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Comment by Karunamon | Hacker News Reader

>entrapment cases

That word does not mean what you think it means. Entrapment only applies if someone is coerced to commit a crime they otherwise would not have.

In the case of the FBI's terrorism stings, the suspect was looking for allies to carry out an attack, and unknowingly contacted an undercover officer. The FBI might have supplied the "materials" and the "knowledge", but the action is all on the suspect. The FBI doesn't even swoop in for the arrest until the suspect actually tries to detonate the fake bomb.

Even in the instance of a much weaker case, where a hypothetical "radical" says "Hmm, it would be neat to blow up $building" and a hypothetical undercover officer says "Really? Well I know a guy.."

I'm finding it hard to call foul. Any sane person should recoil at the thought of indiscriminate killing and damage.

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Except this is not what has been happening. There have been many stories reported of FBI actively trying to make someone into a terrorist. Some of the supposed perpetrators even contacted the police while under pressure from FBI to commit acts they would not want to do. Forgive me but I do not have time currently to dig up more than one, but this one I have fresh in my memory: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/471/t...

It's a story of a sting/long con op gone really bad. Have a listen and see that it is nothing like the hypothetical that you posted.

Edit: If anyone is interested, more similar stories can be found in democracynow.org and bestoftheleft.com podcast archives.

If the FBI supplied this guy with a fake bomb, what crime did the guy commit?

He obviously didn't commit an act of terrorism. I don't even think you can claim he /attempted/ to commit such an act since the FBI gave him a fake. So we're left with what, the desire to commit an act of terror?

If the suspect 'pushes the button' which he believes is hooked up to a real bomb, I think it's reasonable to say that he attempted to commit a terror act.

>If the FBI supplied this guy with a fake bomb, what crime did the guy commit?

If you get behind the wheel of a car drunk but get home safely, what crime did you commit?

You needn't actually cause damage to break the law.

>I don't even think you can claim he /attempted/ to commit such an act since the FBI gave him a fake.

Whether the bomb or not was real doesn't change the fact that he has the mens rea to blow up a building, and considering he thought the bomb was real and took positive steps to set it up, the reus actus as well.

> If you get behind the wheel of a car drunk but get home safely, what crime did you commit?

A more accurate analogy would be that the FBI has been supplying you with lots of drink though a 3rd party informant that they pay, in cash or reduced sentencing time or both. That informant is always talking about drinking and telling you how you should drink, and then they supply you with all the liquor you could handle. Then the informant mentions you really ought to head home, why not drive? The minute you get into the car and start to drive, the authorities show up and arrest you, as they have been watching you covertly for several months while the informant does his work. Oh, and they likely selected you based on your skin color and/or religious affiliation.

> Whether the bomb or not was real doesn't change the fact that he has the mens rea to blow up a building, and considering he thought the bomb was real and took positive steps to set it up, the reus actus as well.

While this is true, some of the cases to date the FBI has prosecuted are really likely to have never occurred if informants weren't being paid to intentionally push someone towards an illegal act. Even if someone were to go through with it even without a paid informant involved, it is incredibly unethical for a policing organization to pay people to mislead people into breaking the law.

>That informant is always talking about drinking and telling you how you should drink

Without laboring the analogy too far (which was only a throwaway intended to show that you don't need to cause harm to commit crime), what would any reasonable person do in this situation, if we replace "drinking" with "blowing shit up"?

The reasonable response here is "Get away from me, you psycho moron."

If you collude with that? Willingly? To the point of setting up a "bomb" and blowing it up?

The informant didn't shove the detonator in the suspect's hands and press the button. The informant didn't set up the bomb.

>Oh, and they likely selected you based on your skin color and/or religious affiliation.

Huge citeplz here.

>While this is true, some of the cases to date the FBI has prosecuted are really likely to have never occurred if informants weren't being paid to intentionally push someone towards an illegal act.

Yours and my definition of "intentionally push" must be worlds apart. But then again, if your mindset is such that you can be convinced verbally to blow up a building that you and the person "pushing" you agree is full of innocent people that would "die".. well, let's say I don't have a lot of sympathy for that person.

Perhaps they should be involuntarily committed to a mental health institution instead of imprisoned, but this person is a danger to themselves and others.

>it is incredibly unethical for a policing organization to pay people to mislead people into breaking the law.

There's no misleading here. The people convicted so far were not "misled".

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