Monday, April 27, 2009

Recruiting Informants

Another report of uk police pressuring people to become informants. Last week I blogged about the case of Martin Winters, a friend of a suspected Real IRA leader. Despite Winters continued refusals, he claims police harrassed him for years trying to get him to inform. At the weekend the Guardian broke the story of environmentalist protesters from Plane Stupid being pursued as potential informants. The protester secretly taped the conversation (more sousveillance?) and now anyone can have a listen over at the guardian's website.

In both cases there seem to have been a combination of bribes and threats in play. What do you think of this behaviour? Is snitching so objectionable that police should never seek informants? Should they only use the carrot rather than the stick? Does the answer depend on whether you're pursuing terrorists or not? Or is the police's behaviour fine in both these cases?

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