Agent provocateur
Encyclopedia
Traditionally, an agent provocateur (plural
: agents provocateurs, French
for "inciting agent(s)") is a person employed by the police or other entity to act undercover to entice or provoke another person to commit an illegal act
. More generally, the term may refer to a person or group that seeks to discredit or harm another by provoking them to commit a wrong or rash action.
As a known tool to prevent infiltration by agents provocateurs, the organizers of large or controversial assemblies may deploy and coordinate demonstration marshals, also called stewards.
officer or a secret agent of police who encourages suspects to carry out a crime
under conditions where evidence can be obtained; or who suggests the commission of a crime to another, in hopes they will go along with the suggestion and be convicted of the crime.
A political organization or government may use agents provocateurs against political opponents. The provocateurs try to incite the opponent to do counter-productive or ineffective acts to foster public disdain—or provide a pretext for aggression against the opponent (see Red-baiting
).
Historically, labor spies
, hired to infiltrate, monitor, disrupt, or subvert union activities, have used agent provocateur tactics.
Agent provocateur activities raise ethical
and legal
issues. In common law
jurisdictions, the legal concept of entrapment
may apply if the main impetus for the crime was the provocateur.
" (1921–1926), the Soviet State Political Directorate
(OGPU) set up a fake anti-Bolshevik
underground organization, "Monarchist Union of Central Russia". The main success of this operation was luring Boris Savinkov
and Sidney Reilly
into the Soviet Union, where they were arrested and executed.
, the COINTELPRO
program of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
had FBI agents pose as political radicals to disrupt the activities of political groups in the U.S., such as the Black Panthers, Ku Klux Klan
, and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
.
New York City
police officers were accused of acting as agents provocateurs during protests against the 2004 Republican National Convention
in New York City.
Denver police officers were also found to have used undercover detectives to instigate violence against police during the 2008 Democratic National Convention
. This ultimately resulted in the use of pepper spray
against their own infiltrating agents.
NYPD undercover officers were allegedly filmed trying to incite violence during the 2011 Occupy Wall St protests.
Sir John Retcliffe
was an agent provocateur for the Prussia
n secret police
.
At the 2001 G8 summit in Genoa
, police and security services infiltrated black bloc
s with agents provocateurs. Allegations first surfaced after video footage in which "men in black were seen getting out of police vans near protest marches"
Francesco Cossiga
, former head of secret services
and Head of state of Italy, advised the 2008 minister in charge of the police, on how to deal with the protests from teachers and students:
It is alleged by British Liberal Democrat MP Tom Brake
that the Metropolitan Police made use of agents provocateurs during the G20 Protests
in London.
After the 2011 anti-cuts protest in London, a video filmed by the BBC
was distributed throughout the internet, which might show an alleged agent provocateur being passed through police lines after displaying his identification to the officers. There are other explanations however, such as the man being a member of press.
in Montebello
, three protesters were accused of being police provocateurs by Dave Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada. The three masked protesters, one of whom was notably armed with a large rock, were asked to leave by protest organizers. After the three protesters breached the police line, they were brought to the ground, handcuffed, and taken away. The evidence that the arrested people were police provocateurs was circumstantial, including the fact that they were wearing boots identical to those worn by police.
After the protest, the police force initially denied then later admitted that three of their officers disguised themselves as demonstrators; however, they denied that the officers were provoking the crowd and instigating violence. The police released a news release in French where they stated "At no time did the police of the Sûreté du Québec act as instigators or commit criminal acts," "It is not in the police force's policies, nor in its strategies, to act in that manner." "At all times, they responded within their mandate to keep order and security."
Plural
In linguistics, plurality or [a] plural is a concept of quantity representing a value of more-than-one. Typically applied to nouns, a plural word or marker is used to distinguish a value other than the default quantity of a noun, which is typically one...
: agents provocateurs, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
for "inciting agent(s)") is a person employed by the police or other entity to act undercover to entice or provoke another person to commit an illegal act
Entrapment
In criminal law, entrapment is conduct by a law enforcement agent inducing a person to commit an offense that the person would otherwise have been unlikely to commit. In many jurisdictions, entrapment is a possible defense against criminal liability...
. More generally, the term may refer to a person or group that seeks to discredit or harm another by provoking them to commit a wrong or rash action.
As a known tool to prevent infiltration by agents provocateurs, the organizers of large or controversial assemblies may deploy and coordinate demonstration marshals, also called stewards.
Common usage
An agent provocateur may be a policePolice
The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...
officer or a secret agent of police who encourages suspects to carry out a crime
Crime
Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...
under conditions where evidence can be obtained; or who suggests the commission of a crime to another, in hopes they will go along with the suggestion and be convicted of the crime.
A political organization or government may use agents provocateurs against political opponents. The provocateurs try to incite the opponent to do counter-productive or ineffective acts to foster public disdain—or provide a pretext for aggression against the opponent (see Red-baiting
Red-baiting
Red-baiting is the act of accusing, denouncing, attacking or persecuting an individual or group as communist, socialist, or anarchist, or sympathetic toward communism, socialism, or anarchism. The word "red" in "red-baiting" is derived from the red flag signifying radical left-wing politics. In the...
).
Historically, labor spies
Labor spies
Labor spies are persons recruited or employed for the purpose of gathering intelligence, committing sabotage, sowing dissent, or engaging in other similar activities, typically within the context of an employer/labor organization relationship....
, hired to infiltrate, monitor, disrupt, or subvert union activities, have used agent provocateur tactics.
Agent provocateur activities raise ethical
Ethics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
and legal
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
issues. In common law
Common law
Common law is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals rather than through legislative statutes or executive branch action...
jurisdictions, the legal concept of entrapment
Entrapment
In criminal law, entrapment is conduct by a law enforcement agent inducing a person to commit an offense that the person would otherwise have been unlikely to commit. In many jurisdictions, entrapment is a possible defense against criminal liability...
may apply if the main impetus for the crime was the provocateur.
Russia
In the "Trust OperationTrust Operation
Operation Trust was a counterintelligence operation of the State Political Directorate of the Soviet Union. The operation, which ran from 1921-1926, set up a fake anti-Bolshevik underground organization, "Monarchist Union of Central Russia", MUCR , in order to help the OGPU identify real...
" (1921–1926), the Soviet State Political Directorate
State Political Directorate
The State Political Directorate was the secret police of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1934...
(OGPU) set up a fake anti-Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
underground organization, "Monarchist Union of Central Russia". The main success of this operation was luring Boris Savinkov
Boris Savinkov
Boris Viktorovich Savinkov was a Russian writer and revolutionary terrorist...
and Sidney Reilly
Sidney Reilly
Lieutenant Sidney George Reilly, MC , famously known as the Ace of Spies, was a Jewish Russian-born adventurer and secret agent employed by Scotland Yard, the British Secret Service Bureau and later the Secret Intelligence Service . He is alleged to have spied for at least four nations...
into the Soviet Union, where they were arrested and executed.
United States
In the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, the COINTELPRO
COINTELPRO
COINTELPRO was a series of covert, and often illegal, projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic political organizations.COINTELPRO tactics included discrediting targets through psychological...
program of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
had FBI agents pose as political radicals to disrupt the activities of political groups in the U.S., such as the Black Panthers, Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
, and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee ' was one of the principal organizations of the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. It emerged from a series of student meetings led by Ella Baker held at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina in April 1960...
.
New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
police officers were accused of acting as agents provocateurs during protests against the 2004 Republican National Convention
2004 Republican National Convention protest activity
2004 Republican National Convention protest activity includes the broad range of marches, rallies, performances, demonstrations, exhibits, and acts of civil disobedience in New York City to protest the 2004 Republican National Convention and the nomination of President George W. Bush for the 2004 U.S...
in New York City.
Denver police officers were also found to have used undercover detectives to instigate violence against police during the 2008 Democratic National Convention
2008 Democratic National Convention
The United States 2008 Democratic National Convention was a quadrennial presidential nominating convention of the Democratic Party where it adopted its national platform and officially nominated its candidates for President and Vice President of the United States. The convention was held in Denver,...
. This ultimately resulted in the use of pepper spray
Pepper spray
Pepper spray, also known as OC spray , OC gas, and capsicum spray, is a lachrymatory agent that is used in riot control, crowd control and personal self-defense, including defense against dogs and bears...
against their own infiltrating agents.
NYPD undercover officers were allegedly filmed trying to incite violence during the 2011 Occupy Wall St protests.
Europe
Notorious were the activities of agents provocateurs against revolutionaries in Imperial Russia. Yevno Azef and Father Gapon are examples of such provocateurs.Sir John Retcliffe
Sir John Retcliffe
Sir John Retcliffe was the pseudonym of the German writer Herrmann Ottomar Friedrich Goedsche primarily remembered for his antisemitism and the extent to which his fiction indirectly contributed to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.-Life and work:Goedsche was born in Trachenberg, Silesia, then...
was an agent provocateur for the Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
n secret police
Secret police
Secret police are a police agency which operates in secrecy and beyond the law to protect the political power of an individual dictator or an authoritarian political regime....
.
At the 2001 G8 summit in Genoa
27th G8 summit
-Overview:The Group of Seven was an unofficial forum which brought together the heads of the richest industrialized countries: France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada starting in 1976. The G8, meeting for the first time in 1997, was formed with the addition...
, police and security services infiltrated black bloc
Black bloc
A black bloc is a tactic for protests and marches, whereby individuals wear black clothing, scarves, ski masks, motorcycle helmets with padding, or other face-concealing items...
s with agents provocateurs. Allegations first surfaced after video footage in which "men in black were seen getting out of police vans near protest marches"
Francesco Cossiga
Francesco Cossiga
Francesco Cossiga was an Italian politician, the 43rd Prime Minister and the eighth President of the Italian Republic. He was also a professor of constitutional law at the University of Sassari....
, former head of secret services
Italian Minister of the Interior
This is a list of Italian Ministers of the Interior since 1861.-Kingdom of Italy:-Italian Republic:...
and Head of state of Italy, advised the 2008 minister in charge of the police, on how to deal with the protests from teachers and students:
He should do what I did when I was Minister of the Interior. [...] infiltrate the movement with agents provocateurs inclined to do anything [...] And after that, with the strength of the gained population consent, [...] beat them for blood and beat for blood also those teachers that incite them. Especially the teachers. Not the elderly, of course, but the girl teachers yes.
It is alleged by British Liberal Democrat MP Tom Brake
Tom Brake
Thomas Anthony Brake, known as Tom Brake, British Liberal Democrat politician. He is the Member of Parliament for Carshalton and Wallington.-Early life:Tom Brake was born in Melton Mowbray, moving to France when he was eight...
that the Metropolitan Police made use of agents provocateurs during the G20 Protests
2009 G-20 London summit protests
The 2009 G-20 London summit protests occurred in the days around the G-20 summit on 2 April 2009, which was the focus of protests from a number of groups over various long-standing and topical issues...
in London.
After the 2011 anti-cuts protest in London, a video filmed by the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
was distributed throughout the internet, which might show an alleged agent provocateur being passed through police lines after displaying his identification to the officers. There are other explanations however, such as the man being a member of press.
Canada
On August 20, 2007, during meetings of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North AmericaSecurity and Prosperity Partnership of North America
The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America was a region-level dialogue with the stated purpose of providing greater cooperation on security and economic issues. The Partnership was founded in Waco, Texas on March 23, 2005 by Paul Martin, Prime Minister of Canada, Vicente Fox,...
in Montebello
Montebello, Quebec
Montebello is a municipality located in the Papineau Regional County Municipality of Western Quebec . As of the 2001 census, there were 1,039 permanent residents. The village has a total area of , and is located at the eastern edge of Canada's National Capital Region.The village is world famous for...
, three protesters were accused of being police provocateurs by Dave Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada. The three masked protesters, one of whom was notably armed with a large rock, were asked to leave by protest organizers. After the three protesters breached the police line, they were brought to the ground, handcuffed, and taken away. The evidence that the arrested people were police provocateurs was circumstantial, including the fact that they were wearing boots identical to those worn by police.
After the protest, the police force initially denied then later admitted that three of their officers disguised themselves as demonstrators; however, they denied that the officers were provoking the crowd and instigating violence. The police released a news release in French where they stated "At no time did the police of the Sûreté du Québec act as instigators or commit criminal acts," "It is not in the police force's policies, nor in its strategies, to act in that manner." "At all times, they responded within their mandate to keep order and security."
See also
- AstroturfingAstroturfingAstroturfing is a form of advocacy in support of a political, organizational, or corporate agenda, designed to give the appearance of a "grassroots" movement. The goal of such campaigns is to disguise the efforts of a political and/or commercial entity as an independent public reaction to some...
- EntrapmentEntrapmentIn criminal law, entrapment is conduct by a law enforcement agent inducing a person to commit an offense that the person would otherwise have been unlikely to commit. In many jurisdictions, entrapment is a possible defense against criminal liability...
- Sting operationSting operationIn law enforcement, a sting operation is a deceptive operation designed to catch a person committing a crime. A typical sting will have a law-enforcement officer or cooperative member of the public play a role as criminal partner or potential victim and go along with a suspect's actions to gather...
- InformantInformantAn informant is a person who provides privileged information about a person or organization to an agency. The term is usually used within the law enforcement world, where they are officially known as confidential or criminal informants , and can often refer pejoratively to the supply of information...
- Grant BristowGrant BristowGrant Bristow was a mole for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service working inside the Heritage Front for six years, who was exposed by Toronto Sun reporter Bill Dunphy in August 1994...
- False flagFalse flagFalse flag operations are covert operations designed to deceive the public in such a way that the operations appear as though they are being carried out by other entities. The name is derived from the military concept of flying false colors; that is flying the flag of a country other than one's own...
terrorist actions - Security cultureSecurity cultureA security culture is a set of customs shared by a community whose members may engage in illegal or sensitive activities, the practice of which minimizes the risks of such activities being subverted, or targeted for sabotage...
- Black BlocBlack blocA black bloc is a tactic for protests and marches, whereby individuals wear black clothing, scarves, ski masks, motorcycle helmets with padding, or other face-concealing items...
- COINTELPROCOINTELPROCOINTELPRO was a series of covert, and often illegal, projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic political organizations.COINTELPRO tactics included discrediting targets through psychological...