Tourists come to Tel Aviv, also known as “The City that Never Sleeps” to enjoy its beaches and cafes, its museums, funky architecture, vibrant culture and night life.  At the same time, Israel is a tiny country, with no shortage of enemies, often a target.  Israelis may well be fun loving and irreverent, but they take security very seriously.  There, homeland security is not theoretical but rather existential.  And thus Israel has earned the unfortunate distinction of being amongst the world’s best when it comes to security.

What better place, then, to learn about using a threat-oriented security approach than in Tel Aviv?  That is exactly what you can do (more…)

Questioning is a critical component of any effective security system.  It’s a flexible, cost effective tool that also happens to be very powerful.  Questioning puts a potential criminal or terrorist on the defensive.  They know that the right questions can quickly reveal lying, malicious intent, and more.

Yet, as a skill, Questioning has been somewhat neglected by mainstream security.  Students in Chameleon trainings, once introduced to questioning and the methods around it, can’t get enough.  In part, it has been the consistent clamoring of our students for more that prompted the creation of this course. (more…)

A client of ours, a Security Training Supervisor at a federal financial institution in the Midwest, called to chat.  They have been using Chameleon’s Predictive Profiling Online course as part of their curriculum for about a year now, and he called to tell me how pleased he is with the program.

Tell me more, I begged.

This is what he liked:

• The course information is taught using actual events and real situations via videos or in abundant reference materials.  The students aren’t given purely hypothetical scenarios but (more…)

Some subjects do lend themselves to a classroom setting: philosophy, statistics and literature to name a few.  I can learn what I need to about Immanuel Kant, calculating a standard deviation and the collected work of Tolstoy without leaving my seat.  But other subjects cannot be learned nearly as well without application and practice:  things like brain surgery, rifle assembly and knitting come to mind.  Wait, let me add another: developing an effective and efficient, threat-based Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for Security.

(more…)

SCENE ONE: A man stands in a border crossing line. His turn arrives to speak with the border officer who notices that amongst the traveler’s belongings is a doll.

SECURITY OFFICER

Why do you have this doll in your luggage?

TRAVELER

It is a gift for my niece.

SECURITY OFFICER

I see. What’s your niece’s name?

TRAVELER

(hesitating and a bit confused)

Ah. . . . (more…)

Chameleon signed a teaming agreement with Chartrand Fortin Labelle Solutions inc. (CFL) a Quebec based consulting firm specialized in public and corporate security. Under the new agreement CFL will translate and deliver Chameleon courses to the French Speaking market.

Last week (June 22-23, 2010), CFL and Chameleon jointly delivered a Predictive Profiling and Security Questioning seminar in Laval, Quebec. The seminar was a great success and it was attended by government and corporate security officials from across Canada. The audience received practical tools to assist them in the implementation of a Predictive Profiling based security system. A system that makes extensive use of security questioning, red teaming and adversarial thinking to maintain a high level of efficiency and effectiveness.

Clients who seek Chameleon Courses in French should contact CFL or Chameleon Associates for more information.

(more…)

Chameleon Associates provided the US Army 5/2 Stryker Brigade with Predictive Profiling and Field Intelligence Training as part of their Language Enabled Soldier Program. Parts of the training were conducted in Arabic.  The training provided soldiers with tools to identify suspicion indicators in high risk environments. Here is the case study for the LES program which includes Predictive Profiling training as presented by Col. Tunnell, Commander of the 5/2 Stryker Brigade:

http://www.chameleonassociates.com/Predictive_Profiling_LES_US_Army.pdf

Predictive Profiling becomes especially important to a soldier working in an environment that is not familiar to him. Predictive Profiling is much easier when one knows the norms in his surroundings, but when facing am unfamiliar culture, language and environment Profiling becomes a lot harder. This is exactly the situation a soldier facesbeing deployed in Afghanistan or Iraq. Predictive Profiling is as much a counter insurgency tool as it is counterterrorist or security methofology.

The BBC2 has this month released a new documentary called How safe are our Skies? Detroit Flight 253, about the failed Christmas Terrorist Bombing on Northwest Airlines. Chameleon’s Amotz Brandes is featured in the documentary. As we all know, on Christmas Day 2009, a 23-year-old passenger on Northwest airlines attempted to detonate a device containing military-grade explosive PETN, while on descent into Detroit International Airport.  This excellent production includes eyewitness testimony and in-depth expert analysis on how the bomber Umar Abdulmutallab slipped under intelligence radar and evaded three sets of airport security.  It traces Abdulmutallab’s student days in London, his time spent with Al Qaeda in Yemen, and his journey to the USA.  The documentary attempts to understand what security services knew about him before he boarded?  What would have happened to the plane if the bomb had detonated?   What lessons have we learned and how safe is it to fly, today?  This documentary is timely, interesting and provocative – worth a look.

To view the entire documentary on youtube lick here

Security Questioning is one of our most popular course modules.  Everyone wants more of it.  In response to the demand, we are coming out with a new Advanced Security Questioning course.  It will focus on enhancing students’ communication skills when interacting with suspicious people and situation.  Security Questioning is the most effective tool in a security system, given the fact that it is the only offensive tool.  Regardless of the security system you may have in place, all elements of that system are defensive.  For example, the x-ray machine detects the tools used by an attacker.  In contrast, questioning puts the attacker on the defensive and you on the offensive.

The course features an advanced forms of security questioning which includes undercover questioning, conducting investigative interviews (applies to internal security incidents such as potential fraud or info leaks), and questioning for HR screening.

For those of you who have taken our predictive Profiling class, this course is a natural next step.  It supports the “determine” factor in the detect-determine-deploy proactive security process.  Our next  open seminar in Advanced Security Questioning, is in Phoenix, AZ on April 27 – 28.

.

We are is pleased to announce the launch of our new Predictive Profiling Online Course. This very interactive course allows students to learn about the science behind the art of Predictive Profiling. The course is filled with interactive sessions, quizzes and other exciting learning tools. It is available under an individual license or an annual organizational license.

We are planning to create more interactive online courses in the months to come and build on the success we currently have with Predictive Profiling Course.

(more…)