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Traditionally, an agent provocateur (plural: agents provocateurs, French for "inciting agent") 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.
An agent provocateur may be a police officer 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 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.
In the United States, the COINTELPRO program of the Federal Bureau of Investigation had FBI agents posing as political radicals in order to disrupt the activities of radical 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.[1]
Denver Police officers were also found to have used undercover detectives to instigate violence against police during the 2008 Democratic National Convention, in a botched attempt to be extracted. This ultimately resulted in the accidental use of chemical agents against their own men.[2]
The activities of agents provocateurs against dissidents in Imperial Russia was one of the grievances that led to the Russian Revolution of 1917. Yevno Azef is an example of agent provocateur.
In various European countries, Agent Provocateur is an official legal term for a person who approaches other people with a bribe offer, with consent of the police. It has proved fairly effective in combating corruption especially in former Eastern Bloc European countries.[citation needed]
There are reliable reports of the use of agents provocateurs by the British police. A striking example is the planting of a police officer in an otherwise peaceful demonstration to justify the use of force [1].
Three protesters in Montebello, Canada during the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America were accused of being 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 YouTube 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. One of the masked men spoke to police officers, and then all three pretended to breach the police line and were 'arrested.' 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 Québec issued a news release on August 23 admitting that the three protesters were, in fact, police officers[3][4].
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