So the police have been outed! Masquerading as protesters at the peaceful protest against SPP in Montebello, undercover police tried to incite the crowd into having an altercation with the line of police in riot gear. They showed up with their faces covered and rocks in their hands. (It’s all over YouTube. Imagine, people at a protest having a digicam these days! Who’d have thought? In case you missed it and want to judge for yourself, I’ve added the YouTube video at the end of the post.)
There’s commentary all over the net on this one, with many people laughing at the cops for being so inept, and many others pointing out that this kind of action is not so funny. They could have succeeded in rousing the crowd. And people could have been hurt.
But the one that struck me was in reading today’s Toronto Star online, their daily poll asks, “Should police be allowed to masquerade as protesters at demonstrations?”
After registering my NO vote, the early results show NO in the lead, but the YES vote was getting 38% support.
It seemed to me that NO was such an obvious answer to this question that I was astounded by this result so far. How is this action possibly serving the police mandate of maintaining public order and peace?
So I’m asking, who is voting YES, and why?
Please comment and let us all know, ’cause I’m left scratching my head on this one.
UPDATE!
I’ve was always taught that the right thing was to stop and consider the opinions of others who may not agree with you, particularly when those opinions are expressed politely.
Therefore, I must admit that the comments attached by “Lord Kitchener’s Own” and Dave Hodson have given me good reason to reconsider my position in this post.
I do see your logic that there are legitimate circumstances for undercover police to blend into a crowd in order to be prepared to stop or minimize a disturbance. Thank you.
This was not the case in Montebello, however.
If you are going undercover, then for Pete’s sake, BLEND!!!
The only conclusion I can reach on this is either a) that their true intention was to blend into the crowd, in which case they did a spectacularly poor job; or B) that their true intention was to incite a violent incident, in which case whoever gave these orders must be held accountable.
If they were trying to blend why were they the only ones in masks, and the only ones with rocks in their hands, and the only ones making moves toward the riot police in order to spark some action?
And for the record, the Star Poll ended up 47% Yes, 53% No. It would seem that just over half the people may have reacted before considering the points you make, just like I did.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St1-WTc1kow
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When I watched the video in question from the Montebello SPP Summit my blood was boiling. How can people who’s mandate is “to serve and protect” possibly conduct themselves this way and even more importantly, who is going to hold these people accountable ? I hope that more people speak up loud and clear because those are our rights they are treading on !
On a related note, the Alberta Utility and Energy Board is currently under three investigations for hiring four spies, one of which actually participated in a phone call between farmers concerned about a biased environmental assessment process and their lawyers. Nothing less than client – solicitor privilege and free speech are at stake here and these are PUBLIC institutions who have this kind of approach to public dialog that they are actually mandated to permit !
I personally experienced a similar situation recently in Toronto with regards to uninvited “guests” showing up to community planning meeting designed to discuss how residents and local politicians were going to hold the provincial government and its ministries accountable to the environmental assessment process. Two uninvited people tried to steer the meeting and misrepresent the issues. They stood out like a sore thumb and their affiliations were established after the fact. It was an amazing attempt at manipulation by organisations who should be working in the public’s best interest.
Interestingly, Ontario passed Bill 51 and Alberta has drafted a similar Bill with provisions that have the end effect of limiting public and municipal input into the power infrastructure planning process. There is reason for concern here given the amount of new infrastructure being proposed in both provinces and a general lack of concern over the integrity of the public consultation process. In the end, it is all about money and technical feasibility and the decisions have very little to do with environment concerns or material impacts on home owners and communities.
Toto we’re not living in Kansas any more and anyone that thinks so either isn’t looking very closely or they just don’t care.
I would not vote yes but have talked to people who would. The people I talked to made assumptions and statements that all protestors are “disruptive malcontents” “poggey weasels”, “Welfare bums” “young Punks”and “anarchists” who ” need to get jobs”
It’s true there are often many young people at protests, probably because they are less jaded and still think they can do some good. They also have more free time than many of us working slobs do (especially over the summer) but that does not make them all violent anarchists!!! (not that few don’t occassionaly show up, assuming they are not all cops)
There are also many educated, employed professionals who take part in these demostrations but the press looks for sentationalism rather than content and rarely acknowledges them. In fact the press creates much of this stereotype by rarely mentioning peaceful protests and glorying in the violence of protests gone bad.
The portion of the public with a preconceived notion of what a protester is fears them, don’t care if their rights of free speach and peaceful assembly are infringed or if the situation is manipulated to discredit them.
These people are self serving and only support the rights of those they agree with. At the same time many know too little on the topics protested to even make a informed desisison.
Protests are uncomfortable distractions from the more comforting realities of sports, TV, pop culture, all pap served warm to keep us content and unaware.
Yikes, the Yes side is up to 46%! it’s no wonder we can make no progress in Canada when even 46% of Star readers don’t support the right of protest. Imagine the numbers if the Globe posed this question!
There’s a difference between the concept of undercover police in large crowds and demonstrations and the specifics of the latest SPP case. I expect there to be undercover police at large crowds and demonstrations (which I don’t think the latest necessarily was) especially if there is fear that there may be violence (and again, I don’t think that applies to the latest There is certianly a logic to having undercover police involved in these kinds of security operations. If violence or other criminality breaks out in the middle of a protest, it seem to me the police have two options. Undercover operatives who can easily get close and make arrests, or uniformed officers wading en masse into a crowd. I think I know which is the better option. As far as I can tell, when properly deployed (clearly not the case at Montebello, or at least at this particular protest at Montebello) more undercover police means less pepper spray and tear gas. If there’s trouble at a demonstration the police can use a scalple or a sledge hammer, and I believe undercover operations are their scalple. Identifying law-breakers and arresting those who would rather riot than protest is a heck of a lot easier if you can identify who the violent law-breakers are. Otherwise, the whole crowd is in jeopardy, caught between rioters on one side, and uniformed police (with no undercover intelligence as to who is violent and who is not) on the other. If we stop letting undercover operatives work crowds and protests I think we’re going to see a lot more protests being broken up by tear gas, batons and horses than we would be at all comfortable with. I’ll take quietly arresting troublemakers and allowing legitimate protesters to make their point over having to break up a demonstration all together any day.
Keep in mind as well that this is not at all limited to “demonstrations” or “protests”. Spend New Year’s Eve in Times Square one year and I can virtually guarantee you that one of the celebrants that you’ll rub up against is an undercover police officer. Take any large crowd you’ve ever seen, and it’s almost a certainty that the police presence you can SEE, is NOT the total police presence that’s actually there.
And I think, usually, their presence is highly beneficial, both to the public at large, and to those actually in the crowd. The latest at Montebello is a disgrace and an exception, but to me, it doesn’t invalidate the concept.
This is not about the right to protest.
Undercover police presence does serve a purpose. It’s not to incite violence, and it’s not to limit anybody’s right to protest, but as the previous commenter said, it’s to help control the situation if things turn bad.
Undercover surveilance is common–from security guards posing as shoppers in a store to tail suspected shoplifters, right up to undercover cops infiltrating organized crime families. In any case, you need to dress the part (in this case, a protestor with a rock in hand) and be ready in case anything happens.
Not only do I think police should be allowed to masquerade as protestors, I think they should regularly masquerade undercover in any situation that has the potential to go bad. I feel safer knowing that the police are keeping me safe.
As long as people follow the law, what’s the problem? Nobody is infringing on anyone’s right to protest. And if you are planning to do something illegal during your protest, well, you don’t have a right to do that anyway, undercover cops present or not, so your rights are still not being restricted.
[...] As discussed when the police posed as protesters during the SPP protest in Montebello, Quebec, the authorities may, under certain circumstances, have reason to believe that violence may erupt from these protests, and may believe that they are protecting the public by infiltrating, so that they are aware of the trouble makers and closer to the action should something occur. And in such circumstances I can reluctantly understand the need for them to pose as protesters to mix with the crowd. But in the case of Montebello, it was the police themselves who were trying to incite violence, not the protesters. And in the case of Alberta, the EUB clearly overstepped it’s bounds and broke laws, violating the lawyer-client privacy. [...]