OPSEC in the Wake of a Disaster

[Watchman]

The military term OPSEC has been adopted by the prepping community to denote the actions we take to keep friends and neighbors from knowing that we’re preppers. That’s a good thing and something we should all practice. Letting people know that you’re a prepper amounts to inviting them to show up on your doorstep when things go bad, even if that’s not your intention. Trust me, I know. I’ve been writing about prepping for over a decade and I’ve lost track of how many people have assumed that meant they could come knocking on my door when a disaster happened. The only reason more didn’t when COVID first broke out, was because they were afraid to leave their homes.

But OPSEC doesn’t end when the disaster strikes. If anything, we need to up our game a notch, once we switch from “prepping mode” to “survival mode.” As we all know, there will be a lot of desperate people out there, and they’ll be looking for whatever they can find. That clearly includes whatever we have.

It’s one thing to try and hide the fact that you’re stockpiling supplies. Most people don’t pay attention to how often you go grocery shopping or how much you buy. But you can be sure they’ll notice if you’re living well and not suffering like everyone else when things go bad. That’s when OPSEC will become truly important. But it’s also when OPSEC will be harder to maintain. Anything that could give people the idea that you have food, water, will cause them to either come knocking on your door, trying to kick down your door, or trying to spy on you and see what you have, before coming to kick down your door.

The question for us, is how do we keep that from happening; and at least part of the answer is through our OPSEC. READ FULL ARTICLE HERE