That's a massively different picture than what you get by reading the article, and the headline 'FBI's deep web child porn ring'. It wasn't FBI's child porn ring, it was this guy's child porn ring.
> That's a massively different picture...
No, it isn't. The USG treats every instance of child pornography as a separate occurrence of a crime against the child. That is the way they've structured it so that they can convict as many people as possible, not just the individuals responsible for production. In this case the USG, by their own standard, committed an untold number of crimes against these children by keeping the site up and acting as a distributor. There is no difference between this and them setting up a honey pot full of CP.
They kept the site online so they could distribute malware to people who viewed it. What's the actual evidence that they distributed CP?
"...including more than 9,000 files that users could download directly from the FBI. Some of the images described in court filings involved children barely old enough for kindergarten."
In the court filings described by the previously linked stories, one of which I quoted in the comment you just responded to. What do you think they were charging people with, intent to download cp.jpg? Are you having such a hard time believing that the USG would distribute CP that you are mentally blocking all the evidence available to you? Because I have bad news for you, they've done much worse than that.
there are law against entrapment. but when fbi agents get on a chat room anonymously and send someone a link "want to see this illegal content?" now the person who could have zero interest in the matter will just want to check it out to see if it's true, for whatever reason, which could very well be to report to the authorities if it is true. but now, since the person was entrapped, the fbi can just deny the anonymous entrapment and prosecute the person for arriving on the site by their own means and drive.
Yeah, sure. I see a link saying 'child porn click here' and I click that link just out of curiosity. Sure.
> which could very well be to report to the authorities if it is true
You can report it to the authorities without needing to click the link (as any sensible person would do).
remember that there was a famous uk singer that was entrapped just like that since 4 years or so ago. can't remember the name though... he had a foundation to fight child abuse. he spent years reporting links he found to no effect, so he started to collect hard evidence and was busted for possession of that material. he had a hard time fighting the charges, and he might very well be really guilty after all, what I'm telling if just the news as I've read at the time.
Entrapment only comes into play if you convince someone to commit a crime they weren't already predisposed to commit. So if you give them a link that says "here's CP" and they download half the site and add it to their collection, it's hard to argue that the cops made you collect CP. In general, if all the police did is provide you a chance to commit a crime and you did so, you were busted, not entrapped.
I suggest this as an entertaining introduction to the law on the concept: http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=633
Please do not assume you'll be fine if you self-report to the police.