On Sun, Jul 29, 2001 at 08:46:22AM -0500, Timm Murray wrote: > Police are absolutely not to entrap people (like hiding a bag of crack on > someone just before you search them). This is not a grey area at all; if a > judge found out about it at all, she would not only throw out the case, but > probably get those responsible fired right away (assuming this judge wasn't > bought off). Hiding a bag of crack in your coat and arresting you isn't entrapment; it's fraud. Entrapment is when you are induced or persuaded by the police to commit a crime you would not otherwise commit. Entrapment is a grey area, too. Say you're in a bar talking about how great it would be to have some pot to smoke. A government agent offers to sell some to you. Is that entrapment? Will a node operator be arrested because the police downloaded illegal data from his node? Will they then collectively arrest Usenet? How about the owner of every public Xerox machine? Is Freenet illegal because it's a little more anonymous than Usenet and Xerox machines? (Imagine if all Xerox machines required user authentication and sent copies to the government.... and then the FreeXerox project came along and started installing anonymous Xerox machines in dark alleys and under bridges! And a team of volunteers crept through the city every night to service them with donated paper, ink, and parts! Would this not be denounced as dangerous and irresponsible aid to criminal copiers?) Freenet has much to fear from fickle ISPs and threatening DMCA letters. Our collective plug will be yanked after a few decent ISPs become the property of the RIAA. Entrapment? Why bother! -- Fee-Faw-Fummers of the inimitable Grip _______________________________________________ Chat mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.freenetproject.org/mailman/listinfo/chat
