UK Authorities Accused of Inciting Illegal Protest

jarran writes "Questions are being asked about the tactics being employed by UK authorities to monitor and control protest groups. Schnews reports on evidence that government IP addresses are posting messages to sites like indymedia, attempting to provoke activists into taking illegal direct action. Evidence has emerged recently that the police consider sex to be a legitimate tool for extracting information from targets, and senior police have been accused of lying to parliament about the deployment of undercover agents at protests."

Comments

Cost

[zmollusc]

The irksome part about the police using agents provocateur is that the police are always complaining that they have insufficient funds to police the streets. If the police can spare a man to infiltrate a bunch of hippies for a number of years, how many undercover police are there in all the more disruptive groups? The figure of £250,000 a year was mentioned as the cost of running one agent, which is infuriating to anyone who has been told that the police have insufficient resources to visit their house when it has been burgled.