Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
overseas ignore the vitally important personal security issues that affect
not only themselves but their families as well. Even some of the largest
corporations in the United States demonstrate extraordinary apathy in
this regard. Shortly after the tragic kidnapping and murder of
Wall Street
Journal
reporter Daniel Pearl, the authors had dinner with an acquaintance
who is an executive with a major news corporation. This man travels abroad
more than he is home and frequently travels to areas that are the subject
of specific terrorist threat warnings posted by the State Department. We
asked him what type of training he had been given relative to his personal
security while traveling. We were more than a bit surprised when he
answered that he had never received any training, despite frequent trips
to the Middle East, Russia, India, the Philippines, and other countries
where there are real and documented security risks to foreigners. We asked
if he at least had access to intelligence information regarding security issues
in the countries he was traveling to. Again the answer was negative. Nor
did he even bother to access the State Department website and read the
posted travel advisories. He said that his company had no program in place
to gather information relative to country-specific dangers that its employ-
ees might face. He said that sometimes the company provided him with
a bodyguard, but for the most part he was on his own. Furthermore, the
only type of intelligence gathering he knew of in private industry was com-
mercial intelligence. He explained that most large domestic and multi-
national corporations routinely spend hundreds of thousands of dollars
to learn everything they can about individuals with whom they intend to
do business — a prudent concern to be sure. Big companies hire investi-
gators to compile complete dossiers on a prospective partner's personal
habits, finances, bank accounts, romantic interests, and a variety of other
confidential areas. They use excellent investigative firms, such as Kroll
Worldwide, and try to obtain the same information on competitors as well.
Millions of dollars are spent each year in this manner. Unfortunately, almost
nothing is spent teaching employees how to be safe.
An important factor to consider is that terrorist activities are not the
only source of danger Westerners must face overseas. In fact, you will have
a far greater chance of becoming a victim of ordinary criminal activity than
you will of becoming the target of terrorism. In many countries, there are
criminal industries that thrive on victimizing foreign visitors to their coun-
try. A robbery or even a property crime against an American business-
person is almost guaranteed to provide a richer reward for their actions
than crimes directed against their own fellow citizens. Fortunately, the
