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Comment by Daho0n | Hacker News Reader

No it doesn't require suspects to be those things "in most countries". The suspect has to do so by their own volition and not after prodding by a cop. If a cop asks if you want to buy some drugs and you say yes then the cop can be punished, not you, no matter if you might be suspected of wanting to buy drugs. This sneaky entrapment is a very American thing and won't be accepted by most courts. Just like US cops pretending to be prostitutes and then arresting the client. That's entrapment in "most countries".

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Can you provide any citations for your claim?

I’m reviewing the few countries listed in the Wikipedia page on entrapment ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrapment ) but I don’t see how this would trigger any of the exclusions listed.

The criminal in question was advertising his services across the dark web. Officers simply bought his product and sold him something he was advertising himself as buying.

They didn’t go out and encourage him to do these things. He was doing them and the agents engaged as customers so they could unveil his identity.

He wasn't 'prodded', he was given an opportunity to do something he was already doing and any suggestion that this is entrapment is only made by people who have no idea what that word actually means. This sort of investigative technique would be perfectly valid in most countries and I think you really have no idea what you are talking about.

Stop being so snarky and read the comment again please. What I were replying to were a comment stating that "the suspect is unwilling, unlikely or under no suspicion of committing a crime" for it to be entrapment, which is false in most places no matter what happens in the case from the article. It's unrelated.

If a cop asks me if I want to buy drugs and I say yes, they most definitely have no case whatsoever here in Denmark even though I were willing to buy. Luckily we don't have these insane laws that cause police to get people in a bad place and then punish them for it.

> If a cop asks me if I want to buy drugs and I say yes, they most definitely have no case whatsoever here in Denmark

USA, circa 1993: I was in a car with a couple friends going to a neighborhood simply called "Temple", where meth labs were prevalent and you could procure any sort of drugs you wanted, if you knew where to park. Cops were everywhere and they stopped us, as we tried to turn around. "What are you white kids doing in Temple?" Before our driver could answer, a friend stuck his body between the front seats and yelled "we are here to buy drugs but you guys fucked it up!" - The cop did not laugh, but they let us go on our way.

So were you there to buy drugs?

> If a cop asks me if I want to buy drugs and I say yes, they most definitely have no case whatsoever here in Denmark even though I were willing to buy.

That is also exactly how it works in the US. Intention and action, both are required.

If a cop asks you if you want to buy drugs, you say yes, he pulls out a baggie of white powder he claims is an 8-ball and then you hand over a wad of cash you are going to jail as soon as you accept the baggie in exchange for the cash. It was not a crime until you paid for the 'drugs'. The cop is giving you the opportunity to commit the crime, but the choice to do so is entirely made by you. That is not entrapment.

The key factor in most cases is if the actions of the police officer would have coerced a normally law-abiding citizen into breaking the law. An easy test for entrapment (but by no means a conclusive one) is if you swap out the cop with a criminal would the same transaction have occurred -- if you are ready to buy drugs from the cop it is likely that you would have bought them from a street dealer as well. Who was on the other side of the transaction didn't matter to you.

In the US cops can actually have sex with prostitutes and then arrest them for prostitution afterwards. The justice system is broken.

> If a cop asks if you want to buy some drugs and you say yes then the cop can be punished, not you, no matter if you might be suspected of wanting to buy drugs.

In this engineer's case, this is more like the engineer being a well-known drug dealer and the cop asking if the engineer can sell the cop drugs, then the engineer (willingly!) giving the cop some drugs and the cop then arresting the engineer. You have it backwards here.

No. That's not right.

Just think about it a bit - if a cop asking you to commit a crime tainted the investigation then bad-guys could prove they weren't police by telling you to commit a crime. "Hey, buy some drugs from me." "Well, he must be legit, there's no way a cop could say that!"

Also, "this sneaky entrapment is a very American thing and won't be accepted by most courts." You're both lacking for world perspective, and an understanding of the purpose of law. If Country X made this illegal, I as a resident of Country X would be upset, not happy, because it would make my legal system worthless. So even if the law were this silly, somewhere, it would change right away by overwhelming citizen demand.

You know, we the people elect those who write the laws. The laws aren't something done to us, they're our tool for making the world work.

Hahahahaha I remember when I thought that’s how the world worked.

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