"Palpatine's Secret Police" was a phrase that negatively described the Jedi Order's association with Supreme Chancellor Palpatine during the Clone Wars. It was started in 22 BBY, shortly after the first battle of the civil war between the Galactic Republic and the Confederacy of Independent Systems, as a result of the Jedi's decision to support the war effort by becoming officers in the newly-created Grand Army of the Republic—the secret clone army that the Chancellor authorized when the Separatist Crisis escalated into war throughout the galaxy.