Taken from our "BlueSKY Tactics" training manual.
No matter who you are, there is always a threat especially if you go through life without the tools to do your own threat or target assessment. You should, at the very least, understand how easily information is gathered about you. While this course is not about teaching you how to make a professional threat assessment, we feel that with the following four keys you will improve your abilities to keep out of harms way. Not knowing these basic four keys automatically causes your personal threat levels to go up. The four keys are: your environment, your political beliefs, personal life style, and economical environment.
1. Environment
Where You Stay
Where you stay while traveling, or where you live, tells a great deal about you. It creates a choke-point. A choke-point is any place you must be or can be determined to be at a specific time and place. An easy example would be the entrance to your neighboorhood, or a gym entrance that you pass through everyday at your usual time.
Remember, when traveling, not to give out the location where you’re staying, just because someone casually asks you, if you do this your personal threat level is high.
Your Route
The route is how you travel in your everyday life, not just when on business. Many victims never pay any attention to who or what is going on around them. This is how people get kidnapped, carjacked, robbed, raped and murdered. Change your route to the store, bank, or doctor. In fact, any place that you have set up a prior appointment to go to, change your route.
Look at it this way, you’ll get to see something different that just may change your life to the positive.
If you’re a person that doesn't like to change your routine in life, well, you guessed it, your threat is high! If this is you and you were an actual target, your routine would be an Xmas present to any criminal or terroist!
More On Choke-Points
In general, a choke-point is where you must pass through regardless of your altered route. It is also where you are slowed or stopped by something you have no control of, like a stop light, or an accident. Or like previously stated your home or office any place you are fixed for a time.
Take time in your day to "smell the roses" and look at your surroundings and the people that inhabit your world. If you don’t, your threat is high!
2. Political
Conversations
Meaning your “what & why” conversations. You know, why he or she does this or that. Why the boss said this or that. The easiest way to find out information you need to know from a stranger is to ask their view on the most mundane subject like, “what's the weather like outside?”. In a short time, you’ll know where they bank, live, how many kids they have, where they go to school and so on.
Known Friends
Remember, whatever you say to your closest friends will be passed on to their friends and so on. This is important folks, the only secret about you is one that you never divulge, period!
Strangers
If the intelligence gatherer can’t get what they want from your friend, because your friend becomes wise, they’ll go to your friend’s friend or better yet, go to your ex-friends. Then they’ll go to the stranger that knows them but not you.
Public Events
Public events give out all types of clues. When you attend, just remember, have fun, take charge and be ambiguous.
3. Personal (Entertainment, Clubs, Hobbies, Restaurants, etc.)
When you talk in any public place, whether it’s business or fun, you’re in the public all the time. People all too often talk in public about the most personal details of their life. Pay attention to who is within listening distance. Especially when you’re on a mobile phone.
Remember this, mobile phones make great GPS signals and a great listening device, even if you think it’s turned off!
4. Economical (Work, Banks, Unions, etc.)
Your work and your financial intuitions have a great deal of information about you. The people working there can be easily manipulated to divulge personal information about you.
Summary
As a corporation that does professional threat assesments for large corporations and the wealthy, we often find that our clients are focused on "high-tech" security and surveillance methods. The truth is, most often it's an extremely simple security leak that can't be detected through high-tech systems.
Though our four keys may seem simple and "no brainer" type concepts, these above methods of information gathering never fail and can go completely undetected.
Finally, there is no need to act paranoid, the mere fact of making yourself aware of what you do will help you begin to change up your basic patterns. Doing so will dramatically decrease your chances of being a victim in all aspects of overall threat related incidents.
If you want to read more you can get access to this and all of our courses by clicking here.
Social & Professional