Speaking from my personal experience with plainclothes/undercover agents, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were being really obvious about it. When I visited the USA last Christmas, I had an air marshal overtly following me on my domestic flights. I don’t know if he was even trying to blend in. If I hadn’t been expecting it, I would have gone to airport security and reported the creepy guy who followed my young daughter and me to the bathroom.

Agreed in the sense that people are not getting arrested en masse for photographing police officers.

I’m even willing to concede that it might be the case that the law wasn’t designed to make photographing police officers, soldiers, etc. an arrestable offense.

BUT. In a strict reading of the letter of the law as passed, it certainly IS possible to convict someone for taking a photograph of a police officer, especially if the circumstances made it more than usually useful to an imagined terrorist. Of course, it would also depend on the judge.

(IANAL — just trying to distill to a few sentances some of the longer arguments I’ve read by those that are.)

alternately steal their credentials and watch the hilarity ensue as they try getting out saying

“we really are police officers, honest guv”

Trala la la,
Trala la la,
Trala la la,
Trala la la,

We’re making the world safe for capitalism

Here we come with our candy and our guns
And our corporate muscle marches in behind us
For freedom’s just another world for nothing left to sell
And if you want narcotics we can get you those as well
We help the multi-nationals
When they cry out protect us
The locals scream and shout a bit
But we don’t let that affect us
We’re here to lend a helping hand
In case they don’t elect us
How dare they buy our products
Yet still they don’t respect us

Trala la la,
Trala la la,
Trala la la,
Trala la la,

We’re making the world safe for capitalism

If you thought the army
Was here protecting people like yourself
I’ve some news for you
We’re here to defend wealth

Away with nuns and bishops (Romero!)
The Good Lord will help those that help themselves
I’ve some news for you
We’re here to defend wealth

Trala la la,
Trala la la,
Trala la la,
Trala la la,

We’re making the world safe for capitalism

Trala la la,
Trala la la,
Trala la la,
Trala la la,
(fade)

Billy Bragg The Marching Song Of The Covert Battalions lyrics

Of course, the situations differ enormously in degree – in the kettling described there, 2648 Jews were shot during the process.

Indeed, “kesselschlacht” (cauldron battle) is the German military term for a battle involving an encirclement of one side by the other. It’s quite likely that “kettle” came from “kessel” through homophony, rather than correct translation. (I guess the derived verb “kettling” sounds better than “cauldroning”.)

1. Show up to a protest dressed as protestors.

2. Encourage protestors to start breaking stuff. Police themselves probably throw a garbage can through a window every now and then.

3. Other police, now seeing that “the crowd” has turned “violent” (ie, they set a garbage can on fire), now disperse the crowd through violent means.

We’ve got to start identifying these kinds of cops and dragging them through the court system. Take video and automatically upload it to the internet such that confiscating a camera is useless.

If you are at a civil protest and anybody else tells or encourages you to do anything violent or illegal, they are probably a cop.

People who get violent at protests are usually one of two people;
1. impassioned, frustrated, normal people who lash out in fury – in reaction to police actions,
or
2. the Black Bloc.

Hyper emotional people aren’t likely to be looking for support, they just lash out. And the Black Bloc don’t give a fuck about you, and aren’t there to encourage others by anything other than example. They are not about telling anyone to do anything they are not doing themselves.

The problem with this sort of thing at these kind of protests (ie. the anti-capitalist sort), is that there are so many disparate and unconnected causes and ideologies, that it is very hard to get enough similarly affectable people in close proximity to get a good rabble-rousing-chain-reaction going.

More likely, when someone starts shouting for other people to do violent things, is that the individuals (who are generally protesting “control” in one form or another), will wonder what all this ordering-about business is and get suspicious. Either they will call them out as a cop, or think, “what a mouthy prat, let’s watch him get truncheoned”.

Where agent provocateurs work best is in long-standing, entrenched disputes that affect the money in people’s pocket or directly affect their quality of life, and where there are very clear sides to play off each other; like union strikes, or race/religion problems, (Northern Ireland, for example).

Encouragement to violence at an anti-capitalist protest == Cops

In getting my sources for this comment, I noticed that a number of articles that were online at the time, seem to have disappeared. Other websites still have the quoted content and unfollowable links. But I will add George Galloway’s letter in its entirety.

This is not the first time this has happened in the UK, in recent times. At the anti-Bush protests in June of 2008, a journalist for the Daily Mail, Yasmin Whittaker-Khan, and George Galloway MP both saw the same man at the protests dressed in protester-garb and encouraging a clash between protesters and police.

The journalist knew the identity of the man, a known police officer, and reported it in the following week’s paper. Only after the article appeared in print, did George Galloway recognise the man he had witnessed to be that same ‘undercover’ police officer, inciting violence.

(Amazingly this hasn’t been a huge story.)

George Galloway susequently sent this letter to Jacqui Smith:

To Rt Hon Jacqui Smith
Home Secretary

Urgent

Dear Home Secretary,

As you may be aware I wrote to Sir Ian Blair and Mayor Johnson calling for an inquiry into the policing of the demonstration against George W Bush on Sunday 15 June in Parliament Square/Whitehall. I enclose a copy of my letter to him. I should say I have since been visited by Superintendent Tim Jackson and have given him an account of the basis of my original complaint.

I did tell him, however, that subsequent newspaper revelations may indicate a far more sinister involvement of the police in actual law-breaking on the demonstration which sought to provoke exactly the ugly scenes which eventually ensued.

Since my meeting with the superintendent yesterday this issue has become clearer and obliges me both as a Member of Parliament and as a close witness to these events to write to you as Home Secretary demanding a full inquiry by the government into the extraordinary events and policy decisions surrounding the policing of this demonstration.

You will be aware by now of an article in the Mail on Sunday of 22 June by Yasmin Whittaker-Khan in which she recounts her shock at meeting a man, whom she knew to be a policeman from a previous encounter, who seemed determined to bring about a confrontation between the demonstrators and the police.

This man for at least 30 minutes was stood right next to me at the front of the protest and it is inconceivable that no police photograph will confirm this. I say this because several police stills cameramen and at least one video cameraman were constantly filming. I can now confirm that this man was Chris Dreyfus, an inspector in the police. This man, to my direct knowledge, committed four criminal offences during the 30 minutes or so he stood next to me. First, he repeatedly chanted the arcane, antiquated Americana, “Kill the pigs!” This is a clear incitement to violence, indeed murder. If a Muslim demonstrator had been chanting it, say, outside the Danish Embassy, he would likely now be in prison.

Secondly, he repeatedly (crushing me in the process) attempted to charge the crush barriers and the police line behind them. Thirdly, he repeatedly exhorted others so to do. Fourthly, he instructed a young demonstrator on the correct way to uncouple a crush barrier, which was successfully achieved and was subsequently thrown at the police, and was presumably one of the justifications for the deployment of a riot squad which eventually waded in to the protesters.

Home Secretary, there can hardly a more grave indictment of the conduct of the police force in a democratic country than this. People in the labour movement have often mythologised the state’s use of agents provocateurs throughout my 40 years experience and no doubt long before. But, to my recollection, we have never caught one red-handed before. This inspector’s criminal actions must place all the other in themselves legitimate complaints about police tactics in a new light. I wrote to Sir Ian – and to Mayor Johnson – questioning the competence of the policing on that day.

It now seems that what happened was a deliberate conspiracy to bring about scenes of violent disorder, seen around the world and for purposes on which we can only speculate. You, however, have clear responsibility to get to the heart of this matter. I do hope you will begin to do so without delay.

In any case,

Yours sincerely,
George Galloway MP

Part 3 of 2 (You weren’t expecting that!)

According to this website, the accusations about the police officer named in George Galloway’s letter have been insubstantiated (hence the articles being removed from the websites), and apologies issued:

http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=3531

Conspiracy! Conspiracy! Conspiracy!

Oh, come on, it’ll be fun :)

It was widely believed that the “poll tax riots” were actually a few lads from Special Branch kicking off in front of the TV and press – someone that I spoke to at the time, from the Southend Anti Poll Tax Union, said that they had been towards the rear of the march , and had been unaware of the supposed riots until they got home that night.

Is this the same George Galloway who has been kissing the backside of Saddam Hussein? (WARNING: a unicorn chaser, or at least a sick-bag may be required when watching that video)

I’m not saying that the police doesn’t do nasty underhanded things at protests, but your source is a contrarian loon.

They were clearly identifiable on video (posted on Youtube) by their yellow-soled police issue boots. They were also whisked away by the police once the crowd turned on them.

When people lash out violently in riots etc, it gives the perfect excuse for tighter controls, which is exactly what they want.

Either way, guy takes great photos:
http://www.antonioolmos.com

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article246648.ece
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2006/mar/11/publicsectorcareers.graduates

What benefit would the police get out of doing something that ridiculous? What cops actually want something like that to kick off, go nasty and put their friends in hospital?

Unless it’s a high-level conspiracy to get excuses for more restrictive laws on the way to producing a totalitarian state, I don’t see it. And I don’t believe such a conspiracy exists. We we see these days is misguided, not evil.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e80_1215044352 (there is more footage of him, in a leotard, etc)

Set phasers to vomit.

Seriously, it’s fair enough to question the details of specific reports of this stuff, but if you are aghast at the very idea that the police infiltrate political movements and try to instigate violence and criminal acts you REALLY need to get out more. (Or stay in more reading some history books.) This is not some wacky conspiracy, it’s business as usual.

Now, this isn’t to say that it’s not happening, but there really would have to be some strings being pulled, and money exchanging hands. I don’t see too many police chiefs getting orders to start a riot and thinking this is a good plan.

I presume you are talking about the police, but “risk their lives” is a bit rich. No one that day was any further than 20 or 30 meters from a cop, at any time, and there was almost no unprovoked violence, other than the [media + 6 thugs] circus that broke the bank windows, and the police who did little to quell emotions and quite a bit to provoke them (baton charges, kettling, verbal threats, etc).

Remember, all the scare stories of what was supposed to happen that day came from the police and the tabloids; there was never a “risk their lives” situation. In the exact same light, why would civilians “..risk their lives to incite violence for no apparent reason? The fun of the fight?”

There was no civilian riot.

Your last line puzzles me no end, though.

“That doesn’t add up: kettling requires upper-level management involvement.”

Are you mistaking ‘kettling’ for something else? Because there certainly was ‘kettling’ on that day, as confirmed by the Met and the LTP, and my own experience. It’s a standard tactic, not a conspiracy.

Didn’t they have a pretty good reputation a few decades ago? I’m disgusted by pretty much any report I hear about UK police, recently.

Ad hominem. The issue comes down to proof, not the accuser, and given the over-documentation by police cameras, it is unlikely such proof, either way doesn’t exist. Stick to basic civil arugument, please.

@Matthew Walton

A conspiracy at a high level is not necessary for what is alleged to have happened to be true.

You may hold the opinion that it could not be true, but the video cited by #18 is difficult to reduce to opinion. Was that part of how you formed your opinion? The eerie similarity between the two events is striking:

- the provocateurs in the crowd, and the incitement to violence;
- their witnessed ability to leave the confinement of the kettling;
- the acquiescence of policemen on the line, their clear preparation for the circumstance when a “protestor” suddenly flashes ID and is allowed to enter their lines.

This seems to indicate at minimum a level of organization over time and at different locations. Perhaps this doesn’t constitute a conspiracy, but that begins to seem a semantic difference if these similarities are real.

The fact that both demos were for similar types of event indicates that part and parcel of the security briefing for these events involves these kinds of tactics. The likelihood in both cases that the cops in question were local, not a hired security force indicates that outside security consultants co-opt police in the places that they go.

As to the motivations for fomenting violence, one only needs to look at the enormous utility of real violence when turned to account by the authorities. The reaction to the Luddites, the Haymarket Riots, The Watts Riots, The 1968 Democratic Convention, Scargill’s Miners, 9/11 and endless others, are real examples of actual violence. Each allowed authoritarian elements in society, government and the police to enjoy greatly increased power and control, and produced a general reduction in democratic freedoms. The problem each of them had for authorities was each involved real, uncontrolled violence, with the attendant possibility of loss of control. How much more preferable, then to have controlled violence that you yourself create and use, if it can be turned to the same effect.

That seems uncontentious, but I have no preference for reassuring stories about the benign nature of those who hold and wield power over me.

There are three reasons to kick off the fight:

1) To justify the police’s requests for more men and more pay. Being able to show a problem with lawlessness gets the police extra funding to hire more people and also get more pay (dangerous situations = hazard pay). So, it all comes down to the money.

2) More police powers. The crowds are turning nasty more and more often, so we need more and more power to keep them in their place, right?

3) “I’m gonna kick me some tree-hugger ass, and crack a few hippy skulls at the protests this week.” Sometimes the police are just violent assholes.