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UK Authorities Accused of Inciting Illegal Protest

Posted by samzenpus on from the stirring-the-pot dept.

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."

32 of 371 comments (clear)

  1. Wait, Sex with Activists? by TinBromide · · Score: 4, Funny

    Sign me up! I mean, I'm an activist with information relevant to the UK Police's Interests! Really!... Just don't send the guy in the article my way, he's really creepy...

    --
    Is it sad that I am more likely to recognize you and your posts by your sig than your name or UID?
    1. Re:Wait, Sex with Activists? by SharpFang · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yea, we lock you up with Bubba here, and he'll be having sex with you until you're ready to reveal all the information.

      --
      45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
    2. Re:Wait, Sex with Activists? by davester666 · · Score: 5, Funny

      It's the American way!

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    3. Re:Wait, Sex with Activists? by h4rm0ny · · Score: 3, Informative

      Note that if you read TFAs, the police were using sex to infiltrate "anti-racist groups". Oh the humanity!

      And as to trying to provoke illegal behaviour, everybody knows (or should know) that the Met (London Metropolitan Police Force) do this. A reporter from the Guardian a few years back actually caught a policeman undercover showing some protestors how to unhook the police barriers and trying to get others to charge the police. And a Member of Parliament last year states that he saw two undercover police officers trying to lead people into throwing bottles at the police link. These are just the ones that are in the mainstream news. You have to ask yourself how it is that in a protest of hundreds of thousands of people, sometimes over a million, where over the course of an entire day there are perhaps three or four notable incidents of vandalism, it is that a few press photographers are always in the right place and time to grab the pictures of a few balaclaved men kicking in the windows of a McDonalds or somesuch. The intelligence services in the UK even infiltrated the Green Party. Note to Americans, the Green Parties in Europe are not the equivalent of those in the US. The UK Greens have an MP elected and do reasonably well at the council level, and in Germany and others, they're respectable groups. But in the UK, legitimate parties are fair game for undercover infiltration / subversion.

      If you want to see some despicable behaviour, witness the police dragging a disabled man out of his wheel chair at a recent protest. Really - it's worth watching the BBC interview with the victim. Note the police claim that he was rolling toward them threateningly. The guy can't even move his wheels on his own.

      But that people in the UK have been paid to lie their way into sex with unsuspecting people, usually pretty young people at that, seems there's nothing the UK authorities wont sink to.

      --

      Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
  2. It should make stuff legal... by rastilin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Here's a new rule. If the police tell you to do it, whatever you were told to do is now legal. That will rapidly put a stop to this kind of underhanded stuff. Also, weren't there all these laws in European countries regarding lying about your identity when you're sleeping around; or does that also just not apply when the police do it?

    --
    How do you kill that which has no life?
    1. Re:It should make stuff legal... by superdave80 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actually, the police officer that made the post is now part of a conspiracy to commit a crime. No need to even come up with new laws to properly convict these idiot police.

    2. Re:It should make stuff legal... by RsG · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Nah, that just exposes all new loopholes.

      A better option is this: If a cop instructs or incites illegal action, that officer is potentially an accomplice/co-conspirator and the department they work for is liable. Note "instructs/incites" would only count when the officer was A) acting in his or her professional capacity, since otherwise they're just another civilian breaking the law on their own time and B) actually started something instead of going along with other criminal elements as part of their cover. This would mean that the victims of riots instigated by undercover cops would be able to sue the department.

      So Officer Bob working for the EXPD posing undercover as an anarchist throws the first stone during a protest, which then sparks a riot. Under these changed rules, the shopkeeper whose window was smashed or the insurance company of the car that was set on fire has a surefire lawsuit against the EXPD, who of course wise up and tell all of Officer Bob's coworkers to never, ever pull this kind of crap again. Ol' Bob himself is, of course, given his pink slip, and might face charges if the local prosecutor has the stones.

      Plus, added bonus, the actual victims of the riot get compensation - and by "actual victims" I mean the folks who caught in the crossfire, whose homes, neighbourhoods or places of business were turned into a warzone by overzealous cops and the violent assholes who enjoy rioting.

      --
      Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
    3. Re:It should make stuff legal... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "Rape by deception" laws, i.e. if you misrepresent yourself to get sex, you've committed a crime, would put every single liar looking to get laid on the wrong side of the law. While that isn't necessarily a bad idea, I happen to disagree with any law that makes most of the population into instant criminals, especially if it's only prosecuted selectively.

    4. Re:It should make stuff legal... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Wouldn't help anyway, it's .gov IP addresses involved, not police force addresses. The police can access the network in question, but they can't proxy through it (and would be stupid to do so when public proxies are available).

      The police are government funded, but otherwise independent - at least in theory. The idea is similar to the separation of the executive and judicial branches in the US - if the police were functionally a part of the government, they would have their hands tied trying to investigate breaches of law involving government officials, and would be in a position where .gov could force them to reveal information on investigations that would compromise those same investigations.

      Obviously there are problems in that structure, but any policing structure is inherently a compromise.

      Worth remembering that governments (and police) are made up of people, and sometimes the views of those people will run contrary to the organisation. The posts could be from an agent provocateur, but could just as easily be from a temp or secretary who actually holds those views, and didn't realise a posts source could be tracked. Slashdot of all places should know how clueless general internet users can be - that they might work in a government post doesn't automatically negate that.

    5. Re:It should make stuff legal... by Dunbal · · Score: 3, Insightful

      it should be legal for you because the police officer is an authority figure

            Dude you are just begging for Godwin's law to be invoked for this comment.

            This "excuse" didn't work at the Nuremberg trials. Why should it work today?

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    6. Re:It should make stuff legal... by jhoegl · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Because its 60 years later?

    7. Re:It should make stuff legal... by Vectormatic · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Obama isnt your direct superior, if he wanted to order you to kill someone, you would have to be in the armed forces, or he would have to pass some kind of law. If Obama comes to your door and says 'do X', and you don't, you dont get in trouble. If the a policeman does the same, you get to spend the night in jail for not complying.

      I agree with your 'good reason to trust' argument though, and killing someone obviously doesnt work in this situation, but i bet there are plenty of "damned if you do, damned if you dont" situations

      --
      People, what a bunch of bastards
    8. Re:It should make stuff legal... by jimicus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Technically, that may be true, but the police (and, for that matter, most people employed in the public sector) in the UK have developed a remarkable way of avoiding criminal liability for these things.

      It works something like this: If one person does something illegal, that will be prosecuted within the law. OK?

      If a whole bunch of people are involved in something illegal as part of their job, and those people are employed in the public sector, that is never a crime. It is - at most - a "concern" which may result in an investigation, a report, and maybe even a full-blown inquiry. At no point will any individual (or, for that matter, group of individuals) be singled out for punishment. The most they can expect is some harsh criticism in the resulting report, but that criticism will in no way harm their career.

    9. Re:It should make stuff legal... by PseudonymousBraveguy · · Score: 5, Informative

      If the police tell you to do something, it should be legal for you because the police officer is an authority figure relative to you. That doesn't mean that the officer wouldn't go to jail for giving the order.

      In a similar fashion, if a police captain orders an officer to kill someone illegally, then the captain should go to jail, not the officer (unless the officer should have had reason to reject the order).

      My country had a mandatory military service, so I've been a soldier for some time. As soldiers, we were legally obliged to deny direct orders if they were unlawful. So even if we were ordered by military authority, we'd go in jail for shooting some random civilian (the one who gave the order would probably be jailed, too). And that is a GOOD thing, because it requires the soldiers to keep thinking about their own actions. And it's the same for civilians. If you do something illegal, you are responsible for that action. If somebody else told you to do so, he may be held responsible too, but that does not change the fact that you are responsible for your own actions.

    10. Re:It should make stuff legal... by sumdumass · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If the police tell you to do something, it should be legal for you because the police officer is an authority figure relative to you.

      This is only true insomuch as you know the person is the police at the time of the order and that they were working within their official capacity.

      Everyone knows there are things the cops can't make you do. For instance, they can't pull you over for speeding and make you rape the next person that passes by. That's just obviously ludicrous. But here, we are expected to believe that someone entered a public forum as a disguised person and stirred the emotions in an attempt to promote illicit behavior.

      This being the internet as the public forum, but in almost any other situation like a real live in person protest or when speaking to a crowd in the town square, if you did the same, you would be up on charges of inciting a riot (at least in the US) or the equivalent. You could possibly get conspiracy charges. These officers should be held accountable to the same standards as anyone else in that situation, and if it's found that it was ordered by their superiors, then they should face it too.

      Notice how I didn't say instead? I'll get to why in a moment.

      In a similar fashion, if a police captain orders an officer to kill someone illegally, then the captain should go to jail, not the officer (unless the officer should have had reason to reject the order).

      No, it should be the officer_and_the Captain. You see, in free societies, you are typically responsible for your own actions no matter who made you do it. There are a couple of defenses surrounding necessity but for the most part, if you do something illegal, you could be charged with that crime unless some other rule of law preempts it (self defense, the defense of another life and so on are typically enough to get all charged dropped and they are a form of necessity).

      Anyways, Lets say I'm next in line to be captain, if I wasn't responsible for my own actions, then I could just kill someone and say the captain told me to. Get a fellow officer to back me up by promising a promotion and raise and it's the word of two police officers who are apparently spilling their guts against his commander who is denying anything except for someone was killed. But if I'm still responsible for my own actions, then I can save a life by not killing the guy in the first place because I don't want to sit in the same prisons I put people in.

      This is why someone who incited illegal behavior, be it a riot, any action that causes the death of someone or whatever, should not be the sole carrier of the punishment. The act, whatever it was, could only succeed if people are willing to participate and they will be a lot more willing to participate if what amounts to an "he made me do it, go after him instead" defense is set into law. Keep all parties responsible to their own actions. And take the police of any public authority that encourages, enables, promote, incites, or does anything outside of normal every day duties to aid or encourage illegal behavior, and make it a felony or worse crime.

      There is no need for the people who are supposed to be making us safe, to attempt to make us unsafe in their line of work. They will argue that it's necessary to see who the trouble makers are and get them under control early before there is trouble. In the states, we call this behavior entrapment and it pretty much invalidates the arrests as well as leaves openings for civil suits.

    11. Re:It should make stuff legal... by jimicus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      How do you deal with that when your bosses at the top level ship you to somewhere like Afghanistan or Iraq where there's virtually no visible difference between soldiers and civilians?

    12. Re:It should make stuff legal... by HBI · · Score: 5, Informative

      I am not a soldier either, though I play one on TV. I've been under fire in Iraq. Soldiers, in practice, can't refuse orders. It's not a conspiracy: it's just that no one gives an order that is prima facie illegal. Therefore, if the soldier perceives it as such, there will be disciplinary action and it's unlikely that the situation will be unwound for 2-5 years. During which time, said soldier probably spent some serious military prison time as well as every waking moment defending against charges. Soldiers know this; they are unwilling to disobey orders for this reason.

      --
      HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
    13. Re:It should make stuff legal... by arth1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No, it doesn't seem reasonable. It would give the police a tool that's way too powerful, and the potential for abuse is horrifying. If you can't think of situations where the civilians involved are too ashamed or frightened to mention what happened to anyone, or situations where the copper says "you do this to him, or I'll have him do it to you", you need a red pill.
      In a way, it would be like turning the police into Abu Graib prison guards, and all the rest of us into prisoners.

      The coppers don't need more ways to abuse their authority than they already have.

  3. the word you're looking for is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Agent provocateur

  4. All according to the guiding principles of Ingsoc. by arcsimm · · Score: 4, Insightful

    War is Peace! Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength!

  5. Re:A bit slanted by MichaelSmith · · Score: 5, Funny

    If its about that guy who was embedded in UK environmental organisations then I don't think he had to be having sex to be involved. Either that or I never got invited to the right demonstrations.

    --
    http://michaelsmith.id.au
  6. so... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So it's part of their job to have sex? as in, they are getting paid to have sex? I wish there was a name for that...

  7. Old old news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Fact is, the police have been at this game since Victorian times,

    My father, being an old communist, used to tell tales of the 'strange' characters that tried to infiltrate the local party, forgetting that this is a small town and that your history, and that of your family, were easily found out, and, if not, you were suspect.

    Best laugh, one character turned down by the party on the grounds of 'known police informer', the next week joined the SNP, worked his way right in there as well, pity no-one from the SNP asked any of his neighbours about him and his background, you know, pertinant things like him being a member of the Orange order and a unionist...

    Know for a fact, Dundee Uni vegetarian society in the mid '80s was infiltrated by the plods, and if I was a member of any animal rights group in the UK I'd want to do a deep background check on some of my fellow members...

    A final parting note, at a Reading festival, was approached by a rather suspect character wanting to know if I had any acid for sale, next day, same character wanted to know if I wanted to buy any drugs..now, I'm not suggesting for a moment that as the number of arrests for possession on day 1 were too low this was a.plod selling stuff so that a.n.other.plod could then arrest the poor sap who bought it, but...

    Being fair to the plods, this infiltration mularkey works both ways..

    1. Re:Old old news... by 91degrees · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Well, a lot of organiations don't have a problem with police infiltrators. Their politics may be extreme but many of them stay well within the law. A police informant has a lot more time to spend helping with the campaigning because he doesn't have the inconvenience of needing to find a job to supprt himself. They have a full-timer paid for by the police.

  8. Cost by zmollusc · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
  9. It's been done (and exposed) in Canada recently by seyyah · · Score: 4, Informative

    See video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St1-WTc1kow

  10. Re:A bit slanted by Vectormatic · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Do you not agree that the women involved are allowed to feel lied to and betrayed?

    sure, but if lying to get laid is a crime, you might as well lock up every male on the planet..

    --
    People, what a bunch of bastards
  11. historical ref: camden28 by jdogalt · · Score: 4, Interesting

    For those of you unfamiliar with the 'Camden 28', a good example of a US Agent Provocateur can be found in this story-

    camden28.org (film shown on PBS independent lens from time to time)

    "
    In the early-morning hours of Sunday, August 22, 1971, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and Attorney General John Mitchell announced that FBI agents had arrested 20 antiwar activists in and near a draft board office in Camden, New Jersey. ...

    They also asked the jury to acquit on the grounds that the raid would not have taken place without the help of a self-admitted FBI informer and provocateur. The defendants emphasized that they had given up their plan, for lack of a practical means, until the informer-provocateur had resurrected it and provided them with the encouragement and tools to carry it out.
    "

  12. Death or Unga-bunga! by Chas · · Score: 4, Funny

    Two explorers stumble upon a primitive tribe and somehow manage to offend them.

    They're taken before the chief and he gives them the choice of death or "unga-bunga".

    The first chooses unga-bunga. He is promptly raped by all the men in the tribe.

    When given his choice, the second chooses death.

    The chief smiles and pronounces sentence "Death by unga-bunga!"

    --


    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!
  13. Bunch of sexists by michelcolman · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The article says that both male and female officers engaged in the practice, but public outcry is only about those poor women who were taken advantage of. What about the men? It's ok to take advantage of them? Their feelings don't get hurt?

    1. Re:Bunch of sexists by BetterSense · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Men don't have feelings, and women are always victims. Men are always perpetrators and aggressors and have no emotions, no emotional needs, and of course cannot be harmed emotionally. If you were properly socialized you would have absorbed this dogma by now.

      Examples:

      Woman sees man undressed in his own home: man gets arrested for indecent exposure (woman is the victim)
      Man sees woman undressed in her own home: man gets arrested for voyeurism (woman is the victim)
      Woman (of age) has sex with her father: man gets arrested for incest (woman is the victim)
      Man emotionally baits woman by appealing to her basic emotional needs then uses that emotional leverage to get money:Woman is being exploited
      Woman emotionally baits man by appealing to his basic emotional needs then uses that emotional leverage to get money:Woman is being exploited
      Female baby has genital parts removed by parents for cosmetic/tradition/superstition reasons: Illegal, woman is considered mutilated and worthy of sympathy (victim)
      Male baby has genital parts removed by parents for cosmetic/tradition/superstition reasons: Legal and encouraged, he should be like it, or at least live with it, and certainly not insinuate he has been harmed in any way.

      I suggest you work on understanding this type of 'equality', and learn to absorb it and perpetuate it. Arguing for the rights of men or for their emotional needs to be protected or for them to have equal social protections and legal standings is not something that will make you popular in our society. Men are not encouraged to think freely or to question this system of equality.

  14. Lousy socialists... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 3, Funny

    It's just like we've been warning them for years: socialism leads to dependence on the government so severe that even anti-government protestors sit around on their asses waiting for an agent provocateur to provide them with a suitably illegal protest plan. Pathetic.

    Here in the good old land of yankee ingenuity, we just outlaw whatever internal sedition our plucky can-do citizens manage on their own, and then beat the shit out of it. If the supply proves insufficient, we ensure full employment for Our Heroes by surveilling those terrifying pacifist quakers(they might put the "fist" in "pacificist" at any moment, you can't be too careful) and the occasional pothead(Morally depraved, and responsible for 85% of Cheeto shoplifting incidents...).