Retired FBI Agent Breaks Down Spying & Surveillance Scenes From Film & TV | WIRED

[Music] hey my name is rhonda glover reese rhonda served in the fbi for over 34 years she's now a law enforcement consultant and certified career coach today i'll be breaking down clips from movies and television about surveillance blowing cover donnie brasco jesus joe that's holmen u.s attorney coming at us the guy on the right don't be stopped remember me southern district and watching that clip it just took me back when i was working as an undercover agent joe trained me he's a legend in the bureau as an undercover hey what are you doing the key thing is to understand is that when an undercover agent is in a role they have to continue in that role as much as possible what he did in the film hitting that assistant united states attorney that was fine he's building a case and he was able to maintain his role without giving up his cover don't call me joe and i'll cut you through you understand if that undercover agent is in another role and he has another name then you call them by that name so what happened in that clip it was completely appropriate forget about it following the family the sopranos unit one this is control baby bing headed your way unit five do you have visual contact of princess bing control they are going into the house so they want to make sure everybody's out the house they want to know where everybody is units weren't approximately one minute you'll have them made great jetta sc team the location read secure you have one hour and thirty minutes it is incredibly important for the agent that was in the van baby bang ahead of your way that agent had the eye that agent had the responsibility to really monitor who's coming in and out it was important for him to stay focused you want to have all the tools that you need to have in your car you need to you got bottom thing out of your way excuse me you want to have your food you want to have your snacks you want to have everything charged up your radio charged up you want your phone charger you want to have your surveillance kit that's what i like to call it you know you want to have your go bag in the event that you're going to be sitting for a long long time patrol we are working on entry estimate three or four minutes i've been on kidnapping investigations where the surveillance is like 24 hours erio junta cadillac dts returning when passed me up the street about five minutes ago so when you're doing a surveillance you take surveillance notes and you have a log so in that log you want to indicate who left where they're leaving from and the time that they're leaving all the information that you need to give you a clear picture of the movement of whoever you are surveilling we're finished for today here ladies and gentlemen cover story miss congeniality hey hey hey hey oh jesus christ ah sorry i uh i i had a bite of my bagel and i forgot to pray sandra bullock in her character she was incredibly quick on her feet to come up with that quick prayer no it's not working it's not working five minutes the listening devices and the earpieces and all of those things should be checked and double checked before actually using them oh dear jesus throughout the film they've looked at her as being a little different so by doing something like that that was just totally in character she thinks i'm funny and i applaud her for thinking so quickly on her feet please forgive me for not praying before i had a bite of my bagel and shmear well it worked it it it worked for everybody in the room thank you very much amen front and follow the wire i'm gonna play that spy game do you remember the spy game yeah who was it a tall black guy over there i'm the front yard of the follow front and follow is just a surveillance technique you'll have someone in front of the subject that you're surveilling and you'll have someone in the back they're really spot-on but uh one thing that i really picked up on the older brother he got a little bit close to someone seeing him write down the license plate number sean when you're doing a surveillance you must be very very discreet because you don't want people to see who you're following and you don't want anyone to see that you're writing down tags now you probably should not use your kids to do police work but they did an okay job my flesh and blood backstory imperium i was in the marines for three years on a wmd squad in iraq and i'm starting to wonder no in this clip daniel radcliffe is preparing to infiltrate a white supremacist group i was in the marines for three years on a wmd squad in iraq but i saw a lot of things over there that changed me he's on his way to being a very very good undercover he was coached before he went in he's got a new identity he's got a new place to live you're going to be next to the subjects and the targets of that investigation you're going to be right in the thick of things and so you want to have as much information as possible and if that means doing an incredible amount of research then you need to do that so you can be prepared so you you don't get tripped up the key thing is that he has to be mindful of who he is on the inside and remember that he is playing a role and not to get too deep into that role that he loses himself and that's why it's important that the the handlers the agents that are going to be working with him that they watch over him to make sure that he's okay i'm only so hard on you because i'm trying to protect you recording device the informant we need some specific numbers well what would you be willing to accept isn't that really the question that adm has already eaten all the girls in this clip matt damon's character is really messing with the recording device we could be growing 20 000 tons i'm going in we got to shut this down wait hold on i need your help i think he's got it in real life he would not have access to it all he or she needs to know is that they're going to carry this in and this is going to be with them they don't need to know how it works they don't need to be touching it they don't need to be doing anything with it at all they're not going to be able to take apart a briefcase and touch the device because they're tampering with it no mark no no you want to be able to say in a court of law that that source didn't have anything to do with the recording apparatus jerry's gonna love that you don't want to even have to address that question this can all be used against you in the court of law educating rookies in too deep you didn't kill the black man you got started your stripes baby make me cry no problems show me with a kid omar epson his character serving as an undercover officer acting in that undercover capacity he did a great job because he knew that he was being tested what they really want you to prove is that you're not a cop you know he's a police officer so he knew he had to come up with a way that he could show them he would do whatever he needed to do to demonstrate to the guys that he was part of them he must know how to shoot very very well because he ensured that he was firing that weapon very very badly intentionally counting his rounds and they're just like man you can't shoot you can't shoot worth nothing yo i had the kid right there man but my boy got crazy hard he's crazy he can't shoot we can't ask him to shoot because he's not going to get it done agents and officers when they are acting in an undercover capacity there may come a time where they may have to break the law but they're going to have to have permission in order to do that your life depends on split-second decisions that was a really good scene for him to demonstrate that you could still be part of the group in an undercover capacity and not get anyone hurt is that place cool enough for you to understand shaking the tail casino you see if a phone's tapped the feds can only listen in on the stuff involving crimes so on routine calls they have to click off after a few minutes robert de niro's character was talking about minimization you have to be very very careful and very very intentional when you're doing a wiretap yeah give me a treat anytime anyone's on that phone and they're talking about anything outside of the criminal activity that's taking place you are supposed to turn that recording off i'm going to do some shopping afterwards you want to go and so they wait a few minutes and then they turn the recording back on you're checking in on that conversation to make sure they continue to talk about things that are non-pertinent okay he's out into the ground unit and looking at that scene with the the the agent was in the window and he had this huge massive radio i'm just grateful that i didn't have to deal with a huge radio like that during surveillance nicki couldn't even go for a ride without changing cars at least six times before he could shake all his tails and because of all the planes he had to use underground garages joe pesci's character is really trying to shake the fbi he knows that he's being followed the fbi knows that he's incredibly surveillance conscious so they're going to be mindful of that one thing that joe pesci's character can't he cannot do is change his face he's driving all these cars he's switching all these cars but it's still him in these cars [Music] so while joe pesci is doing his best to evade surveillance the fbi is doing their due diligence [Music] first contact black klansman yeah who's this ron stallworth here this is walter returning your call from the organization the organization well your first contact you definitely want to use a phone that is not connected to the law enforcement agency that you work for that's one thing that's your real name right is it is it ron stallworth right secondly you do not want to use your real name you don't want to use anything that's going to tie you back to law enforcement i'm interested in receiving some reading materials from you it was very very clear that he was just taking a chance he didn't think anybody would call him back what's your story so now he's gonna have to remember everything that he said because it very well can actually come back sometime during the investigation well since you asked my sister pamela she was just recently accosted the point here is that you have to be ready you got to get ready to be ready because you never know when they're going to call well good luck ron with your new redneck friend raid gone wrong point break scooby come on scooby here scooby scooby oh yo what this was no uh you would no have you seen my dog i got a little dog i'm missing it's a cockapoo like that he's gotta think about your dog he's just not convincing if you're going to have someone show up and take on that type of role you don't want them to be like gary busey well is there anybody else around you they're going to be very very humble about looking for their dog okay here's how it is babbitt now breads are going to go in the back door cullen's going to back me up i want you at the side window by the hedge having a raid in the middle of the day is not the optimum time to conduct a raid people are up people are moving around you're going to make sure that the gentleman that is mowing the lawn that he is secure and he is out of the way is not enough to address these subjects in that house then you have keanu reeves he doesn't even have a ray jacket on what a flake you need everyone fully identified as fbi agents heavy firepower to back your team up the best way possible get a real cowboys right batman and robin wanting out the departed i'm going nuts man i can't be someone else every day it's been a year of this i've had enough of this what happens when an undercover officer or agent has demonstrated that they've had just too much and they want to get out then you have to be responsible as a law enforcement officer to get them out i'm down all right most of the people in the world do it every day mark wahlberg's character was not helpful one bit now we're the only two people on the face of this earth that even though you're a cop how about we just erase your file he's saying that they're in charge they're in charge of his life that's not going to make any undercover feel good when you have somebody that's not supportive that was your joke as an undercover you could possibly start having all kinds of feelings and your intuition may kick in i'm gonna take costello huh i mean what's wrong with taking him on any one of the million felonies that you've seen him do or i've seen him do but the bottom line is that you have to have the evidence you have to have the information that supports what you're feeling we are building a case and it takes time you know that something's wrong i'm telling you something's wrong something is not right and he can't put his finger on it that is a clue for the other officers to to really support him and start asking those questions and start figuring it out yeah maybe counter-surveillance killing eve when looking at her skills she was on point she slows down so he could catch up she knew that he was following her and so she drew him in sometimes you get tunnel vision and you're not aware of your surroundings and you're not mindful of who could be following you or what that person actually can be doing [Music] he had no business going into that club it was just so populated so many people just dancing around and having a good time and then it's loud is that a good place to be the key thing is that you know the person that you're following you have some idea of who they are what they're capable of [Applause] and she was the victor at the end recording a conversation the conversation what do you think i always think that he was once somebody's baby boy we're his mother as father all his uncles now anyway surveillance fans they're not just a hollywood thing they are still being used to conduct surveillances gene hackman's character he was he was overdressed he could at least put on a jumpsuit that has the business identified on the jumpsuit you know you have to think about those things who's watching you when you're watching do you want to blend in as much as possible you don't want to stand out and he stood out about the second position it's not so good it is a possibility for you to hear a conversation from that far away they had all these different vantage points and they had different people in different places they're going to put all that together so you can hear what's what we heard or did we here informant law and order svu hypnosis doesn't make people do something they don't already want to do so if she kissed you she wanted to sounds like he's rationalizing the officers of the svu are using this informant to garner information from this target did you teach trust how to hypnotize people i taught him everything i know huh well you're willing to help us now the reason why law enforcement would get someone that's close to that subject and ask them to help because that target knows them very very well and they're going to drop their guard and they're going to be able to share information come on declan are you saying that you've used hypnosis to have sex it's not a big deal but the key thing is the person that law enforcement has asked to step up it's do they know how to do it when's the last time you did this [Music] and so like towards the end of that conversation he gave that guy a sada he's looking at him like are you recording me you have to be very very clear to them about how they should do it the kind of things they should say the things that they should not say in order to have a conversation with a target look deep into my eyes you're under arrest planning the heat well senator bullock is playing a fbi agent it appears that she is the team leader on the execution of this arrest and search she's just out of line she's not on the swat team so she's not going to be close to swat allow the the swap team to do what the swat team is there to do and get out of their way the place is clean ashburn looks like your theory has a few holes in it let's roll boys what's interesting about sandra bullock's character is that she is clearly someone that nobody wants to work with do you think it's clean huh oh here we go i know that as an agent a former agent i would not have wanted to work with her you know they loved these houses during the prohibition era people loved to drink it even though they weren't supposed to and these houses had all these little nooks and crannies where they could hide it like this one she could have easily said you know you want to look at this locate you want to look here she had that information before she got there that that's a possibility and so she could have shared that maybe these guys are are right for a change stranger things have happened right guys she knows what she's doing but she's full of herself and she's not a team player you don't want to be that agent where people don't want to work with you let's go conclusion you can tell when they have someone on staff or that's part of the team that they've got a law enforcement background that they're able to share what you can do and what what is real and what is not and what's going to fly and what's going to make sense

Channel: WIRED

Views: 385,296

Rating: 4.918601 out of 5

Keywords: technique critique, technique critique surveillance, technique critique wired, technique critique fbi, former fbi agent, fbi agent, fbi wired, fbi agent spy, spy, spycraft, fbi spy, spy fbi, spy fbi wired, fbi technique critique, fbi scenes movies, leo the departed reaction, fbi agent reacts, reaction fbi agent, fbi agent react, rhonda glover reese fbi, rhonda glover reese wired, rhonda glover reese fbi agent, ex spy, former spy, spy movies, wired fbi, wired

Id: BJcaLfen7y8

Length: 22min 4sec (1324 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 14 2020