"The Glamorous World of Surveillance" column by Private Investigator Meriah Crawford, Web Mystery Magazine, Fall 2005

The Glamorous World of Surveillance

Surveillance is not what you’d call glamorous work. The man who taught my PI class described it as 95 percent boredom and 5 percent panic and fear. I’ve found that to be pretty accurate on the whole, though it goes far beyond boredom. During one brutally hot weekend, I was genuinely worried for my health as I sweat so much I was drenched, and my heart raced. After eight hours of it, I thought my brains must be scrambled. In wintertime, on the other hand, sitting in a car for hours on end can become dangerously cold. There are ways to cope with both of these problems, of course. And they can add interest, texture, even some suspense to what’s essentially a deadly-boring endeavor.

Surveillance is one of the first jobs many beginning PIs do. It’s the easiest kind of work to get, because of the common perception that nearly anyone can do it, and because it tends not to pay very well. There are some experts at surveillance who can command significant hourly rates, of course, but they’re the exception, and the cases they work on are far from the norm.

There are three primary types of surveillance: fixed, mobile, and rolling – though different people have different names for them. In fixed surveillance, you watch people or places from a fixed location, sometimes for a long period of time. This might involve cases of theft from a construction site or store, checking to see when employees come and go, etc. It’s fairly uncommon in the PI biz. Mobile may also involve periods of fixed surveillance: waiting for a subject to move, and then following them. This would include many domestic and insurance-related jobs, and probably the majority of PI surveillance jobs. Rolling surveillance involves watching while moving. It might be on foot or a bicycle, say, but generally it’s in a car or van. This type of surveillance is used when there’s nowhere from which to sit and wait, or if the subject may be alert to surveillance.

This leads me to a critical topic: preparation. While you can do the job with nothing more than an address and a couple sentences of instruction, the more information you take with you, the more likely that you’ll be successful. This starts with as much information as the client can provide, including whether or not the person you’re watching has law enforcement experience (they’re much more likely to be aware of being watched), and whether or not they might be armed, or have a short temper. If you’re following a person, the more you know about their usual habits, the better. If you’re going to try to catch a man meeting up with his girlfriend after work, it could be helpful to know that he always stops at Starbucks after work, or that he usually picks up dry cleaning on Wednesdays. If time and money permit, you should also try to visit and evaluate the initial surveillance location, and identify the best place from which to watch. In addition, of course, a description and/or photo of the subject and any vehicles they own are essential.

It probably won’t surprise you to read that the most common jobs requiring surveillance are domestic and insurance related, but there are a lot of other types of cases a PI might work on. These include various theft and misconduct cases, but can expand to politics, missing persons, and beyond. It’s worth noting a few ethical issues that PIs need to keep in mind when evaluating a case. First, the client should never be allowed to ride along on surveillance. Even in states where this wouldn’t be illegal, it puts the PI in a position of being responsible for controlling the client, and possibly being responsible for their actions. I’ve had some very emotional clients ask if they could do this, but no competent PI would agree to it. Likewise, calling a client to inform them of the location, say, where a spouse is having an illicit rendezvous, would be entirely inappropriate. The single most important thing a PI must do for every case is make a serious effort to determine what the client will do with any information provided to them. Sometimes the client doesn’t really know for sure – they just want confirmation that a spouse is cheating or an employee stealing – but it’s an important question. Clients have been known to commit murder, suicide, and other crimes as a result of investigations. See this story for some very nasty examples: http://www.courttv.com/news/feature/privaterevenge_ctv.html. Sometimes, it makes sense to refuse a case, and encourage the potential client to seek counseling, or simply take some time to think before moving forward.

There are other legal and ethical issues, as well. You can’t use in court any evidence you gather while trespassing on the subject’s property. It’s illegal to try to trick subjects of worker’s compensation cases into doing things they aren’t supposed to be able to do. Examples of that would be making a fake delivery to get the subject to lift a heavy box, or placing an obstacle in their way to make them act in a particular way.

I couldn’t write about surveillance without discussing some of the newer technology: GPS and OnStar. There are a number of devices you can attach to vehicles that will allow you to track where it goes. Of course, the technology has some serious limitations. There is an antenna that will need to be positioned carefully to allow a (nearly) unobstructed line to the sky. This means that inside a garage, the device might not work at all. It also means the easiest spots to place the device are not very well concealed. Another critical device limit is power. Batteries generally need replacing every few days, which can be awkward, to put it mildly. In theory, GPS devices can be hardwired, but that’s a great deal more complicated. As far as investigational limits, the only thing the data can really show is where the car went. It can’t say for sure who was driving it, where the person went when they exited the vehicle, or – most critically – what they did. As such, it’s potentially a useful investigative tool – it might help locate a love nest, or show employers where their employees are driving their vehicles during work. All those practicalities aside, though, it’s illegal to place GPS units in vehicles when the client doesn’t own the vehicle. And that’s no small issue.

As for OnStar, it’s occurred to clients that the system could provide a wealth of information. And it could – except that it’s only accessible by police officers for valid cases, or with a court order (not a subpoena). It’s a similar situation with toll-paying devices like EZPass. I was shocked recently to read, on a PI-only mailing list, a PI recommending pretending to be a police officer to get that data. She even admitted to having a police officer friend help her do it in the past. I’d be very surprised if this woman didn’t find herself in some serious legal trouble as a result. Not only did she break the law, she announced it on a list of many hundreds of PIs, including current and former law enforcement officers. It’s a great example of why PIs need to be aware of the law, and obey it!

There are whole books written about surveillance, so I’ve just scratched the surface. If you have questions, or requests for additional information, feel free to e-mail me at Meriah@rhinoi.com.