Okay, so... The Police sanctioned and encouraged the sexual abuse of women...

This is just fucking WRONG!

Quote :

Undercover police officers routinely adopted a tactic of "promiscuity" with the blessing of senior commanders, according to a former agent who worked in a secretive unit of the Metropolitan police for four years.

The former undercover policeman claims that sexual relationships with activists were sanctioned for both men and women officers infiltrating anarchist, leftwing and environmental groups.

Sex was a tool to help officers blend in, the officer claimed, and was widely used as a technique to glean intelligence.

I...

Quote :

undercover officers, particularly those infiltrating environmental and leftwing groups, viewed having sex with a large number of partners "as part of the job".

Fucking hell.

Quote :

"When you are using the tool of sex to maintain your cover or maybe to glean more intelligence – because they certainly talk a lot more, pillow talk – you would be ready to move on if you felt an attachment growing.

"The best way of stopping any liaison getting too heavy was to shag somebody else. It's amazing how women don't like you going to bed with someone else,"

Amazing...

Quote :

However Jon Murphy, Acpo's spokesman on serious and organised crime, said last week that undercover officers were not permitted "under any circumstances" to sleep with protesters.

He added: "It is grossly unprofessional. It is a diversion from what they are there to do."

Something he said earlier when undercover cop Jim Boyling/­Sutton married and had children with someone from the group he was covering.

There is an investigation that is delving into this, along with a protest this Monday coming (24th)

I suppose I can see the 'for' argument: James Bond and infiltration and all that... But these are Police officers, not fucking MI6. There's a world difference between international espionage and the investigation of war crimes/terrorism and a bunch of hippies occasionally chaining themselves to a feul depot's gate.

You've pretty much hit all the points on the head there, WD40.

Infiltrating such groups was unnecessary; environmental groups almost never engage in violent activities.

Having sex with those women was an abuse of power, pure and simple, and the justification the police have tried to pull out of their arses is completely feeble.

>both men and women officers

Either I'm missing something or this thread title and your posts are misleading. Assuming that at least some of the promiscuity was heterosexual, the police sanctioned and encouraged the sexual abuse of men AND women.

You know I love both of you to bits, but men can be abused too...




ETA: 1111 POSTS

Um, I realize I may be missing something here but... Wasn't all of this sex consensual? I mean I understand that the officers were total tools that were completely disregarding the feelings of the women that they slept with but... That just makes them assholes. Its not an abuse of power because they weren't using their position as police officers to make these women do things.

Yes, they were misogynistic assholes that were using sex with these women as a means to an end, but they didn't use their position to make the women do it, the women willingly had sex with them, even if the pretenses were false. It's like calling sexual abuse on a guy at a club lying about his job to score with women. Yes, it is a total dick move, but it isn't illegal.

^ It's like calling sexual abuse on a guy at a club lying about his job, his name, his age, his place of birth, his hobbies, his religion, his hair colour, his beliefs...

Seriously though, I get what you're saying but... I think the point was not that they had sex with people while lying about themselves, but that they were encouraged to use sex as basically a tool for interrogation. It's less like a pretending to be really into someone to get them into bed, and more like seducing a businessman in order to steal his papers and give them to a rival company.

Seule wrote:

^ It's like calling sexual abuse on a guy at a club lying about his job, his name, his age, his place of birth, his hobbies, his religion, his hair colour, his beliefs...

Seriously though, I get what you're saying but... I think the point was not that they had sex with people while lying about themselves, but that they were encouraged to use sex as basically a tool for interrogation. It's less like a pretending to be really into someone to get them into bed, and more like seducing a businessman in order to steal his papers and give them to a rival company.

I suppose I understand that as well, but it still doesn't quite add up to abuse of power to me. An absolutely terrible way to go about things? Sure, but not an abuse of power. The whole sanctioning of it, maybe, but that's kind of what undercover cops do. They become part of the group and don't break cover. If they felt doing this do be part of how they could maintain cover within the group, or felt it necessary to maintain cover, I certainly can understand why it would be promoted.

Seule wrote:

>both men and women officers

Either I'm missing something or this thread title and your posts are misleading. Assuming that at least some of the promiscuity was heterosexual, the police sanctioned and encouraged the sexual abuse of men AND women.

You know I love both of you to bits, but men can be abused too...

All of these points. Besides, am I the only person who, upon viewing this title, thought it was about the band called The Police?

This reminds me of the (real, happened fairly recently) story about a Jewish woman who charged an Arab man with rape (IIRC, got him convicted and sent to jail) because he had posed as a Jewish man during their relationship.

Seule wrote:

>both men and women officers

Either I'm missing something or this thread title and your posts are misleading. Assuming that at least some of the promiscuity was heterosexual, the police sanctioned and encouraged the sexual abuse of men AND women.

You know I love both of you to bits, but men can be abused too...

I take your point, however to date the only people known to be involved in this are male. Thus so far abuse of women is the only thing we are aware of happening.

The protest I mentioned is both about outrage over this activity (which by all accounts is against regulations as per the final quote) but also to call for transparacy over where these undercover agents are stationed. Which groups and why.

WD40 wrote:

to call for transparacy over where these undercover agents are stationed. Which groups and why.

I am pretty sure that defeats the purpose of undercover agents.

Wait, they're holding a protest to demand to know where undercover police are? Do they nae ken what "undercover" means? These guys are there for years, spending almost all their time with these people, and they're not supposed to form connections or ever have sex? If the goal is to become one of the gang, to not stand out, a restriction like that is going to be a real hindrance.

I'm wondering how much of the protest is about the sex and how much is about the fact that the undercover cops were there at all. "How dare the police send their spies into our group!"

And yes, Mal, the capital P had me thinking the same thing for a moment.

Okay, I'll clarify. The call for transparicy is not over every undercover cop everywhere. That would be stupid.

To quote from the page I linked to:

Quote :

We demand that the police make public the names and identities of all other undercover offices who have worked or are working to infiltrate movements for progressive social change, so women can know whether they have also been abused by the state, and can decide whether to join other women in considering legal action against the police.

It is likely that the police officers and their superiors have committed the criminal offence of misconduct in public office, which carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

They are calling for the 'unmasking' if you will, of those undercover officers who are infiltrating 'movements for progressive social change' specifically.

Yes, it's a big sweep, and it will breach the cover of officers currently active, but seeing as though those officers may be guilty of professional misconduct at least and sexual abuse at worst, it is one that is justified.

If there are examples of an undercover officer who has uncovered a secret terrorist cell buried within treehuggers.org, then we have got the Official Secrets Act to cover for that. In order to justify use of this act, however, the police will have to prove to a government body that such info qualifies.

Therefore, in addition to this unmasking, the police can provide us with a few good reasons as to why a bunch of progressive leaflet-handlers are so dangerous that they require me to pay for an undercover police presence in the first place, and if they cannot, then investigations over the handling of police resources can go ahead, along with an investigation into the highlighted misconduct. Meanwhile, undercover operations that do have merit will continue unabated, following correct application of the OSA.

Hope you have better luck with that than folks over here did when it came out the FBI was infiltrating anti-war groups during the Bush Administration.

Am I the only also disturbed that it mostly leftwing groups that were targeted? Or perhaps the undercover police just didn't want to fuck teabaggers and rightwing militia members?

First, these are UK police, so I'm not sure they'd have a reason to investigate the Tea Party movement. Second, of course there are cops undercover in right-wing groups; those just aren't the ones protesting this.

One other thing is that the operations were sanctioned by a private company which is unaccountable and not subject to the same Freedom of Information laws and scrutiny to which the police force as a whole is. That's very worrying. At least they're making steps towards not doing that any more.

I'm pretty positive that women weren't the only ones abused here. Just because only male officers have been named, doesn't mean they only fucked women.

Just saying.

Lapin wrote:

I'm pretty positive that women weren't the only ones abused here. Just because only male officers have been named, doesn't mean they only fucked women.

Just saying.

Word. Progressive groups in Britain have a history of being gay-friendly.

It also occurred to me to wonder where this is all happening. I've been involved with left wing and environmentalist movements for most of my adult life (going on thirty years now) and I'd never noticed that they were hotbeds of hot beds. Perhaps I've been interrogating them from the wrong perspective.

I'm actually not seeing any sexual abuse here at all, on men or women whether they be gay or straight. Even going by the "seducing a businessman to steal his papers" example, it's still less abuse than it is one person being an unethical asshole and the other person regretting who they slept with. Yes, they have every right to be angry about being literally screwed over, but no one was abused unless it comes out that "pillow talk" was actually code for "rape them until they're willing to talk just to make it stop".

maladroit_mooncalf wrote:

I'm actually not seeing any sexual abuse here at all, on men or women whether they be gay or straight. Even going by the "seducing a businessman to steal his papers" example, it's still less abuse than it is one person being an unethical asshole and the other person regretting who they slept with. Yes, they have every right to be angry about being literally screwed over, but no one was abused unless it comes out that "pillow talk" was actually code for "rape them until they're willing to talk just to make it stop".

Thank you for that, I was trying to find the words to express just that but couldn't for some reason.

maladroit_mooncalf wrote:

I'm actually not seeing any sexual abuse here at all, on men or women whether they be gay or straight. Even going by the "seducing a businessman to steal his papers" example, it's still less abuse than it is one person being an unethical asshole and the other person regretting who they slept with. Yes, they have every right to be angry about being literally screwed over, but no one was abused unless it comes out that "pillow talk" was actually code for "rape them until they're willing to talk just to make it stop".

That doesn't address the issue of infiltration, though. Nowhere in the UK is it illegal to be left-wing - though Labour: ptui! We have a genuine socialist party, called The Socialist Party. They're not hiding it, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and their magazine is called The Socialist. They have meetings, I've been to a few, but at no time did anyone suggest a revolution. Most of the Socialist Party have mortgages and other grownup things.

Nor is it illegal to be an environmentalist. Look at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] they've even got an MP (called Caroline Lucas). (Gotta love that green website - who designed it? The jolly green giant?)

So what price infiltration? Why bother, when they're out there being all left wing and environmental.

Lexin wrote:

That doesn't address the issue of infiltration, though.

I never said it did. I'm just wondering how that at all equates to sexual abuse, since everything so far looks consensual.

maladroit_mooncalf wrote:

Lexin wrote:

That doesn't address the issue of infiltration, though.

I never said it did. I'm just wondering how that at all equates to sexual abuse, since everything so far looks consensual.

It's an issue of abuse of power. The undercover coppers know they're undercover coppers. They don't have to fuck women for information. They choose to because they want to, even though it's highly unethical, and the operations are likely to be completely unnecessary for the reasons outlined above.

As the operations are run by a private company, they're not subject to the Freedom of Information Act, so there's no way any of us can scrutinise their efficacy, and therefore we are supposed to just trust that this was the only way to accumulate vital information.

GAWD ZOZO WHAT DO YOU EXPECT THEM TO DO, GO WITHOUT SEX OR SOMETHING

Cyberwulf wrote:

GAWD ZOZO WHAT DO YOU EXPECT THEM TO DO, GO WITHOUT SEX OR SOMETHING

Yes, don't rationally explain your point, scream and wet yourself. THIS IS HOW PROGRESS IS MADE.

TheHedonist wrote:

Cyberwulf wrote:

GAWD ZOZO WHAT DO YOU EXPECT THEM TO DO, GO WITHOUT SEX OR SOMETHING

Yes, don't rationally explain your point, scream and wet yourself. THIS IS HOW PROGRESS IS MADE.

Want to respond to my point, then, poppet, or are you just going to sit at the back eating crayons?