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Utilities and Life’s Little (Planned) Inconveniences
The utilities are important in most people’s lives for comfort and convenience. Disrupt these and you have created a major disruption, distraction, and inconvenience. By notifying the water, power, gas, phone, and other
utilities that you (actually your target) will be out of town for a period of time, you can temporarily disable the target’s household. This can be
further complicated if you notify the utilities that you (your target) are moving and will not need service at the current address and to please forward your bills to your new address where you will be establishing service.
Meanwhile, your target is in the shower full of soap and shampoo when
the water stops. As he or she reaches for a towel, the lights go out and he or she fumbles in the dark wondering why it is getting so dog-gone chilly as the gas furnace stops. By the time he or she realizes a phone call to the utilities companies, the phone has gone dead, along with his or her DSL
Internet connection, unless he or she uses the cable company for Internet access, but that is gone too. It is like something out of War of the Worlds.
If you haven’t been able to discontinue his or her cell phone service, he or she may be able to get to the utilities companies within a few hours
and arrange to have service restored sometime that week (or next). Don’t
forget, the target may have utilities at his or her business too. Again, this is an example of a multiplier, so should not occur during the telephone phase(s). (See “phone tag,” discussed later).
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Credit bureaus and col ection agencies can be a source that destroys the target’s ability to get credit (and buy things or pass a background check) and become an unwitting ally in annoying the target. (See sleep deprivation.) You should become familiar with the laws on credit reporting and use them to
protect yourself from this technique.
Let Your Fingers Do the Walking:
Yellow Pages and Telephones
The yel ow pages are a source to use (both the paper pages and the Internet pages). Start from the beginning and go to the end and look for goods, services, and rental items that can and will deliver to the target’s home or place of business. Just as with the pizzas that CREEP had delivered to the DNC, many businesses will deliver and expect payment upon delivery or bill the recipient later.
Others may simply annoy the target by scheduling and showing up for free estimates or quotes. (You can also sign up for these at fairs and trade shows.) Contractors and home repair services are persistent. Pest control companies can be a pestilence. What about having a load of manure delivered to his or her lawn or a load of gravel to him or her at his or her neighbor’s address?
While we are on the telephone (phone tag), remember those annoying little phone pranks we all played when we were kids? (Come on; you know you did it too.) You know, calling someone and asking, “Do you have Prince Albert in a can? Yes? Well, you better let him out!” How about asking,
“Is your refrigerator running? Well, you better catch it!” (This is an oldie, but a goodie.) Oh, they were hysterical when we were about 9 years old and didn’t have to worry about caller ID. OK, we all got a little scared when the guy recognized our voices as the neighbor kids and answered the phone “city morgue.” (At least that’s how it happened for us.) Well, the dirty tricks guys suggest that if you get off of work late (or can’t sleep and have a phone that won’t show up as yours on caller ID), take the opportunity to share your
sleepless night or make your own wake-up call on the way home. OK, a little childish, but sleep disrupting nonetheless. If the target has an unlisted phone, there are ways of getting that too, or you can use the target’s work number, which cannot be disconnected or changed.
You can create further sleep disruption by scheduling estimates or demonstrations by salesmen (or women) at unusual hours. You can tell them that you work late and need an early or late appointment. If they call ahead, they have still interrupted your target.
On the job is where the target can receive a lot of calls that will annoy both the target and his or her employer, who may want to make the target
scarce. If the target owns the business, this ties up the phone for potential clients and businesses. Calling an employer about an employee about
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a job reference or even as a bill collector or credit bureau can create havoc.
Arranging for or canceling deliveries and shipments can also disrupt the
target’s business.
The books and other writings on revenge and harassment from the
1970s were big on telegrams. This is much less commonly used today, so take that for what it is worth. Not so much used, or even known, in the 1970s
was the Internet. No, not the Al Gore “I invented the Internet” Internet, but the real dub, dub, dub (www) Internet. This is better than the yellow pages (which can also be found on the Internet) and telegrams together. This is limited only to my one’s imagination and resources.
Car Tricks
There are also dirty car tricks (no the car does not have to be dirty or get dirty). If you have a good vehicle description and know where the target
parks, you may be able to have his or her car towed, perhaps for repairs. Some revenge seekers go for damaging their target’s vehicle in the night. Leave the vandalism to the vandals.
The Pervert Next Door
Creating the pervert next door can be entertaining. Expert and committed harassers (like some politicians) have been known to find prostitutes of both genders in dirty magazines or the local vice district and then make house calls. (This has happened at national political conventions on more than one occasion.) That may not be as big a deal as it once was, but even in this mil-lennium, the neighbors still talk. A variation of this is to simply have someone impersonate of these oldest profession professionals. The serious revenge experts suggest that you do not waste time writing the target’s phone number on bathroom walls, as these are rarely taken seriously and called.
Mail Misery
Snail mail or the postal system is another avenue, but make sure that you are not committing any illegal acts of mail fraud or disruption. This can have serious consequences. Disruption of personal and business mail can be disabling and costly to a deserving target. Again, timing is important, so time this not to interfere with the magazine subscriptions and book or record club memberships (discussed later). Mail can be held when the target goes on vacation and can be forwarded to another address with a change of address. Bills go unpaid and business can be lost, not to mention the trouble of getting the mail back
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and reestablished. Mail drops or so-called accommodation addresses can be used to receive mail and then forward it to yet another address. Using no return address can be arranged, which cause the mail to be permanently lost.
Again, be cautious about committing any violations of postal laws. (This is one tactic that is included to warn you against your own risks of harassment.) Signing the target up for magazine and book clubs creates a nuisance, annoying bills, and maybe even an adverse credit report. You can collect
subscription cards and membership applications in most magazines at your
local bookstore, dentist’s office, library, etc. This can also support the previous tactic (creating the pervert next door) if they are for pervert magazines.
You can have these delivered not only to the target’s residence but also his or her place of business or the neighbor’s address (maybe a few doors down), where the occupant will be reluctant to bring the seedy mail down to the
addressee. (Remember the little note earlier? Neighbors talk.)
Another scheme that you should be cautioned about
is the smear letter, which is a variation or combination of the pervert next door and the handbills and circulars techniques. In fact, once the perpetrator has established that there is a pervert next door, letters and handbills are often used to continue this technique. I include this here because each word in the following letter has significant meaning and this tactic has serious consequences for both the perpetrator and the target. One revenge practitioner described this technique of harassment as distributing letters around the neighborhood and at the target’s (victim’s) place of employment that anonymously accused him or her of being a child molester. The contents read something like this:
A child molester in this neighborhood molested my child. His name is Chester D. Molester and he lives at 1234 Elm Street (the brown house on the corner). He works at the Cheetum Department Store as the clothing department manager.
His work phone is (999) 555-1234 and his home phone number is (999) 555-5678.
I am not using my name or my child’s (for obvious reasons) because I have been told that Molester will sue us if we tell the truth about him. By revealing him this way, he will know who it is (unless he has too many victims to guess), but he will not be able to sue us for revealing his perverted acts.
We threatened to go to the police, but Molester said that it will be his word against our child’s and he will win, leaving our child publicly humiliated.
Obviously, Molester has thought this out and may have experience in such
matters.
Molester molested our child at least five times and threatened our child not to tell. Talk to your children and make sure he did not do the same to them.
If your child comes forward, maybe mine can too, but we need to protect our children from this perverted freak.
As with all of these techniques of harassment, the moral implications should be weighed carefully, as well as the legal ramifications. What is a PSYOP to one may be criminal harassment to another.
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Ads, Handbills, and Circulars
Political PSYOPs practitioners, revenge freaks, and criminal harassers often employ free advertising, handbills, and circulars in the campaigns. Yes, even distinguished political advisors and members of the intelligence community have used these methods.
Free ads are a great tool, not only for buying used stuff cheaply but for placing ads for good, no great deals, and listing the target’s phone number. Slightly used 70 inches HDTV with 3D for only $200? Call 555-1234.
Free baseball cards and comic books from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s?
What a deal! Call 555-1234. This is what it means to multiply the effect of your plan by arranging for others to do your work without tying up your
time. This is also known as letting someone else’s fingers do the walk-
ing… well, you get the point. Feel green? Do the environment a favor and
have all of those cans, plastics, and other recyclable items delivered to, yes, you guessed it—the target. At work or at home… why not both? An
ad was once placed by a U.S. intelligence agency asking for stray cats to be delivered to the address of a known foreign intelligence service, offering to pay a nominal fee. The results were that the target was overwhelmed
and kept busy by dozens of drop-offs. This is another example of multiply the effect.
For sale by owner and other real estate ads can also be annoying. Calls not only from potential buyers (for that great deal you have listed) but from realtors hoping to sell that house and turn a nice profit can be draining. Make sure that you have not had the target’s phone disconnected at this point (that comes at a different time and timing is critical).
Handbills and circulars are posted on every tree, telephone, Starbucks bulletin board, boards at the colleges and places of employment, etc. There are even virtual bulletin boards on the Internet. Posting free ads, wants, classifieds, etc., is as close as the nearest keyboard or copy center. If you post paper, be sure to include several of those unsightly little tear-away tabs for the target’s phone number so everyone can share the opportunity to avail
themselves of the opportunity that you have created for the target to share with the mass-calling (or e-mailing) public ( multiply the effect).
Composite Photography, Audio–Video
Recordings, and Plants
While film is still an option for the hard-core photographers, digital photography opens up the world of Photoshop® or Photoshop Elements® and other
digital editors for what is known as composite photography or trick photography.
This tactic involves two techniques.
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Figure 7.2 Controversial photo of Lee Harvey Oswald, reputed assassin of President John Kennedy. (Courtesy of the Warren Commission.)
The first is to take real photographs that appear to depict one thing, when they really are not what they seem. This is referred to as circumstantial photographic evidence (not to be confused with the legal term circumstantial evidence). An example of this would be taking a photo of a woman putting her arm around a man as she passes by (as if to say “excuse me, I’m coming through”) to give the circumstantial appearance that they are together. Any other type of setup would be of this type.
The second is composite photography, which involves tricks employed to combine parts of one photo with another to give a false impression. This is known as merged or fused images in digital photography. An expert can usually examine a photo and determine whether or not it is authentic, but this is not always the case and not every photo is worth examining. One famous and controversial photo is the Lee Harvey Oswald photo taken before the
Kennedy assassination (Figure 7.2).
Historical footnote: According to the Warren Commission report, the backyard photos, allegedly taken by Marina Oswald sometime in 1963 using a camera belonging to Oswald, show Oswald holding two Marxist newspapers and
a rifle and wearing a pistol in a holster. After his arrest, Oswald insisted they were forgeries, but Marina testified in 1964 that she had taken the photographs and she reaffirmed her testimony repeatedly over the decades. These photos
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were labeled CE 133-A and CE 133-B. CE 133-A shows the rifle in Oswald’s
left hand and newsletters in front of his chest in the other. In CE 133-B, the rifle is held with the right hand. Oswald’s mother testified that on the day after the assassination, she and Marina destroyed another photograph with Oswald holding the rifle with both hands over his head. (For more on the Kennedy assassination, see Infamous Murders & Mysteries by Dr. Robert J. Girod.) There are two basic techniques used in composite photography today. The first uses a black background, which does not record at all on the film, such as black velvet or electrostatical y coated black flock paper. The image is then made by making two separate exposures, both against black backgrounds, and printing the negatives sequential y or together on one sheet of paper. The second technique makes two exposures of the whole scene, with and without the ghost element.
The tape recording technique is quite simple. Everyone says something at some time that they wish they hadn’t said or could rephrase. Tape can mean an audio tape or CD or a video recording. Today, everybody has their Rodney King camcorder handy and every cell phone has an audio recorder, camera, or video recorder (or all three). Let’s leave this one at that and leave the rest to one’s imagination. The ironic part of this one is that the target does almost all the work for you (embarrassing himself or herself) and all that is left is distribution or dissemination.
Finally, there is the plant. This ranges from the highly unethical to the highly illegal. DO NOT DO THIS! Be aware that it can be done to you. Fake photos or real photos that give a false impression and letters can be sent to the target’s address giving a false impression (or maybe a true on
e if you get the goods on the target, but be aware of potentially innocent persons and collateral damage). Drugs and other contraband or evidence of crimes can
also be planted. This should not even be considered unless it is officially sanctioned as government operation outside of the United States. What does that mean? If it is not apparent, it does not apply to you, so do not do it! Stay on the high ground!
Internal Disruption: The Coin-Tel-Pro Technique
The Coin-Tel-Pro is a tactic or technique used by both intelligence PSYOPs and political dirty tricks department professionals. It was allegedly a favorite of the Watergate black-bag crowd, as well as the left-wing subversive groups, to disrupt and confuse communications by sending false messages back and
forth, supposedly from within the organization. An open letter is sent from (allegedly) one department, faction, or organization to others (widely circulated) denouncing another department, faction, organization, or an individual, creating hostility between one side and the other. Even if the letter is proven to be false, a lot of time and resources have been expended proving or
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correcting this and the animosity may never be alleviated. Imagine the chaos this creates within a political campaign. The objective of this technique is to create and maintain animosity between allies to divide and conquer or waste their time, resources, and energy.
Be Aware of the Implications
The psychological aspects of these dirty tricks can be devastating. Use common sense and always seek the moral high ground. The lives you interfere
with may not only be those of a petty dictator, crooked politician, thieving assailant, etc. Always consider the collateral damage and ethical implications of your actions. Do not fail to recognize the potential civil litigation and criminal prosecution that violations of law can precipitate.