Where is the line drawn here between entrapment and a sting operation?
From a purely legal perspective, can the US government (or any other for that matter) continue to run a darkweb market after they've compromised it?
Where is the line drawn here between entrapment and a sting operation?
[30 Points] None:
[10 Points] shady_varchar:
They can do whatever pleases them. They don't have morals or rules. Or hearts for that matter.
[4 Points] TooOldforThisSheet:
This is why I find all the "honeypot" talk to be a bit silly. LE could start vendor accounts, collect info and bolt. I've often thought a lot of the hit and run scammers could be LE. They could also take over a market for a short period and mine as much data as possible. But if it came out that the government had ran a market for a prolonged period of time, enabling millions of dollars worth of drugs to be shipped to kids all over the world, people would lose their fucking minds. It would be reminiscent of the whole Iran-Contra debacle. The CIA did help guerilla groups, through out Central America, to traffic cocaine in the 80's and are still getting shit over it. That was at a time when information was much harder to spread and verify. If the FBI was enabling some 16 year old in the mid west to buy heroin, I would imagine a large amount of people would be outraged.
[5 Points] opiatethrowy:
If someone died from drugs ordered from a government ran market. There would be hell to pay. Lawsuits galore.
[4 Points] mister_impossible:
Are you implying that the gov't did run some of these markets? I didn't read that in any of the articles. They imaged the servers, and in some cases seemed to have allowed the markets to continue for a couple days after the admins were arrested. But I didn't see anything that indicated they themselves ever ran a market.
You pose a very valid "what if" question though.
[3 Points] CoveredInMud:
This isn't entrapment. That dumbass gave the keys to the front door to LE.
[3 Points] AnonUSCiti:
You really are getting into the topic of a corrupt US government combined with legal issues over people ordering illegal drugs off illegal black markets?
Lol...
[2 Points] UDNM:
If you PGP all of your personal info wouldn't you be more worried about LE being a vendor than a market admin?
[2 Points] sapiophile:
They continued to operate Freedom Hosting for a while after it was seized, and they served JavaScript-based malware through it and busted a ton of people.
[2 Points] Theeconomist1:
For all practical matters, arguing entrapment is going to be fruitless as a defense unless you are talking some very egregious actions - literally to the level they held a gun to your head and made you do the illegal act. Its been well tried that governments can do various types of stings to nab both buyers and sellers of narcotics. All bets are off when you have something global like the DNMs. During the 80's when Escobar controlled the cocaine trade, almost all of the ether used in the production of cocaine was imported from the US to Columbia. In fact, they found that only 2% of ether sales in the US were for valid, medical purposes. The government found one of the jungle labs by going so far as to set up a fake medical supplies company that sold ether. One of the cartel's ether buyers found their way to this fake company and purchasd the ether. The ether was delivered with a tracking device which revealed the super lab in Colombia. Granted, these operations were more akin to military operations, I make the comparison because of the inter-national cooperation b/w multiple nations to bring down SR2 and the various DNMs that fell.
The government can, does, and will do these things to bring down the enterprises it deems a risk. Entrapment is really a misunderstood concept as it applies to a successful defense. Generally, in order for entrapment to be a successful defense, the government would have to do some major things to "force" you to do the action - like I said, almost literally holding a gun to your head, threatening you or your family, that type of stuff.
[2 Points] 1percentof1:
They can do whatever the hell they want. Police make the rules.
[2 Points] SwoleFlex_MuscleNeck:
Who's going to stop them?
[1 Points] None:
I'm not entirely sure a marketplace would even count as entrapment, since they're just providing a space.
[1 Points] sobulbous:
Would be a very thin line and it would never be admitted publicly. Even if they did that under the guise that they were infiltrating large vendors, we would never actually know for sure.
It is one thing to be an undercover working for the mob, you are just a one piece of the pie. It is an entirely different to be said pie and facilitate the entire criminal enterprise. I know this has been done with carding and CP cases but no one cares about how those criminals go down as long as they go down.
My opinion is that if this is actually happening it will the case where the admin is "in the wind" not because they got away but because they just never existed in the first place.
[1 Points] YetAnotherABDL:
From a purely legal perspective, can the US government (or any other for that matter) continue to run a darkweb market after they've compromised it?
Yes.
[1 Points] firstmanonearth:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DarkMarket
FBI infiltrated and eventually ran the servers for DarkMarket carding forum.
If you want an excellent book on the subject, check out Kingpin.
[0 Points] waitingforpopper:
The feds ran some carder or id theft ring forum for a while after they seized the domain to get more users. They also ran their own carding forum. I think I also remember them running a pedo website for a while to catch more pedos.
Here's an article about the carding forum and bust: http://www.wired.com/2012/06/operation-card-shop/
Entrapment is not going to apply at all. People often get confused as to what it means and tend to apply a skewed belief to DNMs.
It requires an element that the defendant perform an act that they would not otherwise have performed. Ordering drugs from a sting or undercover operation does not qualify because they absolutely were intending to buy the drugs. Simply not knowing that the police are involved does not constitute entrapment. It is extremely uncommon for it to be successfully argued as a defense. I can not think of a single example regarding DNM where the concept of entrapment could possibly come into play.
That aside, law enforcement ALSO has a tremendous ability to carry out acts like open and run illegal black markets such as the ones discussed here. The US Supreme Court has made multiple rulings regarding how much deception is permitted in the course of criminal investigation and the short answer is "essentially as much as they want."
Keeping in mind that the USA has much broader civil rights when it comes to constitutional protections and privacies than many other countries, the liberties LE are able to take are significantly compounded when global task forces are established, as it becomes unclear what nations laws apply and they can essentially cherry pick which ones suit the requirements of the scope of the investigation.
It's doubtful that much, if any, evidence in any of these cases is thrown out due to procedural violations. Since much of this is new ground, there is no precedent established to make these rulings. Additionally, these cases are coming at a time when challenges to these freedoms and protections are at their peak, leaving room for broad interpretation of current applicable law.