FEBRUARY 2008

Here are some of the comments made by the attendees to the February 2008 Seminar:

Yeo Meng Hin
Deputy President and Chief Operating Officer

“The "Behind The Scenes" Seminar conducted by Chameleon Associates was a real eye opener for me. We operate the mass rapid transit system in Singapore. Passenger safety and security is high on our agenda. The seminar showed how important for security is to be weaved into the minds, hearts and the job description of every person and role that an organization has. What struck me from the seminar was the mental focus and the enthusiasm of the individuals for the security of the premises or the lives they protect. The seminar also facilitated networking with like minded professionals and possible sharing of best practices from participants coming from Israel, Europe, America and Asia.” 

CW / U.S. Army

“Chameleon Associates Israel Seminar provided an outstanding experience for organizations and individuals interested in Homeland Security and related issues.  The Government and people of Israel were more than gracious hosts while the operational and technical content of the seminar was the highlight of the trip (even more than the historical nature of the locations visited).  I strongly encourage any security professional with even a remote interest in this topic to attend the Seminar – more than worth the price!!!!

Richard L. Weaver, President
ArmorGroup International Training (ITI)

“I recently attended Chameleon's "Behind the Scenes Seminar of Israel's Counterterrorism and Security Operations" which focused on securing critical infrastructure in Israel--which has direct implications for the threats and problems we are facing in the US.  This was a great learning experience, and one which I would recommend to other senior or executive security personnel.  I have just two words to say about the  guys at Chameleon: (1) "Connected" and (2) "Logistics".  These folks are obviously well and highly-connected and we were allowed access to places and procedures, and had discussions with senior persons that otherwise would not have been possible.  From a logistics point of view, this seminar was put together like a Swiss watch,  with lots of moving parts (and hence chances for things to go wrong) they pulled this off flawlessly from check-in at Newark to wheels up in Tel Aviv.  And while not included in the two words I can also add (3) "First Class"--which included the accommodations, food, and internal travel arrangements.  From a learning perspective--a highly valuable experience that gave me many ideas to consider--not to mention the chance to network with an eclectic and fun group of fellow senior attendees.
Highly recommended”.     

Andrew Wray, Executive Vice-President - Marketing
Infrastruct Security, Inc

“Chameleon has unlocked the mystery behind putting together a first class overseas seminar.  My thanks to Amotz and his team, this course was extremely well done.  There is obviously a lot of detail work that goes into this ahead of time, Chameleon did their homework and were 100% ready for us when we arrived. Everyday was highly productive and insightful and I never felt like there was more to accomplish.  The pace was reasonable with the right balance between learning sessions and site visits.  Often times we struggle to find the key concepts due to information overload.  Not to worry each day fully recapped the important information learned.  I would highly recommend this course to anyone who wants a better understanding of how to make their state, town or even facility a safer more secure place”.
Thanks guys --    

 L. Samuel Pfeifle
Editor, Security Systems News              .                     

 “As a journalist who covers the North American security market, I thought I’d seen just about every way to do security. But the inside view that Chameleon gave us into the way Israelis approach security showed me there was yet another level. You can’t quite understand it until you see it first”-hand”.

John D. Abbott, CPP (RCMP Retired)
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
 
“Chameleon Associates provides the seminar candidates a “once in a lifetime” opportunity to tour the country of Israel, not as a tourist, but as a visiting security specialist.  Behind the scene tours of various target hardened facilities throughout Israel combined with security seminars at each location make each site visit particularly informative.  As a 2008 candidate, I was amazed at the level of respect and close relationship that Chameleon enjoyed with military, police, and local governments throughout Israel that provided us with this unique opportunity.  Of particular interest, was the training emphasis on the human factor and behavior profiling throughout our lecture series that provided me as a candidate a very tangible investigative concept that I could return home with for further development through Chameleon Associates.  It was a religious and cultural rich experience as well seeing the many ancient and historic sites throughout this wonderful country.  On a high note, the dining experiences and outstanding hotels provided us on our tour were fantastic.  I highly recommend this seminar.  Don’t miss this opportunity”.

SGM Brett Scantlin, U.S. Army
“Chameleon Associates behind the scenes security seminar in Israel more than met my expectations. As a career soldier in the US Army I appreciated the wealth of Information presented, along with the frank and honest assessments of the current security situation in Israel by the Chameleon Associates staff and their guest speakers. I am taking several very practical ideas back to the Army with me such as Profiling, Red Teaming, and Security Questioning. These concepts are not new; however the application observed in Israel was unique and practical, and I believe would enhance the security capabilities of any organization concerned with security issues”.

Don McKinnon, London PD

“I have been in policing for over 30 years. I can honestly say that Chameleon offers one of the most comprehensive and thought provoking programs I ever been a participant in. The staff are extremely knowledgeable, professional and attentive. Never did a question go unanswered. The program in its entirety was very well organized.
 
 The program affords the student the opportunity to learn hands-on in a front-line environment where the country is your classroom. It was a most invaluable experience that provided me with knowledge and experiences that I will always have with me. What an amazing opportunity it is to be presented with a historical situation, its challenges, and potential solutions”.

Rafael Abello, Third Generation Holding Corp. Philippines
   
 “The Israel behind-the-scenes executive security seminar conducted by Chameleon comes very highly recommended for all security practitioners.  Our group experienced a very thorough briefing by the heads of security at every vital installation before being toured at each facility we visited.  In Israel, one can fully appreciate the different levels of security employed at different locations.  Techniques, equipment, personnel training all come together as one nation with multiple military/police agencies work seamlessly to protect itself from external and to some degree internal aggression.  Kudos to Chameleon”. 

Director, Singapore Mass Rapid Transit
   
 “The Behind-the-Scenes Seminar conducted by Chameleon Associates was a real eye opener for me. We operate the Mass Rapid Transit system in Singapore. Passenger safety and security is high on our agenda. The seminar showed how important it is for security to be weaved into the minds, hearts and the job description of every person and role of an organization. What struck me from the seminar was the mental focus and the enthusiasm of the individuals for the security of the premises or the lives they protect. The Chameleon seminar also facilitated networking with like-minded professionals and the possibility of sharing best practices from participants coming from Israel, Europe, the Americas and Asia”.

Security Director News
Security lessons from Israel
“A holistic approach ... permeates the entire country”
By L. Samuel Pfeifle – April 2008

JERUSALEM and TEL AVIV - On a tour of Israel security operations organized by Chameleon Associates, Texas A&M University and Infrastruct Security, this editor was made privy to a holistic approach to security that permeates the entire country here.

This is partly due to the mandatory military service that has every man serving three years and every woman two, and it is partly due to a threat that is ever-present, with various organizations - Hezbollah, Hamas, the list is long - pledging to wipe the country off the face of the earth. It is interesting, however, to note the differences in the way Israel and the United States conduct their security operations, if only to create conversation and deep thinking about how to do things better and make people safe as they go about their daily lives.

Chameleon Associates is a consulting and training firm comprising a number of ex-Israeli military men who aim to bring some of the Israeli philosophy to the rest of the world’s security operations. They focus on security profiling as a technique and disaster preparedness. Much of what they showed us, and many of the people they put us in front of, revolved around these two central ideas: Constantly be profiling people and objects for suspicious characteristics and always be ready for the worst possible outcome.

Simply arriving in the Newark airport from the Portland International Jetport, I found I couldn’t go directly to my gate for the second leg to Tel Aviv. Why? Well, there’s a second security checkpoint, independent of the one you go through to get to the gates area, just to get into the gate area from which the plane to Tel Aviv departs.

This is a small example of Israel taking security seriously. You do not get on a plane to Israel unless you’ve been wanded and someone has looked through your bag. It’s that simple. Then they check you in a second time, matching your face, your passport, and your ticket. Similarly, once we arrived at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, there was a security guy who “black-beaned” me (picked me out randomly, like the black bean in a jar of white beans) and asked me a few questions and looked at my passport before I even got to the passport checkpoint.

In the United States there is a lot of talk about risk assessment and applying scientific rigor to identifying where to put our resources and where threats are going to come from, but when a member of our party asked the Sergeant at Arms for the Knesset, ultimately responsible for the safety of the entire Parliament, how he balanced an event’s likelihood and the potential damage it could cause, he almost didn’t understand the question.

He said, “what’s of interest is what can cause the most damage.” To him, the probability didn’t matter in the slightest. “In life and security,” he said, “there are only two possibilities: you either succeed or you explain. I don’t want to have to explain.” He said you can’t afford to be surprised by a low probability event happening, so you must plan for everything and have a deterrent for everything. “Everything is taken into consideration.”

What baffled him the most was why we in the United States waste so much time on scanning and screening people who are obviously not threats.

We got the fundamental underpinning for this later in the day, from Amotz Brandes, the leader of this tour at Chameleon Associates and profiler for El Al Airlines. For the Israelis, he said, everything is about profiling, and not the silly racial profiling of which Americans are so afraid.

Profiling for the Israelis is a constant process of identifying suspicions and refuting them. If something is suspicious, you start to inquire about it until you discover whether the suspicion can be refuted (the package was actually just left accidentally and is not a bomb) or not (we don’t know what’s in the package, who it belongs to, or what it might be). If you can’t refute a suspicion, it becomes a threat, and threats must be dealt with (call the bomb squad).

“Many times in security systems [outside of Israel, meaning in the United States],” Brandes said, “they react to suspicion as if it’s a threat, and a threat as if it’s only suspicion. For example, a machine picks up something on the X-ray, which is a suspicion, but that’s not a threat yet. Unfortunately, they send five cop cars and make it an emergency. They have to first try to refute it. Every officer here is trained to have threat orientation. For the Israelis, it’s not about law enforcement and putting people in jail. It’s about stopping people from harming other people. And they’re practical. Security guards are everywhere here, posted at the door to almost every restaurant, outside every major gathering place.

LIST OF PARTICIPANTS FOR THE FEBRUARY 2008
“BEHIND THE SCENES SEMINAR OF ISRAEL COUNTER-TERRORISM & SECURITY OPERATIONS”

GROUP PHOTO – Participants to the
“Behind the Scenes Tour of Israel Security Operations” – February 2008