"Watching for Watchers" - STRATFOR on telling when you are target of a crime

"Watching for Watchers" - STRATFOR on telling when you are target of a crime(stratfor.com)

34 points by pesco 15 years ago | 8 comments

euroclydon 15 years ago |

I think this article is a great, sophisticated version of those chain emails that are targeted at women, telling them not to get into their car in some manner in a parking lot.

hugh3 15 years ago | |

I was fascinated while reading this, but eventually realized it was targeted more at paranoid loons than secret agents.

jerf 15 years ago | | |

I think you have to consider the matter from a Bayesian perspective before just labeling it as "for paranoid loons". If I behaved this way in my environment, I would pretty much be being a paranoid loon. On the other hand, if I were riding the New York subways every day, it would be nice if there were at least a few civilians keeping an eye out for things. (Not everybody, though; that's a recipe for hundreds of false positives.) There are other people who aren't being paranoid loons, like researchers who use animals; for them this is a real concern.

inmygarage 15 years ago |

There's this generally misguided sense of what "intelligence" means - that spooks are different from you or me. I don't believe it. All sorts of people pass information back to the government in both formal and informal ways, paid and unpaid. Does this make them spies?

All this article is saying is that the vast majority of people are so out-to-lunch most of the time that they don't even notice when sketchy stuff is happening right around them. And the very reason this happens has been proved out in the comments - because people don't want to think of themselves as "paranoid loons" or crazy conspiracy theorists.

While tech intel is a bit different than the so-called "situational awareness" described in the article, I think we all participate in the intel process in some way (though maybe not directly by talking to the government, but remember how there's no more privacy on the internets?)

motters 15 years ago |

I notice that they imply that Greenpeace is a terrorist organisation.

hugh3 15 years ago | |

No, actually they include Greenpeace in the category "criminals and terrorist organizations", which is more accurate, since Greenpeace has been known to commit crimes.

bcl 15 years ago |

Reads like the narrative from Burn Notice. But better.

shasta 15 years ago |

Am I the only one who felt the intended audience was surveillers rather than surveillees?