If they just shut down the site, those who weren't busted would just migrate to a new one. If you run the site under the guise of the owners, you can keep catching more and more users as they come in. Not just the people who are seeking the kids, but possibly also the ones supplying them. It's a grander version of the old trope of an FBI agent posing as a 14 year old girl in a chat room to nab a predator.
I agree with you that selling a dimebag to a teenager to bust them is shitty and shouldn't be done. But there's a world of difference between busting kids for weed and catching pedophiles. If they're taking these people off the streets I really do not care if they're "disingenuous" to get them.
We criminalize possession and distribution of child pornography on the basis that doing so constitutes further abuse of the child in question.
If we allow the FBI to distribute child pornography, under this rubric we are basically allowing them to commit child abuse. We allow law enforcement to commit some acts -- like buying or attempting to sell illegal drugs -- which would normally be crimes. But we would find acts of actual harm to innocents by law enforcement abhorrent. For example, if an FBI agent posed as a hitman online and then actually committed the contracted murders, that would be abhorrent and not a legitimate law-enforcement use.
Either distributing CP is child abuse or it isn't. If it is, the FBI shouldn't be doing it irrespective of how many criminals they may catch by doing so, because they are further victimizing innocents. If it isn't, that calls into question the basis on which distribution of CP is exempted from First Amendment protection.
Oh wait, I forgot. Different rules apply to those in power.
>It's a grander version of the old trope of an FBI agent posing as a 14 year old girl in a chat room to nab a predator.
If it was I wouldn't have a problem with it. The reality is, by running the sites, they are actively enabling what they consider harmful.
Consider other examples of police stings. When doing drugs, they often use actual drugs because the mere presence of drugs at a sting is not an issue. But when dealing with more dangerous material, they use fakes to ensure that people don't get hurt, and the times when they haven't used fakes it has been considered extremely bad and had people push for policies to change it.
In this particular case, the sites are not like drugs which are inherently harmless just by being present, but are far more dangerous material which results in significant harm to those the police allow to continue to be victimized.
Imagine if police ran a human trafficking front and actually kidnapped people, justifying it by saying they were working to get the guys running the whole thing. Would that be acceptable?
You explanation only works if you assume only production and not distribution is harmful. Current moral and legal standards strongly disagree with this, including those of the police enforcing the laws.
I have seen and appreciate your quote, but I will not be the one speaking for pedophiles.
If you think that running a sting operation to catch pedophiles is going to lead to a Third Reich-esque roundup and extermination of minorities I really don't even know what to say.
If you think breaking the law to get bad people doesnt set a precedent that will be abused you havent been paying attention at all.
The patriot act and the revoking of rights without due process was sold as something to fight terrorists. Now we have common street criminals being charged as street terrorists to circumvent due process.
It simply is fact that govt is the most serious threat to citizens. This is why the constitution was created and the nation was architected as a constitutionally bound republic.
This tripe of "think of the children" has always been used to get more power by govts and will continue to happen.
You know that you can easily replace pedophiles with most groups in your post, right? Such as for example "jews". The sad part is that there are actually people who think and thought in the past the same thing, but it is a real danger (as history has shown).
I suggest an alternative: how about judging people by the harm that they have committed to others rather than their race, attraction, opinions, etc?
I agree with you that selling a dimebag to a teenager to bust them is shitty and shouldn't be done. But there's a world of difference between busting kids for weed and catching pedophiles. If they're taking these people off the streets I really do not care if they're "disingenuous" to get them.