This is both horrible and making me think, "You can get paid for bigamy!"
It was a pretty big scandal over here, several years ago.
This is an impulse based in probably inappropriate negativity about sex workers. But I'd like the guy's official job title to reflect the duties he's professionally paid for -- "Police Gigolo"; "Law Enforcement Intimate Entertainer", something that makes it clear he's a sex worker paid by the state. I mean, if the cops think that's kosher, fine, but be explicit about it.
Duece Bigalow: Police Gigolo would both be an abomination and better than anything Rob Schneider has done since Judge Dredd.
On a related note, I recall seeing what was billed (to us) as a French arty film. It was about werewolves and/or vampires (it's been a while) and French aristocrats in the per-revolutionary period. There was a woman going around seducing people to gather information. She revealed herself to be a spy in the pay of the pope. My friend called her "Mata Holy."
2: and indeed the article is from 2015.
I am constantly amazed at the amount of effort the police seem to judge appropriate for the policing and investigation of legitimate non-violent protest groups. What is the actual risk to the public here that they are protecting against? If they were infiltrating people into some jihadi group, fair enough; even some non-violent but extremist group (because they'll have links to jihadis). The animal rights groups have been guilty of some pretty nasty behaviour (bombs, vandalism, intimidation, stalking, blackmail, abuse of corpses).
But this bunch of amiable duck-squeezers?
At least here, much of the right wing seems very emotionally invested in the idea that behind every protest not demanding the construction of more statues of Robert E. lee, a massive police response is the only thing staving off Stalinism. Psychologists call this "projection."
I'm kind of fascinated by this as a matter of labor relations. I mean, on some level, I hate to sympathize with this guy. On another level, though, getting told to go undercover 24-7 for extended periods, fuck up your actual personal life, screw someone who you hadn't been planning to of your own accord, and all for, as ajay notes, very very very little in the way of any actual public benefit?
For the cop's sake, I kind of hope he's an emotionless sociopath, because if he's a remotely normal person, that'd be an experience that would fuck you all the way up, and that your employer should not be asking you to do.
Was he really told to have sex with the people he was watching? He could have just invented a girlfriend in Canada.
labor relations
Damn, he got her pregnant too?
I think this is just old-fashioned bigamy of the traveling-businessman-with-two-families variety.
A few weeks ago, I saw a Law & Order with a similar plot, except the undercover operative was murdered by a security guard whose son was a soldier killed in Vietnam. The operative's girlfriend didn't know until Lenny and Curtis told her.
2, 6: I remember a very good LRB article about it. Perhaps this one: https://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n01/katrina-forrester/i-want-you-to-know-i-know-who-you-are
You may find the story quite farcical, and in a sense it is, but the farce had a sinister side to it. Take the recent case of Mark Kennedy. Kennedy, a police officer, infiltrated the environmental movement in 2003 and remained undercover for seven years. Known as Mark Stone, he was a trusted member of activist groups across Europe. With a fake passport and driver's licence, he travelled across 22 countries attending and organising protests with various environmental and anti-fascist groups. While undercover, he had a long-term activist partner and sexual relationships with several other activists. There was nothing unique about his case. A number of other undercover police officers have even had children with activists. In December 2011, eight women - all of whom were deceived into having relationships with infiltrators - began legal action against the Metropolitan Police. Many see these tactics as amounting to state-sponsored sexual abuse.
In Secret Manoeuvres in the Dark: Corporate and Police Spying on Activists, Eveline Lubbers, an academic, activist journalist and researcher with the organisations SpinWatch and Buro Jansen & Janssen, focuses on what she calls 'grey intelligence', the informal networks of co-operation between corporate interests and state agencies that are now central to the surveillance of dissent in Western European democracies. One of her five case studies tells the story of the infiltration of London Greenpeace by McDonald's. In 1985, Greenpeace launched an annual international day of action against McDonald's; the following year they produced a leaflet: 'What's wrong with McDonald's? Everything they don't want you to know'. McDonald's initially appeared to ignore Greenpeace, but in 1990 they sued five activists for libel. Two of them accepted the challenge, and their trial - the so-called McLibel case - became the longest in British legal history. In the course of this unequal battle between the two Greenpeace volunteers - one an unemployed postman and full-time father, the other a gardener and bar worker - and the McDonald's corporation, the court proceedings revealed that there had been a high level of co-operation between the company and the police. In 1987, Special Branch had set up a department to gather intelligence about animal rights activists, and those involved provided McDonald's with profiles of protesters and details of events. But McDonald's didn't want to have to rely on the police alone, and chose to employ its own private investigators too. The reason may have been that evidence gathered by 'informal' co-operation with the police is rarely admissible in court. (Evidence gathered by undercover police can also lead to legal problems: the revelations about Mark Kennedy's infiltration caused the collapse of the court case against protesters charged with conspiring to take over Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station.) More cynically, undercover police have human rights obligations to the people they spy on, private investigators do not.
8: Yeah, that stuff screws people up and I've never even heard of that kind of undercover work being done over here unless it was to do something like having a guy work his way up the ranks of one of the one percenter MC clubs.
Didn't "Donny Brasco" spend many years in the mafia, before turning into Johnny Depp?
one of the one percenter MC clubs.
This lost me. From context, I think it means important crime, but specifically what?
Motor Cycle. (One percenter was the title they gave themselves after someone or other made a speech saying that 99% of motorcycle clubs were peaceful legitimate law-abiding organisations.)
Actually, "Major Crimes" makes sense and seems to be something I've heard before.
Oh, huh. I didn't realize that there were significant criminal biker gangs at all anymore.
21: They live in harmony with nature and use every part of the methamphetamine.
22: I can't make it work followed by "clubs".
I figured maybe "gangs" was played out.
My mother has a funny story about walking with my big sister at the age of two or three past the Hell's Angels clubhouse on East 3d street, back in 1971 when the HA were actually scary, and having my sister fixate on the big shiny bikes, and run over and start fondling all the neat chrome bits. And some giant terrifying weirdo in leather walked over and picked her up and sat her on the bike so she could play with the handlebars and so on, and this went on for a few minutes while Mom stood there too scared to say anything. And then he lifted her down, and Mom went on about her business.
And that was as close as your sister ever got to a diseased liver until medical school.
I was once in a bar in Narnia when a load of guys walked in wearing "Hell's Angels - Narnia Chapter" colours, which I suppose means that I was in the shadiest bar in Narnia. Narnian Hell's Angels look exactly like you'd expect. Quite a few of them were wearing wire-rimmed glasses, and I am pretty sure one of them had ironed his jeans.
28: Given the guys she dated in college? Probably not.
Thank you. Yes. I tried to google the name, but I could only remember the French name and, it turns out, I'm really bad at French.
My impression was that the HA are actually still scary. They just keep a lower profile than they used to.
For HA read "Hell's Academics", of course.
I've been really impressed by what I've learned about Bikers Against Child Abuse and other "good" motorcycle clubs.
I'm going with "I really hope the undercover cop is deeply fucked up by this for the rest of his life and drinks himself into an early grave." Motherfucker. What he did borders on rape.
I believe "rape by deception" is a crime in some jurisdictions.
re: 30
Definitely sounds like it. It's an enjoyable film in that mad French action-movie style.
Yeah, I saw that. It has a really quite startling dissolve/cut from a nude, recumbent Monica Belluci to an aerial shot of two large, rounded snow-covered hills of virtually the exact same shape. I've never been more impressed with a location scout. I mean, that must have taken months to find.
Possibly they had the hills first and then checked various actresses.
I liked Brotherhood of the Wolf, a.k.a. Le Pacte Des Loups IIRC, but 5 didn't make me think of it until 30 suggested it. Nothing remotely vampire-like about it, and the monstrous wolf turns out to be (spoilers) a mundane animal not native to France, a really big jackal or something, in armor.
re: 40
Fight scenes are really very good. Both Dacascos and the French guy.
42: a really big cyborg jackal with steel teeth, in armour, if i remember.
TBH I was stereotyping Moby as not being the type to watch a super obscure sexy supernatural French movie, so it seemed like a safe bet.
I don't always get to pick what we do.
And then he lifted her down, and Mom went on about her business.
But what did your sister do?
I remember seeing the DVD in a rack back when I used to actually browse the DVD sections of HMVs (so many obselete things in one sentence!) and thinking it looked naff. Now I might have to actually seek it out.
I saw it in a giant theater in downtown Durham. Can't think of the name of the place now. I also saw "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" there.
According to Google, it was probably the Carolina Theatre. You can tell it's classy because of how they spell theater.
I saw biker gangs described somewhere (maybe here, even?) as 'cosplay for middle aged white men'. Which fits just right with the danger level I assign to the ones I see around.
I think they're against past middle age now. I would expect Harley Davidson to be in trouble once the last person who can recall seeing The Wild Ones in the theater gets too old to pick up a hog that's been laid on its side.
The OP scenario is a major plot point in Laurie Penny's Everything Belongs to the Future. And yes, it does mess the undercover cop up big time.
EBttF is one of the works I read in the last few weeks in preparation for the just-concluded Hugo voting. Penny is up for the (technically not a Hugo but awarded at the same time via the same process) Campbell award for best new SF writer. Winners will be announced next month at Worldcon 75 in Helsinki.
The OP scenario is a major plot point in Laurie Penny's Everything Belongs to the Future. And yes, it does mess the undercover cop up big time.
EBttF is one of the works I read in the last few weeks in preparation for the just-concluded Hugo voting. Penny is up for the (technically not a Hugo but awarded at the same time via the same process) Campbell award for best new SF writer. Winners will be announced next month at Worldcon 75 in Helsinki.
I think 55 is why Harley sells trikes.
56-58 Will you be at Worldcon in Helsinki? I'll be there, so we could have an out-of-this-world Unfogged meetup.
An ambulance rolled up, a state trooper close behind
Tweeter took his gun away and messed up his mind
The undercover cop was left tied up to a tree
Near the souvenir stand by the old abandoned factory
Next day the undercover cop was hot in pursuit
He was taking the whole thing personal, he didn't care about the loot
I didn't realize that there were significant criminal biker gangs at all anymore.
Very much still around. For example, see here and here on a recent multi state roundup of Vagos members.
51, it's a great fun film and the fight scenes are really good as Ttam remarks. Not a jackal though IIRC
I don't know why everybody on this thread is so off topic, but to bring it back toward the topic, I just learned that my cousin's kid is going to work at the prison. I also just learned that "recreation counselor" is a job on a prison.
Is it too much to ask you reprobates, for once in my absence, to come up with the title of the officer's memoir?
To wit: I, Love Dick.
Just doing and doing and doing my job.
61: Hi, Doug. Yes, I will be at Worldcon this year, and would be open to having some sort of mini-meetup at some point. I'll be bringing my family, and I'll probably be spending a bunch of time in the Business Meeting sessions. You can ping me at my email address in my sig here to discuss times. Is there anyone else from the Unfoggedariat who plans to be in Helsinki next month?
I've got some stuff about how I first got involved in Worldcon in response to the Puppies over at my LiveJournal: http://dave-wallace.livejournal.com/ (also useful if you want to be able to recognize me at the con). I'll be putting some notes up there soon about various Hugo-related items that will be coming up for votes at the business meeting this year, and what I'm proposing we should do about them. (Any attending member of the Con is entitled to attend the business meeting, make motions, and vote.)
68: That'll do, sex pig. That'll do.
I'm going with "I really hope the undercover cop is deeply fucked up by this for the rest of his life and drinks himself into an early grave."
Round here, you end up as deputy police commissioner until your 1980s-synthpop-star-turned-vicar brother mentions your undercover past in passing in his autobiography.