Traditionally, an
agent provocateur (
pluralPlural, commonly abbreviated pl., is a grammatical number, typically referring to more than one of the referent in the real world. In the English language, singular and plural are the only grammatical numbers.-English:...
:
agents provocateurs,
FrenchFrench is a Romance language globally spoken by about 65 million people as a first language , by 50 million as a second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired foreign language, with significant speakers in 57 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France,...
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 actEntrapment is the act of a law enforcement agent inducing a person to commit an offense which would be illegal and the person would otherwise have been unlikely to commit. In many jurisdictions, entrapment is a possible defense against criminal guilt....
. 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.
An agent provocateur may be a
policeA police service is a public force empowered to enforce the law and provide security through the legitimized use of force.The term is most commonly associated with police services of a state that are authorized to exercise the police power of that state within a defined legal or territorial area of...
officer or a secret agent of police who encourages suspects to carry out a
crimeCrime is the breach of one or more rules or laws for which some governing authority, via mechanisms such as police power, may 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.
Traditionally, an
agent provocateur (
pluralPlural, commonly abbreviated pl., is a grammatical number, typically referring to more than one of the referent in the real world. In the English language, singular and plural are the only grammatical numbers.-English:...
:
agents provocateurs,
FrenchFrench is a Romance language globally spoken by about 65 million people as a first language , by 50 million as a second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired foreign language, with significant speakers in 57 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France,...
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 actEntrapment is the act of a law enforcement agent inducing a person to commit an offense which would be illegal and the person would otherwise have been unlikely to commit. In many jurisdictions, entrapment is a possible defense against criminal guilt....
. 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.
Common usage
An agent provocateur may be a
policeA police service is a public force empowered to enforce the law and provide security through the legitimized use of force.The term is most commonly associated with police services of a state that are authorized to exercise the police power of that state within a defined legal or territorial area of...
officer or a secret agent of police who encourages suspects to carry out a
crimeCrime is the breach of one or more rules or laws for which some governing authority, via mechanisms such as police power, may 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 counter-productive or ineffective acts to foster public disdain—or provide a pretext for aggression against the opponent (see
Red-baitingRed-baiting is the act of accusing someone, or some group, of being "red" as in communist, socialist or, in a broader sense, significantly more leftist at their core than they may appear at the outset. The tactic is used mainly with the intention of discrediting the individual's or organization's...
).
Historically,
labor spiesLabor 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
ethicalEthics is a branch of philosophy which seeks to address questions about morality, such as what the fundamental semantic, ontological, and epistemic nature of ethics or morality is , how moral values should be determined , how a moral outcome can be achieved in specific situations , how moral...
and
legalLaw is a system of rules, usually enforced through a set of institutions. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a primary social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus ticket to trading on derivatives markets...
issues. In
common lawCommon law is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals , rather than through legislative statutes or executive action, and to corresponding legal systems that rely on precedential case law....
jurisdictions, the legal concept of
entrapmentEntrapment is the act of a law enforcement agent inducing a person to commit an offense which would be illegal and the person would otherwise have been unlikely to commit. In many jurisdictions, entrapment is a possible defense against criminal guilt....
may apply if the main impetus for the crime was the provocateur.
United States
In the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, the
COINTELPROCOINTELPRO was a series of covert, and often illegal, projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation aimed at investigating and disrupting dissident political organizations within the United States...
program of the
Federal Bureau of InvestigationThe 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 radical political groups in the U.S., such as the Black Panthers,
Ku Klux KlanKu Klux Klan , informally known as The Klan, is the name of several past and present hate group organizations in the United States whose avowed purpose was to protect the rights of and further the interests of white Americans by violence and intimidation. The first such organizations originated in...
, and the
Student Nonviolent Coordinating CommitteeThe 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 CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
police officers were accused of acting as agents provocateurs during
protests against the 2004 Republican National Convention2004 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 ConventionThe 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, Colorado,...
. This ultimately resulted in the accidental use of chemical agents against their own men.
Europe
Notorious were the activities of
agents provocateurs against revolutionaries in Imperial Russia.
Yevno AzefYevno Azef , was a Russian socialist revolutionary who was also a double agent working both as an organizer of assassinations for the Socialist-Revolutionary Party and a police spy for the Okhrana, the Imperial secret police...
is an example of such an agent provocateur.
It is alleged by British Liberal Democrat MP
Tom BrakeThomas Anthony Brake, known as Tom Brake, British politician. He is the Liberal Democrat 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 ProtestsThe 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.
Canada
Three protesters in
MontebelloMontebello 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...
, Canada during the
Security and Prosperity Partnership of North AmericaThe 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,...
were caught acting as police provocateurs on August 20, 2007, by Dave Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada. The entire incident was filmed and posted on
YouTubeYouTube is a video sharing website on which users can upload and share videos. Three former PayPal employees created YouTube in February 2005. In November 2006, YouTube, LLC was bought by Google Inc. for $1.65 billion, and is now operated as a subsidiary of Google...
before being picked up by mainstream media. The video shows three masked men, one of whom was armed with a large rock, being confronted by peaceful protesters. After the men breached the police line, they were brought to the ground, handcuffed, and taken away. Photographs revealed that their boot-tread matched that of the arresting officers. Although they at first denied that the individuals in question were agents provocateurs, the
Sûreté du QuébecThe Sûreté du Québec or SQ is Quebec's national police force of Quebec...
issued a news release on August 23 admitting that the three protesters were, in fact, police officers.
See also
- Entrapment
Entrapment is the act of a law enforcement agent inducing a person to commit an offense which would be illegal and the person would otherwise have been unlikely to commit. In many jurisdictions, entrapment is a possible defense against criminal guilt....
- Sting operation
In 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...
- Informant
An informant is someone who provides privileged information about a person or organization to an agency, usually law enforcement, without the consent of that person or organization....
- Grant Bristow
Grant 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 flag
False flag operations are covert operations conducted by governments, corporations, or other organizations which are 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...
terrorist actions
- Security culture
A security culture is a set of customs shared by a community whose members may engage in illegal or unwanted activities, the practice of which minimizes the risks of such activities. The term is usually used in the context of activist groups and movements, particularly ones that might be involved...
- Black Bloc
A black bloc is a tactic for protests and marches, whereby individuals wear black clothing, ski masks and motorcycle helmets with padding, steel-toed boots and often carrying their own shields and truncheons...
- COINTELPRO
COINTELPRO was a series of covert, and often illegal, projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation aimed at investigating and disrupting dissident political organizations within the United States...