potential targets while under government surveillance themselves”. The authors, Burton and Stewart, note that this is not unusual, claiming that “most militant groups do not provide very good surveillance training and as a result, poor surveillance tradecraft has long proven to be an Achilles’ heel for militants”. In this instance they note that “the suspects’ surveillance techniques appear to have been very rudimentary in that they lacked both cover for action and cover for status while conducting their surveillance operations”. Counter-Surveillance Plan As I have pointed out on a number of occasions, this means that the detection of potential attacks can be accomplished by standard counter-surveillance techniques. Burton and Stewart make the same point, saying that “because of this weakness, countersurveillance [sic] operations can be very effective at catching militant operatives when they are most vulnerable — during the surveillance phase of the terrorist attack cycle”. Counter-surveillance planning must be an integral part of any security plan directed at protecting a facility against potential terrorist attack. It must be remembered that counter-surveillance consists of two components; detection and investigation. The facility personnel will be actively involved in the detection phase, but the investigation phase, for a variety of practical and legal reasons, must be conducted by law enforcement. This means that the facility must establish an active relationship with local law enforcement organizations and develop procedures for reporting the detection of potential surveillance operations. While facility security staff will be an essential component of any counter-surveillance operation, every employee of the facility must be trained in the basic requirements of counter-surveillance operations; the more eyes that are watching for potential surveillance activities the better. High-risk chemical facilities must establish internal reporting procedures and actively encourage reporting of suspicious activity. The most obvious surveillance technique is someone taking detailed pictures or making drawings of the facility. More sophisticated surveillance operations will also include a personal approach to facility personnel asking questions about procedures, schedules and security. For terrorist operations this type of approach will typically be fairly clumsy and obvious; it takes a great deal of training to bring-off this type surveillance without raising suspicion. Surveillance Does Not Always Mean Terrorists One final note must be made in any discussion of counter-surveillance operations. Not everyone that is looking at a chemical facility is a terrorist. There are a number of constitutionally protected reasons that someone may be watching a chemical facility, even a high-risk chemical facility. Surveillance from public property, like roadways and sidewalks on public rights-of-way, is not illegal; suspicious perhaps, but not illegal. Harassment or interference with such protected behavior can certainly lead to expensive lawsuits and even criminal prosecution. This is one of the most important reasons to leave investigation to law enforcement personnel. Law enforcement is supposed to receive appropriate training to identify such protected behavior.