'Seven Signs of Terrorism' Highlighted in Training DVD

(Compiler's note: U.S. Marine scores again. rca)

by Anthony L. Kimery

Hospitality workers might have been able to spot the 9/11 hijackers

Several years ago, Robert David Steele, an outspoken veteran intelligence officer and CEO of Vienna, VA-based Open Source Solutions (OSS), told HSToday.us that “fifty percent of the ‘dots’ that prevent the next 9/11 will come from bottom-up [local] level observation” and unconventional intelligence from “private sector parties.”

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has since advised that “terrorists conduct surveillance to determine a target's suitability for attack by assessing the capabilities of existing security and discerning weaknesses in the facility. After identifying weaknesses, they plan their attack at the point of greatest vulnerability.”

But “because terrorists must conduct surveillance-often over a period of weeks, months, or years - detection of their activities is possible,” DHS stressed, noting, “regardless of their level of expertise, terrorists invariably make mistakes. The emphasis of surveillance detection is to key in on indicators of terrorist surveillance activities."

While DHS has identified a number of suspicious activities it states could be indicative of terrorist plotting that should immediately be reported as part of successful surveillance detection efforts, the Nevada Department of Homeland Security and the University of Nevada, Los Vegas Institute for Securities Study Wednesday released “Seven Signs of Terrorism” on a DVD that is being distributed to groups and individuals most likely to be in a position to observe the signs of a potential terrorism plot.

According to the DVD, if a potential terrorist act is interrupted during any of the “Seven Signs,” the planned attack can be thwarted. The seven signs discussed on the DVD are:

• Surveillance;
• Information Gathering;
• Testing Security;
• Planning;
• Suspicious Behavior;
• Rehearsal; and
• Getting Into Position

Among the groups to whom the DVD is being provided are workers in the fields of general security, public school security, airport security, transit (including cab drivers), and hospitality, like hotels.

As HSToday.us earlier pointed out, since 9/11, DHS and law enforcement in the Washington, DC capital region have actively urged citizens to report “suspicious activity.” Mobile electronic signs urging people to report suspicious activity are routinely placed at strategic locations throughout the metro area.

Similarly, in Canada law enforcement authorities increasingly are training for spotting potentially suspicious activity and behavior that may indicate terrorists are conducting surveillance or other goings-on in preparation for targeting a specific structure or location for attack.

Ross D. Bryant, the Institute for Securities Study’s director of training, maintains that if it had been common practice prior to the 9/11 terrorist attacks for workers in various industries to be on the lookout for the suspicious behavior outlined in the Institute’s new DVD, hospitality workers, for instance, might have been able to spot the hijackers.

"It is important that people who work in the industry, when they see something suspicious, they feel comfortable calling," Bryant said, adding, “maybe that one incident doesn't bring actionable intelligence, but that combined with other intel can piece together the puzzle” – just like OSS’s Steele predicted.