Informant

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An informant (sometimes informer) is someone existing inside a closed system who provides information of that system to a figure or organization who exist outside of that system. Most notably these organizations include law enforcement agencies, but also informants are utilized by others such as social scientists.

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[edit] Ancient

In Greece and Rome, and particularly against the emperors, informers (the Roman delatores) were a key part of the judicial system. They informed the Roman Senate about urgent matters important to the republic and later, the empire. In the Middle Ages, any Christian was put to death through the testimony (delatio) of another Christian would be sentenced to excommunication, according to the Synod of Elvira in circa 306 C.E.

[edit] Political informers

An informer in Ireland historically refers to someone who provided a flow of inside information to state security agencies, usually for financial gain and/or immunity from prosecution, while purporting to be a member or sympathiser of the targeted political organization. Informers were widely used by the British Government against the United Irishmen, Fenian Brotherhood, Irish Republican Brotherhood and the Irish Republican Army.

[edit] Labor organization informers

Corporations and the detective agencies that sometimes represent them have historically hired labor spies to monitor or control labor organizations and their activities. Such individuals may be professionals or recruits from the workforce. They may be willing accomplices, or may be tricked into informing on their co-workers' unionization efforts.

[edit] Criminal informers

Informants are most common in the world of organized crime because, by its very nature, organized crime involves many people who are aware of each other's guilt in a variety of illegal activities. Quite frequently, informants will provide information in order to obtain lenient treatment for themselves and provide information over an extended period of time in return for money or for police to overlook their own criminal activities. Quite often someone will become an informant following their arrest. The CIA has been criticized for letting major drug lords out of prison as informants. Informants are regarded as traitors by their former criminal associates, who punish informers with death. Informers therefore have to be protected, either by being segregated in prison or — if they are not incarcerated - relocated and given a new identity.

The slang term where defense lawyers make deals with courts and authorities to get a criminal out of jail as an informant is called "pulling a Jeremy" coined after the infamous American informant code named "Jeremy" who disclosed information about the whereabouts of President Noriega during Operation Just Cause, leading to Noriega's capture. They may be allowed to engage in crime, so that the potential informant can blend into the criminal environment without suspicion.

[edit] Terms for informants

Several slang terms for informants have arisen over the years, most of them pejorative. They include:

[edit] Famous informants

In linguistics the speakers of the local vernacular who are used for acquiring information on the grammar and structure of that language or dialect are called informants.

[edit] See also

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