An informant (or snitch) is someone from inside a group or network recruited by an adversary to provide information on the group or network.
An adversary can use different strategies to recruit an informant:
- Target people who are seen as more likely to become informants: people on the periphery of a network who are less committed, people who are no longer in a group or network and harbor feelings of resentment…
- Threaten someone with negative consequences if they don't become an informant: a longer prison sentence, deportation…
- Offer someone positive consequences if they become an informant: immunity or leniency in the judicial case in which they are asked to become an informant or in another case, money…
An adversary can use an informant to gather evidence or to map a network.
See the “Infiltrators and informants” topic.
Used in tactics: Incrimination
Mitigations
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Attack | You can attack informants when uncovered or years later to discourage others from becoming informants. |
| Background checks | You can perform background checks to help ensure that someone in your network is not an informant. |
| Need-to-know principle | You can apply the need-to-know principle to limit the information a potential informant can obtain about your involvement in actions (if an informant isn't involved in an action, they shouldn't know who is involved even if it's their own roommate). |
| Network map exercise | You can conduct a network map exercise to help ensure your network does not place trust in people who could be or become informants. |
| Prisoner support | You can support prisoners from your networks: beyond the ethical imperative of this support, people are less likely to turn informant if they feel supported and connected to the movements for which they risked their freedom. |
Used in repressive operations
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Case against Marius Mason | The main evidence against Marius Mason was provided to investigators by his former husband, Frank Ambrose, who had participated in some of the actions with him[1]. Frank Ambrose became an informant after his arrest in 2007 (which was triggered by him throwing incriminating material in a garbage can)[2]. For several months, the snitch collaborated extensively with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), secretly recording 178 phone conversations and face-to-face meetings, and providing information on 15 people[3]. |