> Personally, I don't believe it's moral or ethical for law enforcement to commit crimes in order to catch criminals. I think you want to look at systemic effe

> Personally, I don't believe it's moral or ethical for law enforcement to commit crimes in order to catch criminals. I think you want to look at systemic effects and the potential for bulger-style corruption. Distribution of child porn does not do direct harm. It does harm by being a system that supports child abuse and we have collectively decided that child abuse is harmful enough to the fabric of our society that it is worth dismantling the systems that support it. So here, the ends justify a certain scoped set of means, but also impose a duty of competence in deploying those means and a duty to stay within their scope. Note that We don't currently have any penalties for crossing the bounds of that scope.