SF cops infiltrate and run Anti-War Demo in Oakland

This is a nice story - the cops were , for once on the side of the good guys.

Two Oakland police officers working undercover at an anti-war protest in May 2003 got themselves elected to leadership positions in an effort to influence the demonstration, documents released on Thursday show.Undercover Officers Nobuko Biechler and Mark Turpin had been elected to be leaders in the May 12 demonstration an hour after meeting protesters that day.SFGate.com story here

The extent of the officers' involvement in the subsequent march May 12, 2003, led by Direct Action to Stop the War and others, is still unclear.

Deputy Police Chief Howard Jordan said activists had elected the undercover officers to "plan the route of the march and decide I guess where it would end up and some of the places that it would go."

Asked who had ordered the officers to infiltrate the group, Jordan said, "I don't know if there is one particular person, but I think together we probably all decided it would be a good idea to have some undercover officers there."

Several months after the rally, Jordan told a city police review board examining the April 2003 port clash that "our ability to gather intelligence on these groups and this type of operation needs to be improved,"

New York Times reveal FBI infiltration tactics in November 2003

The NYT had a story in November 2003 about how the FBI were encouraging law enforcement to report suspicious activity at protests to its counter terroism squads etc., It is evident from a confidential bureau memorandum that this was all part of a nationwide program which included for example - "the New York Police Department this year questioned many of those arrested at demonstrations about their political affiliations, before halting the practice and expunging the data in the face of public criticism."

The memorandum, circulated on Oct. 15 — 10 days before major protests in Washington and San Francisco about the US occupation of Iraq — noted that the bureau "possesses no information indicating that violent or terrorist activities are being planned as part of these protests" and that "most protests are peaceful events."