For most of us regular people not inducted into the world of surveillance, this will provide an interesting glimpse into how old school espionage worked in developed countries and still works in developing countries. For those living in the West and in many places of East Asia this is more replaced by ubiquitous video surveillance and cell-phone tracing at present, as we all essentially carry the intelligence networks main espionage weapon in our own hands every day. But that is a discussion for another day; let’s dive into the world of espionage and get a glimpse of how it can look:
“For the Newbies, Bald and Bankrupt is a Youtube channel which does travel videos in Eastern Europe. Because the guy is so fluent in Russian, everywhere he goes, the local Secret Police assume he is a spy, and they roll out as many of their local surveillance operatives as they can to blanket him in coverage. We use him here to show you what ground coverage looks like, because in the US anyone even remotely interested in politics will get similar levels of surveillance.
Here, our magnificent bald bastard runs into Azerbaijani secret police, and ends up making the travel-video version of a hostage video at the end, extolling the many wonders of Azerbaijan:
I have no idea what the deal is with the hotel at the beginning, which is so massive, and so luxurious, and yet in the middle of nowhere with no guests. Maybe it is just off-season.
At 1:30, he gets out of his car in the middle of nowhere, and it cuts to right after he has filmed a segment and is just about to return to his car, and just as he begins ot head back, a little white taxi drives by – the only car you see on that isolated road. You will see a lot of these taxis in this video.
I am almost to the point I would think you would have difficulty getting hired on to a taxi company in any area of interest to surveillance, because they would make sure their people occupied all the taxi driver positions. The have a cover for driving around all day watching stuff, they can be sent to pick up a target and transport him alleviating any need to follow the target for that portion of his trip, and they can interrogate the target during his trip under the guise of simply being a chatty taxi driver.”
This is a very, very common tactic in many countries. The chatty cab driver picking up the foreigners is a common trope that is almost a stereotype. One Somali brother studying in the Islamic University of Medina (famous for accepting a very high percentage of foreigners on scholarships), told me how many it was a frequent occurrence that intelligence officers would pose as taxi drivers in the vicinities of the campus and chat students up. They would strike conversation along the line of “how do you like Saudi Arabia?”, then they would present leading questions to see if students were hostile towards the Saudi regime and if they were stupid enough to bite the hook. The Somali brother mentioned how a handful of people he knew were spirited away never to be heard of again; most likely to detention and then deportation. Lesson to be learned; don’t run your mouth about politics concerning an authoritarian country or its rulers to inquisitive strangers.
“He actually films the taxi overtly, which surveillance always loves to see. To a normie taxi driver, filming the taxi means nothing. But the taxi driver is doing something he shouldn’t be – spying on someone. It is something he wants to hide. And his ability to do it in the future for money depends on him being unidentified as an agent doing it. He needs to maintain his covert status. So when a surveillance person in a taxi sees his target filming him, he sees that target saying that he knows that taxi driver is surveillance and he is purposely burning him. The taxi driver’s command will register that as a strike against him for not being covert enough and not blending into the background. He sees you identifying him personally, and creating a hard record of his identity and his involvement in surveillance, which reduces his utility to the operation in the future.
To a normie, all of this surveillance-cultural stuff is a complete unknown. But in that secret, insular world, good manners dictates you never let it be known you have seen any of your surveillance, and if you do, you never try to identify anybody or create a record of their involvement in your surveillance, because that is like a direct affront.
Bald always could be an MI6 spook who is using a love of all things Soviet as a cover to travel and film in eastern European countries. Though I would think if he was, he wouldn’t have filmed the taxi. To people in the game, that is antagonistic and rude. Then again, they might think he is doing that purposely because it both, makes him look clueless and like a civilian, and allows his agency to see what kind of surveillance he was under and identify some of the people involved. So they may think he is some super spook who makes himself look clueless and rude, because he is so skilled.”
If you genuinely have nothing to hide, then there is no need to needlessly antagonize surveillance. This will likely lead to them doubling down on the surveillance as was the case with bald:
“At 2:28, you have an intersection, that does not appear to be in a heavily populated area, and just as he is filming, you have three cars all hit it at the same time.
Cars all hitting an intersection in front of you from every direction on an otherwise sparsely populated road is never a good sign.
The first one to turn off is another white taxi. Maybe I am getting bent into paranoia, but the way the cars all hit that intersection at the same time, without a lot of cross traffic on the main street, and they are all heading in different directions so it is not a group traveling together, feels off. Then as he pulls up to that arch, up comes a pedestrian, who doesn’t appear to be doing anything in particular beyond moseying in the general vicinity of his car.
I laugh whenever I see this, because it is practically a meme. Super-spook caught spying on a secret KGB facility (you will see later), and he responds by driving up to the posted surveillance in front of it, and says, “Beautiful Architecture!,” about an arch which the spooks all probably think looks like a piece of shit. There is just something funny about the picture, because there is no way saying something as silly as “Beautiful Architecture!” is going to get him out of trouble. It is kind of like you are standing over Joe Biden’s dead body, in a giant pool of blood, Secret Service rushes in, and you say, “Wow, look at how pretty that painting on the wall is!” It is not going to work.“
This is the dumbest thing he did in his trip that likely caused the biggest amount of stir amongst the secret service of Azerbaijan; why did he insist on entering the premises of that facility and take pictures? Never, ever take photos of military or paramilitary installations when you are travelling; that is literally begging for an interrogation.
“Obviously this guy is a posted foot surveillance unit. As you will see, Bald appears to have stumbled on some interesting site here, which upsets some Secret Police type organization. So this guy is definitely a walker coming in for a closer look, and is an excellent opportunity for you to see what it looks like.
Even the best surveillance, caught off guard like this and adapting on the fly, will look confused about what they are doing. This guy really doesn’t have much to say, he doesn’t seem to have a place he is going, or some mission he is trying to accomplish. He doesn’t want to go, but he is hesitant to engage. Really good surveillance at this point will transition to a gambit, maybe asking for money as if they are a beggar. They will actively try to control your focus, maybe even repel you, so you leave, thinking it is you who is determining what is happening.
At 3:36 you see pedestrians in the background as he is driving. Given we will later see this place is heated up, they are probably foot surveillance.
When he stops at 3:49, the place looks entirely deserted. The walkers he just saw could have been innocuous, but if you know how it works, you would be suspicious.
4:07 could very well be a surveillance kids. I told you, there is no mold for surveillance. I have seen transvestites, midgets, guys in motorized wheelchairs, an woman who looked 99, a 540lb woman in yoga pants, even a toddler, whose parents appeared to be using me for his first solo toddle-by.
Whenever you are in a place that is deserted, and you suddenly see people, you immediately should ask yourself if it is chance. It can be, but if there is any reason you could be under surveillance, and where you are was deserted until you arrived, I would assume they are coverage, and I would never discount it because they look some way, or seem like a group that would not do surveillance.
7:00, the kid is back. Why? He was going somewhere before and had to leave. Why can he suddenly change plans and come back, to seek out the new guy?
7:16, Now there is a group waiting for him, apparently associated with the kid. They are cheery enough, so it isn’t some sort of local gang-intimidation thing. They seem professional.
This could have been a test to see if he would spook, being surrounded by military-aged males.
7:52, Just as he breaks with the group, a car comes up to the intersection and turns onto the street behind him, coming toward him.
And he turns his camera and films it again, as if getting the license plate.
I do this all the time, but it is to piss off my coverage as a form of passive-aggressive resistance. And they probably view my assignment as a bit of a joke, so I doubt they are that pissed about it. Here, where he could be an MI6 spook and ti is a NatSec issue, they likely take this much more personally.
That said, what is interesting to me is that at 7:58, he begins doing a loud monologue about how he was hesitant to travel to Azerbaijan, and how wonderful the people are, and how much he now sees the country is wonderful, and enjoys innocently traveling there as a tourist. It feels strangely like he is stressed as he talks. Look at his facial expression change to a pained expression briefly between 8:17 to 8:20. It looks as if he is realizing what is going on with him getting in trouble here, and he is talking either to the pole microphones, or to the pedestrian behind him on the bicycle at 8:16.”
You should think about that preferably BEFORE you film potential secret facilities.
“8:30, A Car is passing by with all tinted windows, and one window open, just as he is being escorted by more kids to the Secret Police guy waiting at his car, who will demand his passport. Bald even gets the license plate of this car as plain as day.
In the comments, KarmicVibez notes, “That kid’s riding some expensive lambo bike and the man is like ” do you have your documents?” I think he met real spies.”
I do not know why they time things precisely like that, but if you have coverage, you will see it everywhere. Just as you reach the front door of a building, one of them will come out. Just as you reach an intersection, one of their cars will hit it. Now, it makes things look obvious, though I will say, when I was under coverage and didn’t know, I saw this al the time, and paid it no mind, beyond noting the odd coincidence.
At 10:44, as he is driving away, he is singing, “Three Lardas in a row! Convoy! Convoooy!”
Areas like neighborhoods such as this, which are of interest, will often have multiple vehicles staged around them, just to monitor the area. If an observation posts says it sounds like somebody is climbing the telephone pole on Rogers Avenue, there will be a car in the area discreetly staged in a known safe area, ready to pick up and go check it out.
When targets, or even non-targets come through and are moving, those vehicles can’t let themselves be seen staged and ready to go as somebody might wonder what is up with them, so they pick up and move before the target reaches them. When my mail comes through, I will see the cars drive through ahead of the mail car, and others come in the opposite direction, all moving and getting out of the path of the mail car so it will not see them sitting on the side of the road.
It gives you an idea of the degree of coverage in neighborhoods, that the neighborhood observation post actually knows in real time where all the cars driving through the neighborhood are, where all its staged assets are, and it can move everything in real time around visiting vehicles so the visitor never sees anything. And in these neighborhoods, this is normal. Total awareness of everything happening in your neighborhood 24/7 is often a thing with this. It sounds incredible, but this is just an agency tasked with that just like the Police are tasked with dealing with criminals, the Fire Department is tasked with fighting fires, and the building department is responsible for watching all building and making sure people have all the right permits, and everything is up to code.
After the target leaves the area, cars will have to be brought back in to set up in their staged positions again. That is what he is seeing. They waited until it was radio’d that he was definitely leaving, and as he drove out, those new cars are headed back in, all at once, to take up positions in the neighborhood and re-man the staged positions. There are probably residents in that neighborhood who have no idea this machine is operating all around them all the time, watching everything.
At 12:00, the guy standing on the right, next to the uncharacteristic, very nice car, is clearly out of the ordinary in that neighborhood.
I think here with him, the surveillance was making itself more known, as a show of force. If he hadn’t pissed them off, that would be a taxi-driver in one of those little beat up taxis, looking like he stopped for lunch or something. I assume it gets worse as he continues to travel, and that is why he gets so irritated at the end of the piece.
I love how his buddy comes over, and they just hang, like, “Yeah, I have to watch this asshole and act like I am surveillance, what’s new with you?”
12:28, another white taxi, driver’s side window down.
12:59, two taxis in one shot in this poor neighborhood.
At 15:50 walking in the hotel, just as he turns the corner, a door pops open and somebody exits a room.
Again, that can be coincidence for a normal person. But he is definitely under, and so I would assume that was timed. Which raises the question, given you don’t see anyone, how did they know he was going to that hall, and that he was turning that corner at that exact moment. I assume in Azerbaijan, major hotels are actually run by the intelligence service, from room assignments to hidden cameras, almost like a massive scripted episode of “Big Brother.” Once you understand how intelligence works, it becomes difficult to travel on vacation if you have any attachment to privacy. And I say that even in the US domestically.
At 17:00 the Police are closing in, and Bald’s loud, vocal interest in architecture is increasing apace.
18:08, the guy walking across his path is holding his hand to his mouth.
And then we get the loud nervous travel monologue at the end as he is looking around. wide-eye’d. To my knowledge he never revealed what freaked him out so much in any later episodes. But he knew.
It is tough to explain what you learn to see with foot surveillance and posted surveillance. But once you see it, it is unmistakable. I think it is a way they are essentially people focused on surveillance but trying to look like they are not. It creates brief moments of them switching from looking at you, to trying to look uninterested and focused elsewhere. It is like they look like they are doing something, and then they look guilty, and then like they are trying to look innocent and focus on something else. They kind of abruptly switch back and forth on motivations, where a normal person would look like they were smoothly motivated in one direction to do one thing.
Then when Bald deals with them, there is a sort of hesitancy in their dealing with him. You can almost feel it with the guy at the arch. They want to engage, but they are hesitant, like a frightened chipmunk who wants to take a peanut from your hand, but wants to keep itself as far from you as possible as it does it, all as they try to to look casual. He engages them in conversation, and they seem hesitant, and uncertain of how to handle it, asking questions, but trying to say nothing and look unaffected. You could feel the awkwardness, when the guy says to Bald there is no work, and Bald is left just lamenting how hard life is. It is not a normal conversation, which should be less awkward.
Once you see it, you cannot drive through a city without seeing it everywhere, even at home. Guys who appear to be hawking stuff, car to car. Bums on the corners watching cars going by, and then suddenly begging, then suddenly stopping and turning away from you as you pass. If you are running a camera, it is even more noticeable when you go back and review the video.
The other thing you will notice is timing. Activity will be timed to you. You drive, and there is nothing driving opposite you. You stop and get out, and a car goes by at that moment. You walk and reach your destination, and a car goes by just as you reach it. You get out of your car, and somebody exits the building you are heading to that moment, and there is no other traffic. You get into your car, and somebody gets out of their’s even though their car was sitting there a while as you were walking, and the person should have gotten out before you arrived at your car.
After a while, you will be very sensitive violations of timing, awkward looking people, and people loitering falsely. You will always be clocking the amount of traffic and activity, and noting statistically unlikely bursts, and whether those bursts are truly random, or if they are timed to you and what you are doing.
Some funny comments from the youtube page:
ExVeritateLibertas – Whereas China is a high tech police state, with surveillance cameras and facial recognition technology everywhere, Azerbaijan still does it old school – human informants on every block.
Popstar Researching Oblivion – Police looking at him – Sudden overwhelming interest in local architecture!
ThoughT ObjecT – “The people are very nice” as he starts walking faster away from them.
These shows are entertaining, but they are also good primers on the most dangerous aspect of this world we live in. Especially, in the first world, because Cabal has deployed this on you. In Azerbaijan, Bald may be the threat the government faces, but in Britain, or America, the main threat the government faces, is you. Don’t think they will treat you any differently, because they will not.
Interestingly, I have noticed in the one Russian video I have looked at so far, I do not see this type of activity around him. Even this Azerbaijani video looks to me like a small surveillance team assigned to him, albeit augmented by decent technology and a taxi-network, as opposed to a massive domestic network of regular civilians embedded in the population. Oddly enough, what you will see in a Western superpower, as regular free-thinking citizen, will be at least one order of magnitude worse.
Take from it what you will, but there is a strange aspect to the non-Russian world, something which has made me question the very nature of our economies and even our populations.
In short, I do not see how they can fund these extensive sorts of omniscient networks in every neighborhood. It is part of the reason I hold out the possibility the surveillance networks may have some sort of religious belief system, or even a cult aspect underlying them. These people are doing this for some reason, and I am not convinced it is money. The ones I see do not appear to be living overly extravagant lifestyles, beyond having new cars always on lease. Nor do I think they view their actions as contributions to law and order, or national security, given the effect of their network on street-gang crime, or things like 9/11.
I assume they are getting recompensed somehow, and their motivations are not just terror at the thought of angering the machine.
But that mystery is not about to be solved anytime soon. For now it remains a mystery for another day.“
On the last note about cults; we do know that cults like Scientology have infamously used their members to perform elaborate gang-stalking and surveillance operations on former members or targets deemed hostile to the organization. We also know that many other cults have been allowed to exist and flourish as long as they co-operated with the intelligence operations supporting them, e.g. Jim Jones church of Kool-aid fame, “Finders” etc.
Salafinsight 