OPSEC: Stealth Shopping

Stealth Shopping

One aspect of OPSEC is to be able to acquire your preps without others being aware that you have prepared. Fortunately, this has become easier over time. The first thing to understand is who you need to worry about, and who you don’t need to worry about. Much of the paranoia (that word again) in the prepper press seems to be concerned with some level of officialdom knowing you are a prepper and coming around to confiscate your food or other goods, just when you need them.

I’d love to have so much in the way of preps that anybody would care. Now if I bought a year’s supply of food for a whole group of people on a credit card and had it delivered in one large delivery, someone might take note, particularly if the powers that be (TPTB) actually think that folks who buy food in bulk are a cause for concern. However, in a grid down scenario, do you really think TPTB will be going back through old credit card purchases from folks in the People’s Republic of New Jersey looking for houses to raid? As paranoid as I am, I find it dubious that my local government would be that capable.

If they can’t get the power lines and fallen trees out of the street, (which they couldn’t post Hurricane Sandy) how are they going to get to one’s house to confiscate their stuff? In order to have the ability to do such seizures, government at the local level would need to contemplate such seizures in advance, identify their targets in advance, then make the seizures before anyone else used or got to the stuff. Even if they figured all that out, the trees and power lines across the road would still be in the way.

The more likely scenario is that your neighbors notice what you are doing, or someone in your family blabs about it, resulting in a problem of neighbors, and friends of neighbors, being aware that you have supplies, and they come looking for some “help” post-SHTF.

How to Avoid Anyone Outside the Family Noticing

Purchase in reasonable quantities, not in one fell swoop. That way you don’t wind up with a massive stack of boxes in your front yard drawing attention. In my case, I have been accumulating preps slowly over the past 10 years. Anything that is delivered is no more than a box or two. Stuff I bring home from a store myself, I unload inside the garage. You may have an occasional delivery at your home, but your neighbor, who is not a prepper, also has an occasional delivery at his home.

Thank you, Amazon! What’s to notice? Unless an object is really large, or unusual in some fashion, no one is likely to notice and when SHTF years later, nobody is going to remember that you had a cardboard box from Amazon on your porch a couple years prior.

Family Members You Want to Keep in the Dark

Keeping people outside the family unaware is relatively easy, with a little forethought. What about people inside the family? What if one of your kids can’t resist telling their friends absolutely everything? What if your spouse doesn’t really approve of your prepping, and starts to notice an accumulating supply of toilet paper? This is going to be a bit more challenging!

While I don’t recommend deceiving your family, I realize some may find it necessary. I haven’t told members of my MAG that they are in the MAG, but my immediate household is aware that I am a prepper. I am fortunate because my immediate household of four may not be preppers, but they do know I want our preparations kept quiet, and they respect that wish.

Interestingly, the problem of difficult family members was part of the first book of the 299 Days series. The hero of the story has a wife who doesn’t understand his desire to prep, and he winds up keeping her largely ignorant of what he is doing. In the story it is relatively easy because he has a cabin that is his planned BOL and the wife doesn’t like the cabin. Problem solved, . . . in that story.

Stealth

Most of us don’t have a dedicated BOL that is also a good storage location. We are working with whatever storage areas we have in our homes, basements, attics, spare closets, etc. You may find it easier than you realize to accumulate preps without creating problems. Just keep your storage areas minimally organized.

Don’t call your preps, “preps”. You have camping gear, a first aid kit, a gun safe, etc. If you don’t call attention to the fact that all these things are related, it is unlikely a non-prepper will make the connection.

Next, if you look in the typical attic or basement, you will find a bunch of cardboard boxes. To really know what is in the cardboard boxes, you need to look in each box. In the typical home those boxes are full of high school yearbooks, every toy Fisher-Price ever made, and other precious heirlooms. Use cardboard boxes for your storage.

Simply number the boxes and keep a list of what is in each numbered box. You will be quite organized without having an appearance of being any more organized than a typical home, i.e. not at all organized. No one is likely to notice that the box in the basement, labeled “Chardonnay”, actually has “17” written on it with a Sharpie and that it actually contains 25 pounds of white rice, especially if it is underneath a box of old high school yearbooks.

If you combine this technique with the very gradual acquisition of prep items, it is unlikely that a disapproving spouse, or a blabbing teenager, is going to blow your OPSEC. Ultimately, you may need to increase your storage, which is a problem, but people who live in a house for a long time seem to fill every nook and cranny. Address your storage needs by expanding storage when you need it. No one puts a shed in the backyard until the garage overflows. You may wish to expand your storage sooner than the typical homeowner. If you don’t call attention to it, will anyone notice?

Summary

Shop gradually. Nobody really cares about the fact you occasionally have a box delivered. Store inconspicuously in used cardboard boxes. Don’t use words like “preps”, or go overboard trying to convince others of the need to prep. Call things what they are, e.g. camping gear, firearms, etc. You can gradually accumulate what you desire without anyone noticing. When disaster strikes, those boxes will come in handy.