What Is Surveillance?
Surveillance can be defined as the art and science of looking at or listening to someone or something, hopefully without alerting the target, usually by looking like someone or something that you are not.
Who actually conducts surveillance? There are many areas that produce surveillants. High on the list would be law enforcement. Every sworn officer from the cop on the beat or in his patrol car is watching, listening or possibly following potential trouble and trouble makers. Of course, when we hear the term surveillance, we immediately imaging a stakeout team in a room across from the bad guys, watching with high power lenses and listening with sensitive earphones.
In fact this type of surveillance does occur, as well as phone taps, well-hidden microphones and even conversations picked up in the form of radio waves from the air. This level of surveillance is of the highest level and as such requires a great deal of training on the part of the surveillant as well as very expensive, very sensitive equipment.
This website is not about the type of surveillance. We're discussing relatively easy targets, not agents of foreign governments or drug kingpins making deals all of whom may employ some level of counter measures.
We're talking of that type of surveillance frequently performed by private investigators as well as "well informed" private citizens. Specific cases would be related to checking up on spouses, potential spouses, teenage offspring and the like. These are situations where the risks are low, level of sophistication required moderate and can be handled quickly with one or two quick checks of stories for being late coming home. So, with a little help from this site you should succeed in your endeavor.
With that out of the way, let's explore a bit about spying. I would like to divide surveillance into three main types:
1) Stationary
2) Mobile
3) Electronic
We will discuss these types a bit later on and show advantages and disadvantages as they might relate to the average citizen utilizing them. I would like to point out that surveillance has no hard and fast rules that work every time one uses them. On the contrary, ingenuity and resourcefulness will carry the day. For every surveillance situation, there are several options that may work, but the operative has to try them.
Sometimes, certain situations just will not allow you to sit and watch a home. There may not be anywhere to park a vehicle. There might be too many nosy neighbors. There might be a situation where the person you want to watch is nervous and actually thinks he or she may be under surveillance. We will attempt to offer help in these situations, but the truth is that you may just have to bring in a professional. Later on at this site, we'll tell you how to pick someone to help with your particular problem.
