Praxis & Required Reading: Are You Talking to a Provocateur?

Folks, treat this as required reading. It is by a former supervisory DEA agent: The imagined look and persona of an agent provocateur in most people’s minds probably couldn’t be further from the truth. Most would probably picture the obscure, silent individual lurking in the back of the room while doing his best to conceal his identity and his movements. If you accept that image, you have also accepted the notion that the provocateur is really just peeking in on, documenting, and recording pre-existing criminal activities and shady plans going on around him. You haven’t faced the reality that the whole show is the production of the provocateur. . .

As a final comment, most countries in the world do not allow agent provocateur activity. It is expressly prohibited. Rather, it is an established legal principle that a lying government agent involved in criminal activity misrepresenting himself to the other parties cannot be excluded as a defendant in any criminal conspiracy that is charged as a result of his action. Otherwise, the validity of the assent of the private parties to the conspiracy, or the existence of the conspiracy itself, would be in question. Being a lying provocateur is not an acceptable court defense in those places for state actors who arrange to ship drugs, blow people up, shoot people, etc. The U.S. is not one of those places.