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Comment by chii | Hacker News Reader

At what point would it be considered entrapment to have law enforcement run these honeypots?

According to the article, in this case it was a (pretty obvious) parody website and the webmaster called law enforcement on their own.

If the parody was obvious, why isn’t being a customer also considered parody? If it was a real hitman site, presumably it would be illegal for the site owner and not just customers.

she was charged with "threatening communications over interstate commerce", if she had money for appeals court she'd probably walk free with a constitutionally questionable law like that

just because the feds never go after anyone with money with their weaker laws doesn't mean their laws represent legality or illegality. you just still might wind up in prison for being indicted and convicted of something illegal.

this changes when you're rich and your rights matter

if they indicted her with a conspiracy charge that could be stronger. but I've seen those get dropped on appeal too specifically with some kind of parody/fan fiction defense.

so what's the difference? it's unresolved.

Lesson learned: don't take your assassin larp to Waffle House.

No, I’m pretty sure that’s the exact right place to take them.

> why isn’t being a customer also considered parody

I'm pretty sure you can claim that in a court. However, making an offline appointment with a hitman and then making them an offer and even making a first down payment for the service is probably difficult to explain away as parody.

If the government agency running the honeypot went out and started badgering people into contracting hits. That would be entrapment, according to my understanding.

So retargeting ads for people that started to fill out a request form but didn’t finish would be entrapment… got it!

Probably not. Law enforcement regularly targets drug stings against individuals they think are dealers but can't yet prove. It's still just an offer the subject wanted to engage in.

Law Comics did a good job breaking the idea down and dealing with common misconceptions https://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=633

It's only entrapment if you wouldn't have committed the crime otherwise. I think it's safe to say that, had Rentahitman.com not existed, she would still have tried to rent a hitman if she were able to do so.

But what would she find one? Go to the second result on Google? Most people would never be able to find a real hitman since it would require taking very obvious risks to find a real hitman - and would just give up.

This is the sort of thing that makes me wonder if I’m backward as all get’out. I’ve never been very tough-on-crime, but if you genuinely hire a hit (murder) on somebody through a shady website, and agree on a contract, well, this is an act that seems indefensible.

The fact that it was a parody site seems amusing, but not defensible, since presumably she was not aware of the parody.

The whole part about her meeting the hitman at a Waffle House, and giving him a $100 down payment seals the deal. That's not LARPing. That's an overt act.

Guess I'm backward as well.

Probably never. Entrapment in US law is when the government creates the crime. Offering up the opportunity doesn’t create it, just catch those looking.

Maybe if they started heavily advertising it, sending spam to the same person continuously for months on end.

Even if an undercover cop asked you to hire a hitman and you say yes. Entrapment is more when you say “No” and the government agent keeps on begging you until you give in.

Ignoring the cases of entrapment for lesser crimes (I.e drug charges), I feel pretty okay with charging those that fall for a hit man (murder) honey pot. Am I backwards?

Yea, it’s unsavory, and in some way unfair, in an academic sort of sense. But don’t hire someone to murder someone else, under any circumstances. Right?

I recall a story of a young police woman who enticed an autistic highschool guy to buy drugs. He was arrested for that. If that's not entrapment, I don't know what is.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/attractive-undercover-cop_b_1...

No mention of autistic victims, and they would be odd targets for this scheme.

I think it was this.

https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/the-entrapment-of-jesse...

That one does have an autistic victim, but it's missing the enticement by a female cop.

It talks about another sting operation with a female cop in the middle of the article. So I can forgive the mistakes in memory for an irrelevant detail.

At minimum, I'd expect that law enforcement would have to put significant amounts of advertisements of the services, along with persuasion to use them, for it to be considered entrapment. Just offering the service is not entrapment. There needs to be incitement.

It's not run by law enforcement. It's an individual who gets lots of "leads" most are obvious pranks --but he occasionally gets live ones. He forwards those on to local law enforcement, other times the FBI.

It is only entrapment when the government induces a normally law abiding person to commit a crime, generally with harassment or threats or other overbearing behavior.

something about working to convince someone that breaking the law is a good idea

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