A man arrived on a Thursday evening by plane with a young woman and checked into a pension close to the city’s downtown core.¹ An hour later, they exited the pension, walked through the historic district, and returned. The team set up surveillance again by 8 am on Monday morning, but neither of the couple left the pension until 7 pm. The team divided into two shifts lest the monotony of sitting in a car and a café across the street wear down their concentration. Brian, a member of the team, also enlisted the support of the family owners of the pension, who also managed the establishment. Throughout the week, they would always call if either of the two individuals passed through the lobby. This happened rarely before 7 pm. This situation made it difficult to gather some information about the man’s activities before they left. Since they stayed in a pension, rather than an apartment, the team surmised that they would not stay in the country for too long, especially if the man’s base of operations was in Denmark. He did not appear to be meeting anyone and, so, the value of whatever information might be found in the pension room increased considerably.

Therefore, the team had to make a decision: either they request a judge’s warrant authorizing them to search the room, or they simply search it without a warrant. The former option could not even be seriously considered given the tight frame they faced compared to the length of time it takes a judge to issue a warrant. They chose the latter option. David and Max approached the pension owners and asked for them to let them into the room. The owners obliged without hesitation, and even with some amount of giddiness and excitement. The young adult son even bragged that this was the second time a police team had requested his help in this regard.

In the small room, Max videorecorded with his smartphone items on an end table and in a handbag that included a credit card. He then flipped through a wallet. David carefully searched a suitcase that contained an iPad, but he left it alone. Max flipped through a daily planner, but saw nothing of interest. David then found an official letter from his government’s immigration service and showed it to Max, who videorecorded it as well. Max then found an old cell phone that had been left on. He videorecorded all of the contact information in the incoming/outgoing calls menu. He was not able to access the phone’s contact list. The manager and a cleaning lady assisted David and Max in whatever small way they could: they pointed to a bathroom, they helped put things back in their original place, they nodded in different directions to make sure David and Max checked everything possible. The work was done in fifteen minutes. All four double-checked to ensure everything was put back exactly where it was left. They casually exited the room and made their way down to the staircase to the lobby, chatting the whole time as if they were old friends. After we left, David explains that the manager was “happy to help. People help us all the time. People’s lives are boring. He’ll be able to brag to his girlfriend. They teach us about this stuff in the training courses.”

Brian had been following the man and woman during the illegal search. His job was to phone David and Max if they were to start walking back in the direction of the pension. When we all reconvene in the car across the street, Brian addresses my question about how the state prosecutor, who is responsible for the case, can possibly find useful information that they had just obtained illegally. He explains that they give useful information to the prosecutor, who does not always need to know how it was obtained and who does not always bother to ask. Crucial consequences hang on the two categories of information they obtain. “Evidence” is any information that is admissible in a court trial of an indicted suspect. In differs from “intelligence,” which is information that police use to advance an investigation. Intelligence is not admissible in court for two reasons. First, it is often too vague to help make a case for or against a defendant. Second, more germane to this chapter, the methods by which it is obtained do not qualify it to be admitted in court. The legal protection of evidence is designed to protect defendants from cases fabricated against them. It also protects peoples’ privacy and abusive police practices that can occur when police are looking for evidence. Thus, while most intelligence is gathered legally, some of it can only be acquired through quasi-legal means at best or illegal means at worst.

This chapter is part of a larger four-year project that studies an undercover police investigative team. The project examines three particular aspects of their work. First, it addresses the modes and conditions in which the team makes ethical judgments while conducting their street work. Many of those judgments take place in the “gray zone,” or that space in the margins of the law and beyond. Second, it compares the form of sovereign action they undertake in that gray zone against the form of action taken in the context of traditional nation-state sovereignty. Third, it examines the interface between transnational criminal networks and the security state to better conceptualize the way in which state sovereignty is effected in the contemporary moment.