Anti-Infiltration Tactics: Real Vetting, Part 2
How to recruit the right people without exposing your group
On Monday we talked about the difference between open and closed recruiting models. We’ll get into how to recruit with an open model later; today we’ll talk about how a closed group can still get people when it needs to.
Keep in mind that before you recruit anyone to your group, before you even decide what kind of recruiting model you plan to use, you should first take stock of your goals, motivation, and group dynamic. If you don’t know what you have, you don’t know what you need—or if you need anything at all.
The Research Phase
Just like infiltration itself, anti-infiltration efforts in a vetting context require research. The nice thing about a closed model is that you aren’t under a time constraint. You don’t have your prospect bugging you about when they’ll find out your decision, because they don’t even know they’re being evaluated for inclusion. You don’t have to get done in a week, month, or even a year if you don’t want to be, which gives you all the time you need to really dig into someone.
There is nothing you don’t need to know about someone you’re thinking of bringing into your group.
Past
You need to know your prospect’s past. There’s no way around that. People experience traumas that affect how they think and react. They have situations that might crop up again, or triggers that can be used and leveraged by someone else to steer their behavior. It’s not enough to be able to understand how someone will react in a given situation; you need to understand why they’ll react that way.
Present
What do they want from you? What do they bring to the table? What are they afraid of? What do they expect to happen? There are a whole bunch of things you need to know about anyone you’re evaluating because anything you miss can be used by someone else as leverage.
Home life
Finances
Vices
Online activity
Personality issues
One of the most important things you need to know is their motivator. How does their need for validation manifest? Where do they find their self-worth and “need to matter?” If it’s something fluid, you’ll have an issue.
Future
Once you understand where the person comes from and what makes them who they are, you can plot out how they’ll deal with a situation, and even steer their behavior within the group for a positive outcome.
Making the Profile
How do you get all of this info? I can tell you right away that the following methods will NOT give you everything you need.
One or even two interviews
Public records check
Adding them as a friend on Facebook
Unfortunately, that’s the extent of most groups’ vetting process—and those are the more hardcore ones. The uncomfortable truth is this:
There is no substitute for time spent, face to face, in a variety of situations and activities that show you who the person really is.
It’s not popular to say that, especially to groups who are all about growth. You cannot simultaneously have growth and quality as a goal; they’re competing objectives in practice. If you see growth as your goal, you’ll never put in the required work. If you see quality as your goal, you’ll never grow at the rate of other groups.
You need to decide, up front, which thing matters most to you. Then and only then can you establish the most effective vetting program for your group.
…and if you choose growth, you’ll never have effective vetting.
In the next issue, we’ll look at the tools you need to do the preliminary work on someone you’re evaluating.
Kit Perez is a counterintelligence and deception analyst, and the co-author of Basics of Resistance: The Practical Freedomista. She is currently working on her second book, which will focus on group activism efforts.