Spotting Infiltrators
Canadian in Manchester | 25.02.2006 09:27 | G8 2005 | Analysis | Culture | Repression
A short text on spotting infiltrators. The original version was written in 2000. This version has been adapted for the English/British political climate where wrecking is more commonplace than it is elsewhere.
"There are actually two kinds of informers. The deliberate informer is someone who infiltrates an organization with the specific intent of getting incriminating evidence against activists or even setting them up to be arrested. These infiltrators are either on the payroll of a government agency or may be hired by industry. The second type of informer is the activist-turned-informant -- either unwittingly or because of pressure put on them by the authorities. Make no mistake, both kinds exist throughout our ranks and are equally dangerous.
Let's discuss the deliberate informer (infiltrator) first. They
are often difficult to identify, they come in all ages and types, but they usually have a similar modus operandi--they come out of nowhere and all of a sudden, they are everywhere. Whether it's a meeting, a protest, or an action, this person will be right in the thick of it."
The above is taken from
http://www.animalliberationfront.com/ALFront/ELF/sec-handbook.pdf
A few notes for the British political scene.
The authorities here, as elsewhere, work on the principle of either "Infiltrate, Subvert, Control" or "Infiltrate, Subvert, Wreck". The goal is usually to infiltrate the group, find out a lot of information and then report back. If your activist group is involved in direct action, the infiltrator will try to cause the group to collapse from the inside but if your group is more of a lobbying group (or political party), the infiltrator is more likely to attempt to take it over and control it.
Actually the infiltrator will want some members of your activist collective to suspect them of being infiltrators. Anything that undermines group solidarity is within the domain of the wrecking infiltrator. By having group opinion divided over a particular person's validity is very useful to the wrecker. Seeds of mistrust will be planted everywhere.
For example:
The infiltrator may attack one member (or one section) of the collective accusing them of being "racist", "vanguardist", "sexist", "infiltrator",
"mysoginistic", "perverted", "authoritarians", "in it for the sex", "conspiracy theorist" or similar. Anything that attempts to cause distrust and disharmony are in the wreckers arsenal. Anything that is hard to defend against is in the wrecker's arsenal.
The wrecker will go to every single meeting, but probably not really take part in actions. They may be members of several unrelated groups. Activists will generally trust people pretty quickly, so the wrecker only has to hang around the scene for a month or 2 before being fully trusted. But it is not uncommon for an infiltrator to be involved for a year or more.
In order to split your activist or political group, the wrecker will try to undermine group solidarity. Creating arguments that are unrelated to the group's focus. Stealing money and accusing others of doing this. Pointing out flaws with people in order to undermine solidarity. e.g. "They shop at tescos, wear nike, don't recycle, fly in planes, are rich" etc. These flaws may be real, but they will be exploited by the wrecker in order to destroy your group.
Wreckers will be at every meeting, but you will probably not get to see their home. If you regularly get invited to someone's home, they are probably not wreckers.
Sometimes wreckers work in pairs - In order to disrupt the group 2 wreckers will have cleverly-timed but meaningless arguments. They'll argue about anything that is unrelated to the activist group. They'll argue about fundraising, priority of actions, etc. They'll call each other "trots", "leeches" or try to exploit the "social anarchist v lifestyle anarchist' divide. They'll argue about the validity of violence, about some finer philosophical points or the merits of veganism. They'll argue, argue argue until you all want to run away and they have suceeded. They'll argue about sexism, they'll argue about which book to read. They'll argue about group direction.
A pair of wreckers may take over a mailing list by having arguments. They may also send many many mails forcing some people to unsubscribe due to excess traffic.
Some wreckers will often advocate militancy and violence. Nothing will discredit your group more than the use of violence. Be Non-violent. Wreckers will fight the police which will can cause clamp-downs on activists. We urge you all to remain non-violent for the sake of safety, public relations and outing infiltrators. Whenever there's a large mobilisation, the TV is full of images of agents provocateur engaging in violence and property-damage. This is done for a reason. Think about it.
Wreckers may be sleasy. They do this to make certain members of the group feel uncomfortable in the group setting. Wreckers almost never get drunk or stoned in ordinary social circles. Alternately, they may attempt to keep the group drunk or stoned in order to loosen tongues or stop the group from doing what it planned to.
Wreckers may be around for a long time. Maybe a year or more before they move on. It costs the government very little to give a wrecker a few hundred to a thousand quid a week (the same as is given to a cop or soldier) so keeping the wrecker in long term is no hassle.
A big mistake you can make if you suspect someone is a wrecker is to accuse them of being one. This will almost certainly cause your group to implode. Better to keep an eye on them and find out what they are up to. To accuse someone of being an infiltrator without proof is destined to cause your group to collapse. Remember, they will be attempting to divide the group so will make friends of some and enemies of others.
They may spend a lot of time on the phone and they almost certainly have hi-tech gadgets.
Many wreckers will be cop-magnets. By having cops around all the time, your group determination will be majorly undermined. If there are always loads of cops on your tail when a particular person is with you, that person may be an infiltrator.
Wreckers will organise group meetings and help organise actions but will rarely take part in the actions. They will have a lot of useful information, making them appear indispensable. They will try to make themselves integral to the group whilst not actually achieving much for it.
Wreckers may try to dominate mailing lists, with arguments, with hostility ( to the group or to particular individuals), with negativity (as in "no point, we can't make a difference"). They may dominate the list by spamming it to death causing others to leave. They may try to become email list administrators or web site volunteers. If they can keep track of every member of the group, they have a powerful tool. If they can monitor all group communications, they have another powerful tool.
They will almost certainly have personality clashes with one or 2 select individuals within the group. The wrecker will do everything to exploit these personality clashes in attempts to destroy the group. They will find issues that they consider important when nobody else really cares. Most people are too timid to express themselves a lot of the time and the wrecker will hope group members don't speak out to each other's defence.
This essay makes no attempts to describe what to do when infiltrators are suspected or discovered. The most useful solution is to counter their attempts at disruption. If they attack one individual, gently defend that individual. Do not get drawn into a fight. The wrecker loves a fight. The wrecker depends on people either fighting, or becoming foo frightened of fighting to not express themselves.
If someone (wrecker or not) suggests a group tactic you disagree with, speak out and say so. This will be good for you and the group as a whole, but it will also stop the wrecker from gaining a foothold. The wrecker will want to tire you out, make you bored, restless, angry, frustrated etc with the group in order to get you to quit.
Try to send the wrecker off on missions with other people whilst you get important work done. Having a small affinity group containing the wrecker go on a mission can allow the rest of the group to do what they need to.
Assume you are infiltrated. Seriously, it will make everything much easier if either everything is out in the open so there's nothing to spy on. Dissent! was fantastic at this and you had the infiltrators beat at every turn. Your left hand didn't know what your right was doing and it worked brilliantly this time. If you want/need to be clandestine, be very careful about who knows what pieces of information.
At large mobilisations like Dissent! - infiltrators will move toward any communications collective that might have formed. The wrecker will attempt to subvert and destroy your means of communication. They will attempt to control your mailing lists, bank accounts and websites. Their destruction of your communication channels backfired on them during Dissent wherein autonomous group actions were successful. The government simply didn't have enough infiltrators to watch everybody. Cool.
"Unless you are only working with people you've known for years and who have earnt your trust, you should assume there is an informant in your midst and act accordingly. "
Assume you are being watched and assume your group has been infiltrated.
If your group has open door policies like most carnivale activist groups do (e.g. Samba bands and street performer groups), the infiltrator will be the one who finds it harder to smile and dance. Keep the carnivale and fun vibe and the infiltrator will be helpless. Keep on laughing and having fun and these wreckers will be easily spotted. They're the miserable ones who want to argue about funding, mailing lists or political philosophy.
Infiltrators and wreckers take their time and have a lot of patience, but you can deal with them. Just don't let them draw you into their disruptive games. Do not argue excessively with wreckers. Generally you want to minimise your group arguments anyway. Or rather, ensure your arguments and disagreements are resolvable. That's how to spot a wrecker - they will want to argue but they won't want to find a solution to the argument. They will use the argument to disrupt the group. Disruption is their main tool and tactic and objective.
Good luck!
more:
http://p216.ezboard.com/frigorousintuitionfrm11.showMessage?topicID=368.topic
http://www.sheffieldmayday.ukf.net/articles/spooks.htm
Let's discuss the deliberate informer (infiltrator) first. They
are often difficult to identify, they come in all ages and types, but they usually have a similar modus operandi--they come out of nowhere and all of a sudden, they are everywhere. Whether it's a meeting, a protest, or an action, this person will be right in the thick of it."
The above is taken from
http://www.animalliberationfront.com/ALFront/ELF/sec-handbook.pdf A few notes for the British political scene.
The authorities here, as elsewhere, work on the principle of either "Infiltrate, Subvert, Control" or "Infiltrate, Subvert, Wreck". The goal is usually to infiltrate the group, find out a lot of information and then report back. If your activist group is involved in direct action, the infiltrator will try to cause the group to collapse from the inside but if your group is more of a lobbying group (or political party), the infiltrator is more likely to attempt to take it over and control it.
Actually the infiltrator will want some members of your activist collective to suspect them of being infiltrators. Anything that undermines group solidarity is within the domain of the wrecking infiltrator. By having group opinion divided over a particular person's validity is very useful to the wrecker. Seeds of mistrust will be planted everywhere.
For example:
The infiltrator may attack one member (or one section) of the collective accusing them of being "racist", "vanguardist", "sexist", "infiltrator",
"mysoginistic", "perverted", "authoritarians", "in it for the sex", "conspiracy theorist" or similar. Anything that attempts to cause distrust and disharmony are in the wreckers arsenal. Anything that is hard to defend against is in the wrecker's arsenal.
The wrecker will go to every single meeting, but probably not really take part in actions. They may be members of several unrelated groups. Activists will generally trust people pretty quickly, so the wrecker only has to hang around the scene for a month or 2 before being fully trusted. But it is not uncommon for an infiltrator to be involved for a year or more.
In order to split your activist or political group, the wrecker will try to undermine group solidarity. Creating arguments that are unrelated to the group's focus. Stealing money and accusing others of doing this. Pointing out flaws with people in order to undermine solidarity. e.g. "They shop at tescos, wear nike, don't recycle, fly in planes, are rich" etc. These flaws may be real, but they will be exploited by the wrecker in order to destroy your group.
Wreckers will be at every meeting, but you will probably not get to see their home. If you regularly get invited to someone's home, they are probably not wreckers.
Sometimes wreckers work in pairs - In order to disrupt the group 2 wreckers will have cleverly-timed but meaningless arguments. They'll argue about anything that is unrelated to the activist group. They'll argue about fundraising, priority of actions, etc. They'll call each other "trots", "leeches" or try to exploit the "social anarchist v lifestyle anarchist' divide. They'll argue about the validity of violence, about some finer philosophical points or the merits of veganism. They'll argue, argue argue until you all want to run away and they have suceeded. They'll argue about sexism, they'll argue about which book to read. They'll argue about group direction.
A pair of wreckers may take over a mailing list by having arguments. They may also send many many mails forcing some people to unsubscribe due to excess traffic.
Some wreckers will often advocate militancy and violence. Nothing will discredit your group more than the use of violence. Be Non-violent. Wreckers will fight the police which will can cause clamp-downs on activists. We urge you all to remain non-violent for the sake of safety, public relations and outing infiltrators. Whenever there's a large mobilisation, the TV is full of images of agents provocateur engaging in violence and property-damage. This is done for a reason. Think about it.
Wreckers may be sleasy. They do this to make certain members of the group feel uncomfortable in the group setting. Wreckers almost never get drunk or stoned in ordinary social circles. Alternately, they may attempt to keep the group drunk or stoned in order to loosen tongues or stop the group from doing what it planned to.
Wreckers may be around for a long time. Maybe a year or more before they move on. It costs the government very little to give a wrecker a few hundred to a thousand quid a week (the same as is given to a cop or soldier) so keeping the wrecker in long term is no hassle.
A big mistake you can make if you suspect someone is a wrecker is to accuse them of being one. This will almost certainly cause your group to implode. Better to keep an eye on them and find out what they are up to. To accuse someone of being an infiltrator without proof is destined to cause your group to collapse. Remember, they will be attempting to divide the group so will make friends of some and enemies of others.
They may spend a lot of time on the phone and they almost certainly have hi-tech gadgets.
Many wreckers will be cop-magnets. By having cops around all the time, your group determination will be majorly undermined. If there are always loads of cops on your tail when a particular person is with you, that person may be an infiltrator.
Wreckers will organise group meetings and help organise actions but will rarely take part in the actions. They will have a lot of useful information, making them appear indispensable. They will try to make themselves integral to the group whilst not actually achieving much for it.
Wreckers may try to dominate mailing lists, with arguments, with hostility ( to the group or to particular individuals), with negativity (as in "no point, we can't make a difference"). They may dominate the list by spamming it to death causing others to leave. They may try to become email list administrators or web site volunteers. If they can keep track of every member of the group, they have a powerful tool. If they can monitor all group communications, they have another powerful tool.
They will almost certainly have personality clashes with one or 2 select individuals within the group. The wrecker will do everything to exploit these personality clashes in attempts to destroy the group. They will find issues that they consider important when nobody else really cares. Most people are too timid to express themselves a lot of the time and the wrecker will hope group members don't speak out to each other's defence.
This essay makes no attempts to describe what to do when infiltrators are suspected or discovered. The most useful solution is to counter their attempts at disruption. If they attack one individual, gently defend that individual. Do not get drawn into a fight. The wrecker loves a fight. The wrecker depends on people either fighting, or becoming foo frightened of fighting to not express themselves.
If someone (wrecker or not) suggests a group tactic you disagree with, speak out and say so. This will be good for you and the group as a whole, but it will also stop the wrecker from gaining a foothold. The wrecker will want to tire you out, make you bored, restless, angry, frustrated etc with the group in order to get you to quit.
Try to send the wrecker off on missions with other people whilst you get important work done. Having a small affinity group containing the wrecker go on a mission can allow the rest of the group to do what they need to.
Assume you are infiltrated. Seriously, it will make everything much easier if either everything is out in the open so there's nothing to spy on. Dissent! was fantastic at this and you had the infiltrators beat at every turn. Your left hand didn't know what your right was doing and it worked brilliantly this time. If you want/need to be clandestine, be very careful about who knows what pieces of information.
At large mobilisations like Dissent! - infiltrators will move toward any communications collective that might have formed. The wrecker will attempt to subvert and destroy your means of communication. They will attempt to control your mailing lists, bank accounts and websites. Their destruction of your communication channels backfired on them during Dissent wherein autonomous group actions were successful. The government simply didn't have enough infiltrators to watch everybody. Cool.
"Unless you are only working with people you've known for years and who have earnt your trust, you should assume there is an informant in your midst and act accordingly. "
Assume you are being watched and assume your group has been infiltrated.
If your group has open door policies like most carnivale activist groups do (e.g. Samba bands and street performer groups), the infiltrator will be the one who finds it harder to smile and dance. Keep the carnivale and fun vibe and the infiltrator will be helpless. Keep on laughing and having fun and these wreckers will be easily spotted. They're the miserable ones who want to argue about funding, mailing lists or political philosophy.
Infiltrators and wreckers take their time and have a lot of patience, but you can deal with them. Just don't let them draw you into their disruptive games. Do not argue excessively with wreckers. Generally you want to minimise your group arguments anyway. Or rather, ensure your arguments and disagreements are resolvable. That's how to spot a wrecker - they will want to argue but they won't want to find a solution to the argument. They will use the argument to disrupt the group. Disruption is their main tool and tactic and objective.
Good luck!
more:
http://p216.ezboard.com/frigorousintuitionfrm11.showMessage?topicID=368.topic http://www.sheffieldmayday.ukf.net/articles/spooks.htm
Canadian in Manchester
Comments
Hide the following 5 comments
"Seeds of mistrust will be planted everywhere."
25.02.2006 11:33
to a canadian wrecker in manchester
It's more complicated
25.02.2006 13:42
The last comment described another type -- and perhaps the person posting that warning grossly misunderstands whether THAT sort is actually harmful >
I would say that "the authorities" would be unlikely to do much "disruption" -- more likely to want to collect evidence. Disruption is the tactics of infiltrators who want to co-opt a movement toward furthering other objectives > I am NOT saying here that "the authorities" never use "disruption" tactics against groups but something quite different -- that they would do THAT only if the groups represented such large movements that simply rounding folks up was impractical or likely to be ineffective. And sorry, but the current state of none of the movements isn't even close to a large scale social movement that would be dealt with by "disruption" tactics.
The advice is good. If a movement of any size, ASSUME "infiltrated" by any of a number of quite different folks with quite different objectives. Figure out how to carry on in spite of that reality, if possible using that reality for advantage.
Mike
e-mail:
stepbystpefarm mtdata.com
Beware Canadians bearing gifts
25.02.2006 14:09
Inadvertently leaking information is something that affects us all. I've sometimes said something I shouldn't have to someone who doesn't need to know, despite knowing I shouldn't. This is a forgivable error if realised and confessed in time to call off or change the action, just let everyone know it is okay to make mistakes as long as they don't try to keep them secret and end up getting everyone arrested to save face. Mistakes happen - punishing them only leads to more serious mistakes.
Stay away from technology. If you know you are hanging with activists and might be asked to join an action, leave your phone etc at home - don't even take them to the meeting point.
If possible a good way to check out people is to make friends with them enough so that you can check out their family. There are lots of types of infiltrator but none of them will be able and willing to invite you to meet the family as that is placing their family at risk of reprisal if they are later uncovered.
>If there are always loads of cops on your tail when a particular person is with you, that person may be an infiltrator.
I doubt that. They probably put more uniforms onto you when they don't have an infiltrator, unless they fear for the infiltrators safety (which doesn't apply with anything I get up to admittedly).
>They will almost certainly have personality clashes with one or 2 select individuals within the group.
Ha ! Personality clashes are the hallmark of activists. Again the article fails to differentiate between 'wreckers' who are paid to disrupt and those who simply disagree with the 'one or two select individuals'. I suspect the author considers themselves a 'select individual'. I would encourage every activist to give abuse to anyone who considers themselves a select individual. And anyone who tries to smear someone as being a 'wrecker' simply to discourage dissent is pretty fascistic at best.
Whenever the British security services need to do something illegal dometically they use agents from other echelon countries ( and vice versa).
Therefore I personally don't trust New Zealanders, Australians, Americans or Canadians - living in Manchester or elsewhere - as much as other nationalities living here. You can't check out their family or their history.
Danny
Some thoughts
25.02.2006 14:27
1) you will never spot the PERFECT government agent, so don't even worry about such a beast. The likelyhood of coming across a true genius in infiltration is vanishing low.
2) as a result of the above, the focus should be on understanding all the flaws to be found in the vast majority of government infiltators and informers. This is easier than one might imagine. Why? Because the government itself, when employing such people, has also the need to spot those that would infiltrate and betray THEM, understanding that so-called enemy nations have the same resources as themselves to attempt to develop 'super-spies'.
3) following from the above, read as much as you can about government screening methods, and psycholgical profiling. What they do in order to weed out dangerous types generates a very useful and accessible body of information. Also, read about 'spies' and 'traitors', and discover how frequently these people were discovered, after the fact, to have behaviour patterns that the state should have noticed years earlier.
4) anyone who tells you that efforts to protect organisations from govenment infiltration play into the government hands are ALWAYS working on the side of the goverment. Ignorance is NEVER bliss.
5) the best protection against government activity is EDUCATION. Ensure excellent, easy to read (this point is important- info is useless if too few people can/will understand it) documents on methods of government infiltration are distributed to EVERYONE and are discussed by as many in the group as possible, often enough to keep the knowledge fresh. The purpose is innoculation, NOT witchhunts. In other words, ideally each individual is self-aware and self-protecting against state 'security' service methods.
6) IMPORTANT- research and develop anonymous methods for members of the group to communicate information to the group. Why? Because if the state threatens or blackmails a member, that member may wish to alert the group, without it being PROVABLE that he/she made the communication. This is a complex and difficult idea (and can be seen as open to abusive distribution of dis-info), but many coerced individuals WOULD warn their fellows, if they could do it without risk to themselves or their families.
7) If you are doing good work, know that you WILL be targeted by the government. Maybe the state will be satisfied just listening to your plans remotely (in which case you can take the usual precautions, although in our age tecnology gives the state a scary number of options that need to be understood and dealt with). However, 'good' work will be that the government actively fears (for instance, protesting against Blair's wars with very strong slogans and images), and therefore the state will desire to infiltrate in-order to redirect efforts in a safe direction (for instance, anti-war posters with passive messages, and no distressing images).
8) the "redirect" infiltrators do NOT need to rise to the very top of their target organisation, but they do need to be high enough to have an excellent chance of having their ideas consistantly accepted, and shooting down ideas that would worry the government. Their greatest job, therefore, is in excusing the failure of the organisation to make any effective difference (once the infiltrators are continuously successful in having their ideas accepted), while reassuring that the organisation should continue in the same 'loser' direction. The so-called anti-war movement is a prime example of this effect.
9) the "redirect" infiltrators therefore need to INTERNALLY label the genuine activists with the good ideas as 'dangerous extremists' that will lose the organisation support from 'ordinary' people. An example of how this works...
Blair's people infiltrate the recent 'cartoon protest' in London with a tiny group of people holding looney placards. These people pose for press photos that are splashed across the pages of all of all the newspapers the next day. Blair's infiltrators in the anti-war movement now quote public 'revulsion' at these placards as proof that future anti-war protests must only allow OFFICIAL placards, which will be carefully created to be harmless and ineffective. Those in the organisation that suggest powerful designs will be shot down as "extremists who will alienate the public".
TO CONCLUDE
-expect the worst from Blair, knowing that he will exceed your expectations.
-if you make any effort in an organisation, work to make it effective, regardless of those in the organisation that seem to constantly argue for hopeless ideas. Do NOT treat protest as a hobby, there are far better things you could be doing with your time for simple self-entertainment. If you take the time to make things better, always be determined to suceed, and never be happy to accept failure.
twilight
She is the wrecker
25.02.2006 14:38
So watch out, don't trust what she says. And if you have any canadian girls come to meetings, be very careful and don't invite them back
manc