On April 1st, 2024, at around 5:00 pm, a building adjacent to the Iranian embassy compound in Damascus was hit by an airstrike. The four-story structure was completely destroyed, killing Mohammed Reza Zahedi, also known as Hassan Mahdawi, along with six other senior Iranian officials (including Mahdawi’s deputy).Iran has claimed that the building was brought down… Read More Mossad Assassinations – Damascus Airstrike
“Intuition is always right in at least two important ways;It is always in response to something.it always has your best interest at heart”-Gavin De Becker. Quite a few years ago, I was working at a very prominent Jewish facility in the San Francisco Bay Area when I spotted a suspicious-looking man on the opposite side… Read More False-Positive
One of the more common misguided notions I encounter regarding security is that there’s no such thing as unarmed security—that security, by definition, must be armed. A recent example of this was expressed in the article Guns Or No Guns At Synagogue? “Make no mistake: unarmed personnel are not security guards. They can be referred… Read More Armed or Unarmed Security?
I have two important recommendations to make today. The first one is easy. If you haven’t done so yet, stop what you’re doing and go get Chasing Shadows by Fred Burton. Fred is the Chief Security Officer and Vice President of Intelligence for Stratfor. He was kind enough to send me a signed copy of… Read More Chasing Shadows
I want to tell you about a very special person by the name of Marcus Charles. Marcus joined HighCom Security Services nine years ago, and among the plethora of shifts and events and special projects we’ve done together, Marcus also spent years working very closely with me on our Red-Team style supervision check-ups, surveillance detection… Read More Marcus Charles
BIG NEWS! I’m super excited to announce that my first book, Surveillance Zone, is going to get published in the coming weeks. It’s a non-fiction, behind-the-scenes exposé of the private-sector surveillance detection and covert protection industry. You’ll get a first-person account of actual covert operations I’ve participated in, learn the secrets of the trade, and… Read More Surveillance Zone – New Book Out Soon
“Fail Often so you can succeed sooner.” —Tom Kelly. Mistakes and failures in surveillance, surveillance detection and special protective operations are things I write about quite frequently. I’ve examined them from every which way, explained how they look, discussed many case studies and talked about how to avoid them. One aspect I haven’t touched on… Read More Big Mistakes & Embarrassing Failures
Thank you As we close out 2016, I wanted to let you in on some exciting stuff that’s on deck for 2017. But before I do that, let me start with a big thank you to everyone. Over the last four years, the reach of Protection Circle has grown in leaps and bounds, and 2016… Read More Announcements
As the shocking footage of the Russian Ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov, being assassinated in Ankara makes the rounds, I find it important to remind people why case studies of this sort are so important. No, we don’t yet have all the details about this case, but when (or if) they’ll be made available, I… Read More Learning From Case Studies
Towards the end of every year, there’s a fantastic Close Protection Conference which is organized by the International Protective Security Board (IPSB). In the conference a couple of years ago, I was hugely honored to do a ‘Tac-Talk’ (think TED Talk, just for security professionals) about surveillance detection, and I thought it might be a good… Read More Let’s Talk About Surveillance Detection
