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Comment by jimnotgym | Hacker News Reader

Whilst discussing this with friends there was a feeling that MI5 certainly need some sort of 'special powers'. I don't see why those special powers should not be in the Act itself and agreed before parliament. For instance the 'Snoopers Charter' grants amazing powers to the security services, but parliament did agree it.

When the executive still feel the need to break the law in order to operate, it gives one a clear picture of their attitude to the rule of law

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This isn't very dissimilar to being an undercover detective.

If there were very clear rules spelled out in law about what you can and cannot do, then criminals could use these to develop a robust litmus test for undercover operatives.

While I agree its unsettling that government agents could be committing crimes legally, I can also see the argument for leniency if it helps them penetrate further into criminal enterprises and bring them down more effectively.

"Are you a cop? You have to tell me or else it's entrapment!!" ;)

Apart from (parts of?) the US - most civilised countries have strong rules against entrapment. It's eg unlikely the first twin tower bomber could've been found guilty, as FBI initiated the plan and provided the explosives.

That doesn't mean police can't do "minor" entrapment in order to roll up a big case; it just means they can expect to sentence people for those acts.

As for a litmus test, I believe maiming or killing bystanders would qualify against most police officers (the trick, then is to make sure the "victim" isn't a carefully placed undercover asset...).

Now, assume a ring of human traffickers have the rape and killing of a victim as part of the initiation process: are there circumstances where we would condone branches of our government to participate in order to bring down such an organisation? I lean strongly towards no; but as has been seen from Japan under us administration to kfor in Kosovo - using war criminals and military/intelligence personell as part of heinous organised crime is a feature of our current world order. How do we fight it?

No anti entrapment rule or law in the UK.

There certainly is! The bar is quite high though; it's not enough for a police officer to have given you an opportunity to commit a crime, they really have to have tricked someone into it who wouldn't reasonably be expected to normally commit a crime.

On the other hand, if there aren't any rules then the security services can simply murder dissidents. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Finucane

Edit: another recent scandal; is it OK for undercover police to have long-term sexual relations with the people they are informing on? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_undercover_policing_relatio...

Until reading that I hadn't been aware that questions had been asked in the Bundestag about Mark Kennedy; understandably Germany takes a view of both (a) secret police and (b) foreigners committing arson.

One of the most fascinating things (in a repulsive way) I've heard of intelligence agencies doing is keeping an abuse ring running so the participants can be blackmailed.

The MI5 may have done that: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/feb/17/belfast-boys...

I’ll go a step further and say that I am strongly in favor of erring way on the side of less legal immunity for undercover agents. I don’t think a world with no undercover agents (especially domestic agents; foreign operatives is a bit of a different ballgame) sounds particularly horrible, but a world with domestic agents with significant immunity is pretty much the definition of dystopia.

>If there were very clear rules spelled out in law about what you can and cannot do, then criminals could use these to develop a robust litmus test for undercover operatives.

They could always ask them to kill a random person. So, should that be allowed?

That might have happened: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakeknife

Yeah, that definitely happened on a number of occasions. I doubt the truth will ever come out, but there are various lists of various levels of plausibility. Both in NI where the security services were routinely shooting people (and in one case blew up a band) and on the mainland which is usually thought of as less of a lawless free-for-all.

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