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The rule should be that law enforcement cannot commit a crime in order to catch a criminal. For instance, they cannot be part of a bank robbery, or murder someo

The rule should be that law enforcement cannot commit a crime in order to catch a criminal. For instance, they cannot be part of a bank robbery, or murder someone. This reminds somewhat of the "gun walker" case where the ATF let illegal guns flood the market in order to track the buyers, which resulted in the death of a border patrol agent and countless others along the border. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATF_gunwalking_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATF_gunwalking_scandal

S_Daedalus 10y ago
The funny thing is, I suspect that many people believe that to be the law already, if cinema and television audiences are anything to go by. That's quite scary really, because it simply isn't true. You can't entrap, but that has a very specific meaning. Even if it were against the law though, with the system as it is prosecutorial discretion and grand juries that insulate LEO's from murder would do so for lesser crimes (and do).
dogma1138 10y ago
That's an unrealistic approach CIs and undercover agents are needed to break apart crime syndicates because otherwise you'll end up arresting the "street level" peddlers and nothing more. Now as far as entrapment goes there are legal definitions for it under most cases law enforcement isn't allowed to change the outcome of an event. For example it is ok for an undercover officer to sell you drugs in a sting operation but it is not ok to come to you and convince you to do drugs and then sell them to you. For the most part wether the fbi was operating this server or not the people who visit the server came there out of their own free will in an attempt to acquire child pornography. If the fbi did not operate the server they would still have acquired it just from a different source. The ATF sting was a pretty shitty operation with dubious legal backing but it's not an case for not running intelligence gathering or sting operation, it's just evidence that they should be planned and executed better and that certain restrictions should apply especially in cases where public safety might be put at risk.
- pixelbash 10y ago
  > If the fbi did not operate the server they would still have acquired it. I'm a little dubious of this brand of logic. The one that goes if X was not supplied they would just get it from the <potentially slightly harder to find &/or riskier> place. Perhaps, but surely the point is to reduce the incentive by making it harder/riskier - as making it impossible is generally not a viable option?
  - caf 10y ago
    Surely this sort of thing does make it riskier, because now the thought must be there that "perhaps this site is run by the FBI too?"
- trendia 10y ago
  That argument would be irrelevant if we just made drugs legal in the first place.
- syshum 10y ago
  Legal Protections against entrapment are very minimal and not what people think. FBI routinely creates, plots, then recruits people for made up terrorism plots, then arrests them The DEA, in partnership with the ATF, recently ran a operation where they recruited people to rob fake stash houses, then arrested the people that were coerced into the plot Entrapment is often used in prostitution stings as well. None of these instances are tossed by the courts, entrapment is very much alive and well in the legal system >>>>For the most part wether the fbi was operating this server or not the people who visit the server came there out of their own free will in an attempt to acquire child pornography. While true, there are some very significant problems with this. For decades now the basis of the law against viewing child pornography is that each time the image is viewed the child is victimized. Thus by running the server for even 1 second the FBI was, according to the law, victimizing children in order to catch criminals. If you then claim is no children were actually harmed by the FBI's action then one has to start looking at the very foundation of the Child Porn laws. Personally I think the ethical and moral position (and should be the obvious one) is that the FBI should not, under any circumstances, be distributing child porn. Period. Edit: Sources for above can be found in this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12432737 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12432737
sandworm101 10y ago
But police must "break the law" on a very regular basis. Often those actions that are common are specifically exempt (ie breaking the speed limit to catch a speeder). And sometimes people are killed because the cops broke the law (many have been killed by speeding police cars). So it is too simple to state that they should obey exactly the same rules as everyone else.
- krapp 10y ago
  > So it is too simple to state that they should obey exactly the same rules as everyone else. I don't think so. They should be held to a higher standard than everyone else, or at least an equal one, but not a lesser one. I'm not particularly concerned that doing so would make it more difficult for them to catch criminals - people who are otherwise innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. It should be difficult (but not impossible) for law enforcement to do its job. That's the sign of a society in which civil liberties still have some meaning. In this particular case, we have the FBI running a child pornography ring to catch child pornographers. Arrest every member of the FBI who was involved, send them to prison and put them on the sex-offenders' list for the rest of their lives. Treat them the way they would treat everyone else. Maybe then they'll learn to actually respect the laws they enforce, and the judicial process would wind up being more fair out of the need for self-preservation.
  - xg15 10y ago
    So how exactly would they catch speeders then if they absolutely must not break the speed limit?
    - dublinben 10y ago
      Roadblocks, etc. You can't outrun a police radio.
    - krapp 10y ago
      High speed chases are a bigger threat to public safety than speeders, so simply not pursuing most speeders and escalating situations would probably save more lives in the long run. They have license plate trackers, cameras, etc - they don't have to chase people down and personally hand them a ticket. But if they did have to, then the police should be charged for speeding as well, since a speeding police car presents the same potential danger as a civilian one.
sjtgraham 10y ago
I agree. Interesting related fact about the UK. The police are "crown servants", and as The Crown is not ordinarily bound by statute the law to does not apply to them in the course of the execution of their duties. This allows them to break the speed limit, carry firearms that are otherwise prohibited, handle drugs, etc. I don't know if this would stretch as far as the police operating a paedo CDN, maybe someone here does? It would certainly cause a lot of public outrage.
- toomanybeersies 10y ago
  That sounds suspiciously like one of those legal "facts" that are complete hogwash, like "people can be hung for treason in the UK", or "It's legal to kill a Scotsman with a longbow at a church". At least in New Zealand, which is constitutionally similar to the UK, police are governed by specific laws that allow what would be otherwise considered illegal behavior (e.g. carrying firearms, use of physical force, speeding). If a police officer was to, say, rape someone, it would still be completely illegal.
  - sjtgraham 10y ago
    Here you go: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/493665/Crown_Application.pdf https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm... N.B. "An Act does not bind the Crown unless it does so expressly or by necessary implication." and They [the Crown] are: the Sovereign personally; her servants or agents; and persons who are not Crown servants or agents but who, for certain limited purposes, are considered to be “in consimili casu”.
    - toomanybeersies 10y ago
      I am happy to be proven wrong. That's an interesting constitutional quirk. Are the police considered the Crown though? I'm struggling to find any real information on that point.
      - sjtgraham 10y ago
clarkmoody 10y ago
Furthermore, if a member of law enforcement violates your liberty through imprisonment or personal injury -- and you are found not guilty through the judicial process -- then that police officer should be tried for false imprisonment and battery. Simply because someone wears the costume of the state does not mean they should be above the law that governs everyone else. The monopoly on force granted to law enforcement has created a toxic set of incentives. We are seeing ramifications of those incentives in the news every week.
nso95 10y ago
So an officer cannot speed in order to catch up to a speeding driver?
- XorNot 10y ago
  Very much a bad analogy because high speed pursuits have their own share of issues in their practice.
  - akira2501 10y ago
    Why does it have to be a pursuit? Can the police speed through a city to arrive on scene of a crime? Say, for example, a domestic dispute turned into a violent assault? Can they break down a door on reasonable suspicion when they arrive? Can they enter the contained private property without permission? Can they shoot one person to save the others life?
- 1_listerine_pls 10y ago
  A cop speeding to encourage speeding in order to catch reckless drivers.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

S_Daedalus 10y ago

The funny thing is, I suspect that many people believe that to be the law already, if cinema and television audiences are anything to go by. That's quite scary really, because it simply isn't true. You can't entrap, but that has a very specific meaning. Even if it were against the law though, with the system as it is prosecutorial discretion and grand juries that insulate LEO's from murder would do so for lesser crimes (and do).

dogma1138 10y ago

That's an unrealistic approach CIs and undercover agents are needed to break apart crime syndicates because otherwise you'll end up arresting the "street level" peddlers and nothing more. Now as far as entrapment goes there are legal definitions for it under most cases law enforcement isn't allowed to change the outcome of an event. For example it is ok for an undercover officer to sell you drugs in a sting operation but it is not ok to come to you and convince you to do drugs and then sell them to you. For the most part wether the fbi was operating this server or not the people who visit the server came there out of their own free will in an attempt to acquire child pornography. If the fbi did not operate the server they would still have acquired it just from a different source. The ATF sting was a pretty shitty operation with dubious legal backing but it's not an case for not running intelligence gathering or sting operation, it's just evidence that they should be planned and executed better and that certain restrictions should apply especially in cases where public safety might be put at risk.

pixelbash 10y ago
> If the fbi did not operate the server they would still have acquired it. I'm a little dubious of this brand of logic. The one that goes if X was not supplied they would just get it from the <potentially slightly harder to find &/or riskier> place. Perhaps, but surely the point is to reduce the incentive by making it harder/riskier - as making it impossible is generally not a viable option?
- caf 10y ago
  Surely this sort of thing does make it riskier, because now the thought must be there that "perhaps this site is run by the FBI too?"
trendia 10y ago
That argument would be irrelevant if we just made drugs legal in the first place.
syshum 10y ago
Legal Protections against entrapment are very minimal and not what people think. FBI routinely creates, plots, then recruits people for made up terrorism plots, then arrests them The DEA, in partnership with the ATF, recently ran a operation where they recruited people to rob fake stash houses, then arrested the people that were coerced into the plot Entrapment is often used in prostitution stings as well. None of these instances are tossed by the courts, entrapment is very much alive and well in the legal system >>>>For the most part wether the fbi was operating this server or not the people who visit the server came there out of their own free will in an attempt to acquire child pornography. While true, there are some very significant problems with this. For decades now the basis of the law against viewing child pornography is that each time the image is viewed the child is victimized. Thus by running the server for even 1 second the FBI was, according to the law, victimizing children in order to catch criminals. If you then claim is no children were actually harmed by the FBI's action then one has to start looking at the very foundation of the Child Porn laws. Personally I think the ethical and moral position (and should be the obvious one) is that the FBI should not, under any circumstances, be distributing child porn. Period. Edit: Sources for above can be found in this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12432737 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12432737

sandworm101 10y ago

But police must "break the law" on a very regular basis. Often those actions that are common are specifically exempt (ie breaking the speed limit to catch a speeder). And sometimes people are killed because the cops broke the law (many have been killed by speeding police cars). So it is too simple to state that they should obey exactly the same rules as everyone else.

krapp 10y ago
> So it is too simple to state that they should obey exactly the same rules as everyone else. I don't think so. They should be held to a higher standard than everyone else, or at least an equal one, but not a lesser one. I'm not particularly concerned that doing so would make it more difficult for them to catch criminals - people who are otherwise innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. It should be difficult (but not impossible) for law enforcement to do its job. That's the sign of a society in which civil liberties still have some meaning. In this particular case, we have the FBI running a child pornography ring to catch child pornographers. Arrest every member of the FBI who was involved, send them to prison and put them on the sex-offenders' list for the rest of their lives. Treat them the way they would treat everyone else. Maybe then they'll learn to actually respect the laws they enforce, and the judicial process would wind up being more fair out of the need for self-preservation.
- xg15 10y ago
  So how exactly would they catch speeders then if they absolutely must not break the speed limit?
  - dublinben 10y ago
    Roadblocks, etc. You can't outrun a police radio.
  - krapp 10y ago
    High speed chases are a bigger threat to public safety than speeders, so simply not pursuing most speeders and escalating situations would probably save more lives in the long run. They have license plate trackers, cameras, etc - they don't have to chase people down and personally hand them a ticket. But if they did have to, then the police should be charged for speeding as well, since a speeding police car presents the same potential danger as a civilian one.

sjtgraham 10y ago

I agree. Interesting related fact about the UK. The police are "crown servants", and as The Crown is not ordinarily bound by statute the law to does not apply to them in the course of the execution of their duties. This allows them to break the speed limit, carry firearms that are otherwise prohibited, handle drugs, etc. I don't know if this would stretch as far as the police operating a paedo CDN, maybe someone here does? It would certainly cause a lot of public outrage.

toomanybeersies 10y ago
That sounds suspiciously like one of those legal "facts" that are complete hogwash, like "people can be hung for treason in the UK", or "It's legal to kill a Scotsman with a longbow at a church". At least in New Zealand, which is constitutionally similar to the UK, police are governed by specific laws that allow what would be otherwise considered illegal behavior (e.g. carrying firearms, use of physical force, speeding). If a police officer was to, say, rape someone, it would still be completely illegal.
- sjtgraham 10y ago
  Here you go: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/493665/Crown_Application.pdf https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm... N.B. "An Act does not bind the Crown unless it does so expressly or by necessary implication." and They [the Crown] are: the Sovereign personally; her servants or agents; and persons who are not Crown servants or agents but who, for certain limited purposes, are considered to be “in consimili casu”.
  - toomanybeersies 10y ago
    I am happy to be proven wrong. That's an interesting constitutional quirk. Are the police considered the Crown though? I'm struggling to find any real information on that point.
    - sjtgraham 10y ago

clarkmoody 10y ago

Furthermore, if a member of law enforcement violates your liberty through imprisonment or personal injury -- and you are found not guilty through the judicial process -- then that police officer should be tried for false imprisonment and battery. Simply because someone wears the costume of the state does not mean they should be above the law that governs everyone else. The monopoly on force granted to law enforcement has created a toxic set of incentives. We are seeing ramifications of those incentives in the news every week.

nso95 10y ago

So an officer cannot speed in order to catch up to a speeding driver?

XorNot 10y ago
Very much a bad analogy because high speed pursuits have their own share of issues in their practice.
- akira2501 10y ago
  Why does it have to be a pursuit? Can the police speed through a city to arrive on scene of a crime? Say, for example, a domestic dispute turned into a violent assault? Can they break down a door on reasonable suspicion when they arrive? Can they enter the contained private property without permission? Can they shoot one person to save the others life?
1_listerine_pls 10y ago
A cop speeding to encourage speeding in order to catch reckless drivers.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]