delator: (from about.com )
“Delator - Informant” : Definition: Being a delator could be a lucrative, but much despised profession under the Roman emperors.The delator was an informer or informant. Delatores (the Latin plural of delator) were despised for bringing forth trumped up charges. Often a delator was paid by the emperor to make accusations. Delatores were sometimes paid a fee and sometimes a set portion (one half or one quarter) of the victim's fine.
F.B.I. informant:
U.S. Is Ordered to Investigate Use of Disputed Informant - SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 22 - A federal judge here ordered the Justice Department on Monday to investigate the continued use by the federal authorities of a Yemeni informant even though the man had revealed his undercover status and the names of two F.B.I. agents during a terror investigation in California.
The informant, identified in court as Essam Magid, was discharged by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in October 2002, after the improper conduct became known. Even so, Mr. Magid immediately resumed working for the Drug Enforcement Administration, which first recruited him as an informant in 1999 after he was arrested on drug conspiracy charges in a pseudoephedrine case.
Since then, the drug agency has paid Mr. Magid more than $77,000, helped to have the federal drug charges against him dismissed, and vouched for his reliability to other government agencies. Though he described himself as a Christian, Mr. Magid has been regarded as most useful to the authorities when posing in "the Muslim community," it was disclosed in court testimony. [--snip--]
In court testimony, an agent for the F.B.I., Rachel F. Pifer, acknowledged that the bureau continued to have contact with Mr. Magid after he was terminated "because he has provided very good information." Even though he apparently lied to agents about some things, Agent Pifer said, "I trust in the information that he did provide us, yes." [--snip--]
"The D.E.A. is not aware of any information negatively impacting Mr. Magid's ability to testify accurately and truthfully," it said, "and he is regarded as credible and reliable."
In a hearing on Monday, Judge Breyer questioned the accuracy of those characterizations and suggested that Mr. Magid might have committed criminal acts as an informant, including intimidating a witness in a recent drug conspiracy trial in federal court and lying to a judge in small claims court, perhaps at the direction of the drug agency.
They pay him, with your tax dollars, because he's willing to say what they need to get warrants. His credibility is not the characteristic - that is to say his committment to the truth - for which they value him.
