SW Way Skills: How to Know if You’re Being Tailed?
“Being tailed” means being followed or tracked by someone, usually secretly or without your knowledge.It comes from the idea of someone staying close behind you (“on your tail”).
Common contexts include:
Surveillance (a detective, private investigator, or law enforcement following a person)
Everyday situations (another driver staying right behind your car)
Informal speech for being watched or pursued discreetly
Example: “I think I’m being tailed—there’s the same car behind me for the last ten miles.”
In writing espionage and techno-thriller novels, working on films like all three “Taken” films as a producer and scouting in dangerous locations (including Los Angeles), I am used to considering security for myself, talent, friends, family and student to whom I teach (and still learn) martial arts.
“Am I being tailed?”
This line is standard spy lingo, but is relevant today in a world of rising crime, bolder criminals and indifferent or overstretched law enforcement. In Los Angeles and other major cities, crime has increased with Mexican cartels, open borders and other criminal gangs.Routinely, wealthy homes in Los Angeles are burglarized.Home invasion robberies are no longer the exclusive domain of insular communities.You are the first line in the sand for your (and loved one’s) own self-defense.
Develop Situational Awareness
The first tactic of any defensive scenario is to develop your Situational Awareness.
Situational Awareness
Definition (the most widely accepted one, from psychologist Mica Endsley, 1988):
The perception of the elements in the environment within a volume of time and space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their status in the near future. It is a dynamic, real-time cognitive process with three levels:
Perception – noticing relevant elements (people, objects, events, conditions).
Comprehension – understanding what those elements mean in the current context.
Projection – anticipating what is likely to happen next.
Focus: Immediate, task-oriented understanding of a changing situation so you can make better decisions (especially under time pressure or risk).
You might think:“Why should I have this skill?”For one, you might be on your vacation and identified as targets by scammers, robbers or worse.I travel a fair amount for my work, especially in Europe, and am always watching ‘my six’. The first tactic is the “Rule of Three”
The Rule of Three Explained
I have interviewed forward operators from elite counterterrorism teams, agents from ‘Three-Letter’ agencies, law enforcement and people on the street.All of them start with the Rule of Three.
“Rule of Three” Defined:One appearance by a suspicious looking individual is chance.The second appearance is suspicious.The third appearance constituted proof of surveillance.
In other words, at three times, you are ‘being tailed’.
To Understand the Tail, Think Like the Tail
If you study how to surveil a person, then you will gain understanding on the mentality - and what to look for.
The Key:Correlation
Same person/vehicle over Time, in different Environments, over Distance, with possible Demeanor anomalies). If you move and an individual in the area moves at the same time, this demonstrates their relationship to you. It is for this reason that surveillance training stresses that you should delay, rather than immediately follow, your target. Any form of observation or communication in conjunction with the target will demonstrate correlation. A person who is proceeding down a street will normally have to make certain short stops, such as waiting for a light to change. As this happens, the surveillant will usually be forced to stop, thus demonstrating his correlation to the principal.
How to ‘Mark’ an Individual
“Marking” Defined:Identifying unique characteristics of an individual(s) to continually spot them in surveillance mode.
The ‘Marking’ depends on the sophistication of the tail. In criminal robbery ‘tail’, the punk following you might be wearing a colorful hat, shirt or shoes.These clothes might have a logo which is easily noted. So once you’ve marked the individual, then check on the Rule of Three.
One time, when I was working on a film in Cairo, Egypt, I ‘marked’ a man trailing me by about thirty meters.He was wearing a jersey from Egypt’s football team which is a red jersey with a logo.Very easy to spot.I considered him a low-level threat, perhaps seeking to snatch the camera out of my hand. I applied the ‘Rule of Three’ and marked him on the third time.Once, pretending to pause a bit ‘lost’ as a tourist, I suddenly reversed direction and went directly toward him. In his eyes, I saw him lock onto me, panic and flee.
In a sophisticated counterintelligence operation, the marking is much tougher.When I say ‘sophisticated counterintelligence operation’, you might quickly think CIA, KGB, DGSE or Mossad.But in today’s world, technology and scientific secrets might be worth hundreds of thousands, millions orbillions of dollars.You may be a scientist, banker, tech worker, etc., with valuable documents, plans or reports. These secrets might alter the trajectory of a nation’s path.
In this case, you should have been briefed by your company’s security team about an independent surveillance presence.
Or maybe you’d like the skill to writer a murder mystery thriller like I have in “Murder In the City of Light” or “Seven Graves to Marrakech.”
