Travel — It’s about the journey

Let’s get one thing straight, the meeting with “El Chapo” was compromised and known about before the arrival of Penn and Kate del Castillo. We speculated earlier [and this appears to have been proven through the release of the Blackberry BBM transcripts] that the communications and activities of a del Castillo were likely to have put her under significant surveillance by a variety of intelligence agencies and assets.

The range and variety of surveillance photos shows the scale of physical surveillance already in place. We are not looking at opportunistic CCTV images snapped at the last minute when someone noticed some celebrities — it was a intelligence operation in place to find out what they were doing. Let’s start our analysis by thinking about the chokepoints where journalists can find themselves under surveillance.

Understandably since 9/11, unusual flights are monitored closely, especially on routes known for drugs and weapons, which any private charter flight between Los Angeles and Mexico is likely to be. In particular if it raised flags like being booked last minute and/or had a information or metadata that connected Penn or others under surveillance to it. Turning up on a private jet to a major commercial airport, in a country with massive a drug trafficking problem and with a person with a known connection to a drug kinpin, cannot be described as low-profile operational security. Also, it is difficult for people with a high profile lifestyle like Penn or del Castillo, to suddenly change their pattern of life and “drop off the radar”. Physically speaking in person can offer many operational security advantages to a journalist if done correctly, however it can also be a disaster — especially if they don’t know what they are doing or a sizeable physical and digital surveillance operation is being conducted against them.

What basic questions can a journalist ask themselves?