Slashdot Mirror
Judge: Cops Can Impersonate Owner Of Seized Cell Phones
Aryden writes with news of a recent court decision in which a judge ruled it was acceptable for police to impersonate the owner of a cell phone they had seized, in order to extract information from the owner's friends. The ruling stems from an incident in 2009 when police officers seized the iPhone of a suspected drug dealer, then used text messages to set up a meeting with another person seeking drugs.
"'There is no long history and tradition of strict legislative protection of a text message sent to, displayed, and received from its intended destination, another person's iPhone,' Penoyar wrote in his decision. He pointed to a 1990 case in which the police seized a suspected drug dealer's pager as an example. The officers observed which phone numbers appeared on the pager, called those numbers back, and arranged fake drug purchases with the people on the other end of the line. A federal appeals court held that the pager owner's Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure were not violated because the pager is 'nothing more than a contemporary receptacle for telephone numbers,' akin to an address book. The court also held that someone who sends his phone number to a pager has no reasonable expectation of privacy because he can't be sure that the pager will be in the hands of its owner. Judge Penoyar said that the same reasoning applies to text messages sent to an iPhone. While text messages may be legally protected in transit, he argued that they lose privacy protections once they have been delivered to a target device in the hands of the police."
For it to be entrapment, the police have to initiate the wrongdoing - e.g., if an undercover cop asks you out of the blue if you'd like to buy drugs, that's entrapment. If you call a known drug dealer and tell the guy on the other end (who happens to be a cop) of the phone you want some pot, that's not entrapment.
It is not entrapment.
I can't find the tutorial on entrapment that is set up as comics, so wikipedia will have to do.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrapment
In criminal law, entrapment is conduct by a law enforcement agent inducing a person to commit an offense that the person would otherwise have been unlikely to commit.[1] In many jurisdictions, entrapment is a possible defense against criminal liability. However, there is no entrapment where a person is ready and willing to break the law and the government agents merely provide what appears to be a favorable opportunity for the person to commit the crime. For example, it is not entrapment for a government agent to pretend to be someone else and to offer, either directly or through an informant or other decoy, to engage in an unlawful transaction with the person (see sting operation). So, a person would not be a victim of entrapment if the person was ready, willing and able to commit the crime charged in the indictment whenever opportunity was afforded, and that government officers or their agents did no more than offer an opportunity.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
Pretty much, yeah. Entrapment is a pretty specific thing; if you watch those shows like Cops, they occasionally do drug stings (take down the guy, then use his house). The conversation is very careful -
cop:"what's up?"
suspect:"you got anything"
c:"what you looking for?"
s:"coke/smack/pot/dope/weed/etc"
c:"oh yeah sure"
and then the transaction takes place. The suspect has to be the one who broaches the subject of illegality, the cops can't ask. The idea is they can't entice somebody to commit a crime that otherwise wouldn't have taken place. They can't walk up to a dude and suggest he steal a car, but they can leave a "bait car" unlocked and running. An undercover pretending to be a prostitute can't ask a john if he wants a good time, but she can go along with it when he asks. Basically they can facilitate the situation that would attract somebody already looking to commit a crime, but they can't put the idea into someone's head.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
Are you talking about this comic strip?
http://thecriminallawyer.tumblr.com/post/19810672629/12-i-was-entrapped
Oh no, we were cited. We had a court appearance for some type of minor paraphernalia possession which is on my record to this day. I don't remember if I had to pay a fine or do community service (maybe both).
If you think Bait Car is illegal you've got a pretty bizarre and incorrect view of our legal system.
Bait Car simply sets up a situation where someone who wants to steal a car can do so with the bonus that they get cameras, remote kill switch et al with that car. Bait Car is pretty cut and dried -- it's not even close to impersonating a drug dealer which might entice someone to buy drugs that maybe wouldn't have otherwise. Law abiding folks will walk by a Bait Car and do nothing to take advantage of it. Those who decide to steal it know they are breaking the law (watch how they glance around furtively and sometimes case the car and surrounding environment before getting in and stealing it if you doubt this).
Suppose Bait Car didn't leave the door unlocked or a nice pair of sunglasses on the center console and someone took a crowbar, smashed the window, hot wired the car, and drove it off. Would you think that would still make the "sting" illegal? Obviously not, but how is this different than what they actually do? Private citizens leave their car doors unlocked all the time and leave things of value in the car all the time and only criminals exploit this. The Bait Cars are not unusual in any way that would particularly entice a criminal to steal them vs. a private citizen's car which had been left unlocked.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
Sting: FBI tells you where they'll have drugs, you show up and offer money for drugs, you get arrested.
Entrapment: FBI shows up at your house, hands you an unlabeled opaque bag, and as soon as you have it in your hand, arrests you for drug possession.
This is probably the best short description I've seen, though there are certainly more complex shades-of-grey circumstances which are not as easy to break down.
When it can be shown that the person in question would have likely never been involved in a crime were it not for pressure induced by law enforcement it is typically considered entrapment.
Example:
Small-time pot dealer makes a deal to purchase a couple pounds of pot from an undercover agent. Agent says "By the way, I'd also like to buy a pound of coke. I'll waive the fee for the pot if you hook me up." Many orders of magnitude difference in the nature of the transaction, but the agent continues to put pressure on the dealer. Dealer eventually says, "Alright, I know a guy who can probably hook you up with it, but I don't deal with that myself, nor will I act as an intermediary except to introduce you." Dealer sets up a meeting, introduces the two, coke dealer and agent set up a buy. Agent pressures the pot dealer to be present at the coke exchange itself, rather than completing the meet and sale then giving the pot dealer their "commission" at a later point. Agent trades pot to dealer and cash to the coke dealer, and everyone is arrested for trafficking in a very large amount of cocaine and possession of marijuana. Even though it was a trade and to be completed each side must have possession of either the cocaine or the marijuana, participants are charged with possession of both packages.
The dealer in question, despite being involved in illegal activity, was entrapped into a criminal charge to which they were merely an accessory. The agent parleyed a relatively minor charge into a major one by virtue of "tying" the deals together temporally, even when they would otherwise have been separate deals involving different people, in order to hit everyone with any involvement at all with the most serious charge on the table.
That's a rough example of how a complex case of entrapment works, since a complete transcript of the event would be a minor novella. In the case above, the agent involved actually admitted that it was quite clearly a case of entrapment where the dealer absolutely would not have been involved in a deal of that type or magnitude absent significant pressure from law enforcement. However, the jurisdiction in question had no laws against entrapment at the time this occurred, making that fact irrelevant for the purposes of defending against the charges, and all ended up pleading guilty or taking a plea deal.
With the way things change, it would not surprise me if the above was no longer considered entrapment though; I haven't had reason or desire to keep up with the times in that regard.
Around here (in the U.S.) the police put stickers and lights on seized autos and use them as cop cars. Somewhere along the line we gave them the ability to take our stuff and use it because 'drugs are bad m'kay'.
http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/Forfeiture
That's a massively over-complex example. Here's a simple example of entrapment:
Undercover officer sees a guy on the streetcorner smoking a joint. Cop walks up to guy and says, "Hey, man, got any to sell?" Guy says "No. I don't sell the stuff. Personal use only." Cop says, "Come on, man, I just want a couple of joints to take to a party I'm going to. No big thing. I just don't know anybody around here." Guy says, "No, man. I told you. Go away." Cop says "Come ON, dude. Just two joints. I really need some. I'll give you $20."
Guy sighs and says, "Okay, man. I'm not into this but just this once. Here."
Cop arrests guy for dealing. (Depending on the state, if you sell ANY, it's a misdemeanor. Felony depends on amount.)
That's entrapment. The policeman talked him into doing something he would not normally do, in order to make the bust.