Police Infiltration of Plane Stupid.

On Friday 24/4/09 the Guardian newspaper released tapes which show police officer's from the Community Intelligence Unit (CIU) grooming Tilly Gifford, a activist with protest group Plane Stupid to act as a police informer of agent.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/24/strathclyde-police-plane-stupid-recruit-spy

The CIU is a sub-division of the Special Branch who are now a separate entity within Scotland Yard's anti-terrorism command. Special Branch are an extraordinary police unit operating above and beyond the regular police who specialise in intelligence and surveillance work. In simple terms they function as a sort of buffer between the civilian police force and the UK Security Service, Military Intelligence section 5. As the name suggests MI5 are a military organisation who are exempt from UK law and in rare circumstances will just kill people. The use of such an extreme police unit against what are peaceful protesters is probably being justified on the grounds that Plane Stupid themselves could be infiltrated by Al Qaeda. Personally I think that security operation is being done from the more proactive and sinister reason of driving Plane Stupid's actions.

This sort of behaviour by the British authorities is nothing new and certainly date's back to World War 1, even proceeding the formation of MI5 itself. What is new in this case is the way that the grooming is taking place. When and Intelligence Officer (IO) is looking to recruit an agent they are trained to identify individuals with either a "Need or a Greed". What "greed's" are is pretty obvious, identifying a "need" is more complicated because it covers a whole range of human weaknesses. Most frequently it is the basic human need to be protected from fear be that a fear of going to prison, a fear of losing a job, a fear of a marriage breaking up or the fear of having and embarrassing secret made public. It can also include insecurities over personal, physical appearance, question marks over a person's sexuality, drug addiction and mental illness especially ones relating to power and control such as paedophilia. At a higher level it can include a person's fear they lack the talent to have the lifestyle they want. For example someone who wants to have a criminal career but just isn't good enough would be an easy recruit, especially for the police. In extreme cases the IO will create the "need" themselves by planting evidence of a criminal act or by using their own wives to organise a Nazi themed sex party.

In the old days (pre-2004) when UK plc couldn't afford more then 20 quid British IO's were told to concentrate on the "need" or coercive recruitment because it was cheaper. This means that when people describe agents of the British state as weak-minded individuals who are beneath human contempt they're not insulting them, they're merely quoting from the recruitment manual.

The interesting thing that this case reveals it that Special Branch appear to be now concentrating on persuasive recruitment by appealing the to "greed". This is evidenced by the early offering of cash payments although the conversation quickly reverts to intimidation tactics. That is not to say that the game has suddenly changed and Special Branch are now paying Plane Stupid activists tens of thousands of pounds while the Senior Intelligence Service, MI6 is having it's budget slashed. What is more likely is that if Tilly had proceeded with the grooming process she would have received a "goodwill" payment of around £50 while the officers "got the paperwork sorted". In the meantime Tilly's Vodafone bill and Barclays bank charges would go up by around £55 meaning she'd have little choice then to accept another payment of £50. Also when the officer say she is free to walk away at anytime he is lying through his teeth. Running an agent is a process based entirely on control and coercion. The people who do it are like the Mafia. Once you accept a gift from them, they own you for life.

Having being raised on a diet of Fredrick Forsthye and Alister McLean novels I am tempted to go back and look at a previous incident when Plane Stupid made a huge fuss about how they'd trapped a British Airport Authority (BAA) spy. In light of this case that might have been only a small part of a much more elaborate operation in which a spy was put into Plane Stupid and then allowed himself to be caught in order to lull the group into a false sense of security by making them think they were better at catching spies then they really are.