Police entrapment

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are you saying this wikipedia definition is wrong?

Not wrong, maybe beside the point. I'm not going to be ruled by Wikipedia, any more than I feel obliged to agree with the Supreme Court.

I agree with Claradoon. I don't think they're the same.

Also, for a lawyer to be able to argue that "entrapment" occurred, the cop can't be the one to initiate the illegal act. Like if a cop goes into a chatroom claiming to be 13 and wanting to discuss Wii games with other 13 year olds and then some pervert PM's her and asks "r u virgin?" then I don't think it's wrong legally or morally to let the pervert continue talking. The key thing being that the 13 year old shouldn't suggest that the pervert help her loose the virginity - the pervert should suggest it.

Same idea with prostitution stings. If a cop wants to stand on a street corner looking like a hooker, that's not a problem. If some guy walks up to her and asks "how much for good time?" they comitted a crime. If she walks up to a guy and asks "Gimme $20 for a good time" that's illegal and immoral.

Bait cars are definitely not a problem... A car is just sitting on the street parked waiting for someone to steal it?!?!? The car can't be giving out any subliminal messages of "steal me...... steal me....." And the cops aren't forcing people to go try and steal the car.

I just don't see problems with any of this....

...and that doesn't bother you?

It bothers me like death bothers me. You have to decide how far you will go to avoid it.

I may disagree with laws governing prostitution and drugs. But I am more inclined to voice my opinion against the specific laws rather than taking the side of people that break them.

As for child porn - I have no problem with cops trying to bait child pornographers. I also hesistate to use the term "entrapment" since your definition doesn't seem to fit the legal definition and I don't want to have a debate over semantics.

Exactly! And by acting thus, the law is condoning theft, ergo making theft legal. Maybe our society has a problem with resisting temptation. How could temptation excuse a crime?

Temptation can't excuse the crime. But I am sure that there are those that will try to use it as an excuse nevertheless since no one wants to take personal responsibility for their actions. Like my friend's nephew who didn't want to take responsibility for being busted for trying to arrange sex with a minor over the internet. Sorry your nephew is a pervert. Now quit paying for his lawyers and let him face the music!! !!

So if I care what happens to my liberties, then I must be a pervert? There isn't anyone that is safe for them to go after using unfair and unconstitutional means. No matter who they start with, they will eventually target normal people. You don't care what they do to catch those people, even if it means falsely accusing people?

I don't want to live here.

It's exactly because you would rather stick to less explosive examples that you are such a threat to our basic liberties. The Government uses child molesters to get a foothold on using some illegal tactic (they did it with the Patriot Act, too... they expanded it to include child molesters... now they're spying on all of us) It's an unfortunate fact that when you eliminate civil liberties for child molesters, you wind up eliminating civil liberties for everybody. To not oppose the taking of our civil liberties constitutes treason, in my opinion.

WTF??? ALEX!! ! that was my post, the site posted it as Claradoon's!

I bet I did that... I'm sorry Claradoon, I think I must have hit edit instead of quote. That is my post and I was quoting you, not remnant (my only ally in this

Oh, what to do...

I reversed our names for this answer, so they're back where they should be (I think).

You've got my ideas reversed (synchronicity?) - I would rather stick to less explosive examples because I am more able, for less explosive examples, to bring reason to bear and to stick up for liberties.

I think that when I described the extreme reactions that I have re child porn, I may have given the impression of thinking I was correct to react like that. Not so. I know that my take on that is irrational, and that's why I'd like it removed from the discussion.

This is such a huge area. Civil liberties. Do you say, then, that although a specific instance might not seem dangerous, if it spread then it could compromise our civil liberties? I agree that if it could, it most certainly would.

We're communicating on two completely different levels, sort of macro and micro.

But I still don't see what is wrong with setting up a temptation - how does that contravene a civil right? Which civil right?

Are you saying that we are not responsible for our actions if somebody placed temptation in our path? I really don't know what right you're thinking of.

They have been using child molestation and child pornography for pretext arrests for a long time. If you looked at what they did even those charges would lose a lot of credibility.

Where should I look?

I like to use Google searches to get a better overview. Do a search like "false", "charges", "molestation", and "child."

There is a current news story about a janitor going through several days of hell in prison after being falsely accused of raping an 8 year old girl. falsely accused of raping an 8 year old girl. It took them about a week to decide that the girl's story was "shaky" and if it took them that long I don't know how they ever figured it out. Whoever had the brain must have dropped by.

I know that you do not mean that levying a lot of false accusations against people until something sticks is the way to deal with child molesters. If someone doesn't make the effort to think these things through then the law is going to be worse than useless in dealing with this problem.

...Thanks for understanding my stupid mistake, Claradoon. And I do notice that you are in Canada, not the US; my comments about treason, while general, really apply to Americans, who are giving up their rights at an alarming pace.

I'm not talking about people who are falsely accused of child molestation, I'm talking about real child molesters. We are so anxious about them that we say ok to whatever tactics the government uses to catch them. I say that before long the government will expand those tactics to include all of us. It always has, and it probably always will. So we need to stop the government before it starts using illegal tactics on any of us.

As to temptation, I just don't see that a government of, by, and for the people should be tempting its citizens to see if any of them will take the bait; we all will if it is attractive enough.