WWAIL - World Week for Animals in Laboratories

The week that surrounds April 24th is designated WWAIL. This is a week used by many animal rights groups as their main thrust against research.

Although there are many responsible activists out there, unfortunately there are the few that feel like the only way to get what they want is through harassment, destruction of property and even more sinister methods.

Regardless of any personal beliefs or preferences, security professionals who are responsible for research, logistics or information that could be targeted by these activists must be prepared.
More often than not, I've found that the security representatives I come across are fully in support of responsible esearch, and have absolutely no reservations being part of it. But, it never ceases to amaze me how easily it is for someone to get themselves close to animal research, with ill intentions as their motivation. I've checked on contract security
officers in the middle of the night only to find them with serious conflicts of interest rattling around in their head, as they are responsible for protecting animal research.

Security Officers, Lab Techs, Environmental Services:
These tend to be high turnover positions that are difficult to keep staffed with quality employees. It's hard enough for contract
and in house security managers to effectively screen for possible problems, let alone managers who have little interest in security (Lab Techs, Environmental Services). Often times, just reminding security managers to check on their officers is sufficient to get the ball rolling, but it's much more difficult for non-security roles. Of course - for any position it's best to screen for this kind on thing on the head end, and it's a good idea to build the process into hiring and training of new employees. But once this is in place for non-security fields, it's often neglected over time and rarely checked up on. One good angle is to train managers to key in on "red flags". Undercover operatives tend to overstep their skills once they are in place for a little while and they try to get people to make incriminating statements on video. Training managers to spot this kind of thing is always a huge plus. A few years back I saw PETA insert an undercover operative in a lab at UNC as a Lab Tech. She had clear, color video with sound of activity in the lab.

Maintenance (Electricians, Mechanics), Research assistants, some researchers:
These positions have less turnover, but usually have more freedom and less supervision. Although mechanics and electricians have usually been around for awhile, few people have more unrestricted access to valuable targets - and that fact alone is worth a close look. Have you ever seen an electricians who has 15 years with the company questioned about anything they do? Research assistants and even researchers may be involved or part of a flank research project that is not involved in animal research and be in a key position to get information or gain access.

Students:
Talk about a headache. In educational institutions, security professionals can have control and influence over many things, but the
students are definitely not one of them. Try asking a professor to screen students before they are allowed to work with animals - it just won't happen. However, most educational institutions have internal groups who are responsible for all the animal husbandry, logistics and processing that has the ear of some administrators. They can be the most effective champions of plans to run students through basic screening before they are allowed around animals.

My point in all this is to stress how important internal security methods are in addition to physical security. You can have all the locks, cameras, card readers and alarm systems you want but if your own people are part of the problem, all that expensive equipment is usually worthless.