Slashdot Mirror
Wireless, GPS-Loaded 'Bait Car' Traps Thieves
captainClassLoader writes: "The Washington Post is reporting that a late-model car, loaded with wireless surveillance gear, a remote kill switch and GPS, is being left (unlocked, presumably) on the streets of the Washington, D.C. metro area as 'bait' for car thieves. This article reports that they've just made their first bust with the vehicle."
Doesn't this constitute some form of entrapment? And what if I were to place a valuable item out on the streets with the intention of having it stolen? Is the person who takes it guilty of theft?
Why bother.
It certainly is in the UK. It's called entrapment I believe.
The problem with entrapment is, where do you draw the line? Is it ok the leave the door unlocked? Is it ok to leave the keys in the ignition? Is it ok to have the engine running and $10,000 in used banknotes scattered around inside the car?
I'm sure everyone of us could be encouraged to do something illegal if the setup was correct.
I'm not sure how common this is in other states, but here in Pennsylvania, it is a standard practice for the police to send a 16-yr old into a Quickie-Mart to try to get the clerk to (illegally) sell them cigarettes.
Do the police not have enough real crimes to solve that they have to manufacture them? Comon now...
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
The ones who get caught stealing the car will spend a night or two in jail, get probation (maybe), and get another line added to thier probably already long list of offences to society. Then they'll be back on the street.
In the meantime people are getting locked up for writing software that the MPAA and/or RIAA (or Adobe) takes offense to. Or for smoking a plant. Or for consentual activities between adults.
The wireless GPS car is all very well and good, but taking thousands of dollars worth of property that is not yours is an offense that, IMO, should land someone in jail for a time on the order of decades, not days. But we all know exactly what will happen to those who are arrested.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
I completely disagree with this. This is about the police trying to trick people into committing a crime they otherwise MAY not.
Sure, it's likely that these people would just be stealing other cars, but the law doesn't operate on the likelihood of a person to commit a crime.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
GPS
GPS
Isn't this entrapment?
The police trying to get someone to commit a crime and then bust them when they do.
Sounds fishy
It's not the OS it's the user that sucks. If it's user friendly, you get stupider people. - clinko
They'll make everyone want one of these, and since they conveniently can't tell you where the device is that triggers this event because then the burglars would know, they could monitor you at any time. What's to say that they don't set it off saying "Hey..I'm going over the speed limit here. Come arrest me".
And of course we can't put these things into computers first or some other segment of society where there might have been a chance of the person getting nabbed wasn't brown. Let's exploit minorities even further. Yay. Now, I know that maybe -- just maybe he would have taken a car no matter what, but you could make the argument that maybe crack wouldn't have been such a hit if we didn't push that into the black community too, or maybe they would have found it anyways and exploited it on their own.
And why don't we do this with guns? Things that kill people, so we could know where they were at all times, but I'm sure the NRA wouldn't hear of that.
I think this is going too far.
I thought since they took away your guns you guys were crime-free over there...