The FBI has been doing a lot of prodding people to say they hate the country, and then telling them to do a bombing, and then providing them with a (fake) bomb, and then telling the public "We caught another terrorist!":
https://www.hrw.org/report/2014/07/21/illusion-justice/human...
I like to call this the “dissident loophole”. What they really want to do is round up dissidents to protect the status quo, but punishing thought crime directly is just the right combination of unconstitutional and a bad look (though McCarthyism showed us we’re not always above that). So instead they will use social engineering to drag people over the line into minor acts of terrorism so they can be arrested, thus snuffing out future seeds of dissent.
You see this a lot in policing as well. Where people that seem “demographically criminal” to law enforcement are funneled into drug violations as an excuse to round up people they want to round up anyway.
>Well, that or the feds got them on something else and promised leniency if they become an "informant" and goading you into some bigger bust is part of the deal
Fixed to reflect typical federal government procedure.
I have to say that if someone is far enough gone that they can trivially be convinced to bomb innocent people then I'm fine with this type of entrapment. Great work, go ahead and lock them up for life.
The civil right not to be led by the nose by a government agent to commit a crime. They are relying on people doing exactly what you're doing here - convincing themselves that if it was possible to lead them into it then they deserved it so the ends justify the means.
Yeah I get your point, and I generally agree for minor offenses like buying drugs or prostitution or whatever. But if someone can trivially be convinced to murder a bunch of people then the world is better off with them locked away.
I do see what you're saying. However this debate isn't unique to this specific scenario. The exact same reasoning can be applied to other violations of due process. Historically that was viewed as a particularly dangerous slippery slope and thus we have the concept of fruit of the poisonous tree, despite that this can easily result in (for example) a mob boss walking free. Perhaps caution is warranted when considering abandoning well established principles?
You see this a lot in policing as well. Where people that seem “demographically criminal” to law enforcement are funneled into drug violations as an excuse to round up people they want to round up anyway.