Hacker News Reader

Comment by Nacraile | Hacker News Reader

> To be entrapment, someone working on the government's behalf would have to do something that would even convince a lawful-minded person to commit the crime.

As a lawful-minded individual, if multiple government websites tell me the institution is accredited, and the head of the institution tells me that work-for-credit is sufficient for student status, I am reasonably convinced that it is legal for me to enroll and apply for a visa.

Just how deep into the letter of the law do I have to dig to discover this isn't legal?

View on HN

I think the difference here is not that it was entrapment, but that it wasn't a crime at all. Unless the law says this crime is strict liability, then the prosecutor would need to show that these individuals intended to commit the crime they were committing.

For example, say you have a bucket in your yard, I go and stick a sign up saying 'Free bucket to good home.' and someone else comes by and grabs the bucket. Focusing only on the third person's actions for a moment, even though they took a bucket that they had no right to take, and they would likely have to give back, they never committed a crime because they never intended to steal the bucket. They only intended to take a bucket being given away freely. (This is different from 'ignorance of the law isn't an excuse'; that would apply if they did intend to steal a bucket but thought stealing wasn't illegal.)

(Now there is still an issue with the government doing something similar with strict liability laws and I'm not sure how that one works out.)

That is a very different line of reasoning from that to which I was responding. IANAL so I'm not comfortable speculating too far but "it's entrapment if the government asks you to do it" is something I know to be a common misconception.

If I were to speculate further, though, I'd say that if someone justifiably believed it was legit because of the government sites, that somebody hadn't committed a crime in the first place and thus couldn't be entrapped.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com