Undercover cops. Ethical? Wrong?

Near as I can tell, it is wrong in every aspect.

It takes a complete dump on the 4th amendment. That and doing evil to serve some mythical 'greater good' is somewhat paradoxical.

What says the peanut gallery?

 

Depends on the actions of the undercover cop. As long as they aren't forcing others to break the law, I don't see the problem.

 

Lying, committing petty crimes, handling drugs... all of these are illegal. Yet they get a free pass so long as they catch someone else doing it.

Seems kinda odd. But hey, if that is how you feel about it than carry on.

 

Lying is not illegal. Lying under oath is illegal. Lying to make money is illegal, but just plain lying is not.

I don't have any problem with a police officer posing as a john, and arresting prostitutes that solicit him. I do have a problem with a police officer posing as a prostitute and arresting johns that take them up on their offer.

 

Than I suppose that you would be irate to find out lying to a cop can get you into trouble, whereas they can lie to you with impunity.

While I am not fond of the concept of prostitution, the methods employed to reduce it are ineffective. It only creates more of a criminal market.

 

I don't like entrapment.

Like the BS of abandoning an escalade in a poor neighborhood with the engine running and the door open, and then busting someone for stealing it.

How about you leave a couple of hundred dollar bills on the sidewalk and then bust someone for picking them up and taking them?

Then we allow wall street barrens to strip two trillion dollars from our collective retirement accounts and reward them with billion in tax dollars.

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Prostitution is commerce. Politicians are all prostitutes. A prostitute is selling a product. It's illegal because it's hard to tax.

 

What information are you basing that assessment on? I realise that my knowledge is limited to fiction (which is largely irrelevant) and news media (which will at best exaggerate extreme and negative examples). I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case of most other people too.

In principal, I can imagine situations where it would be appropriate though I also think it should be carefully managed, which I fear might not always be the case.

 

The concept of “undercover” policing is acceptable. Its practice is what is important. The blanket condemnation and reference to the Fourth Amendment seems to be erroneous, if it were unconstitutional then I would imagine it would have been struck down before now.

If it were outlawed completely then society would be forced to have a police force that acted only reactively and that would not be a good thing. But it does need to be controlled.

The idea of entrapment is patently unfair. I'm pretty sure English common law and the laws of the US view this behaviour dimly. I'm not talking about police committing crimes here, I'm talking about police setting up situations where someone decides to commit a crime based on involvement or introduction to that situation. It's not the task of the police to create crimes, it's their task to prevent crimes.

Some jurisdictions in western liberal democracies permit police to commit crimes in order to pursue bona fide objectives in criminal investigation and intelligence-gathering. The obvious example is the purchasing or selling of controlled substances. But where that it is approved it is, or it should be, carefully controlled by non-police agents.

 

Forgot to add. Most police agencies handle this very badly indeed. The problems which are caused for the UC operatives are astounding and can have a terrible effect on them, but the bureaucracy of the police frequently ignore this, use the UC operative and dump them when they've outlived their usefulness.

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/wrong-turn-20130527-2n612.html

 

If it were properly managed, with competent oversight I doubt I would have much of a gripe with it. However it does still breach the 4th amendment.

I act under the knowledge of news reels of botched law enforcement. And petty uses of such expensive assets.

 

So as per your OP you think it's evil but you'd still be content with it? I'm not convinced you're opinion is all that well developed.

That's apparently a matter of opinion since it happens a lot in the US yet hasn't been ruled as such as far as I'm aware. Have you considered that you could be mistaken on this point?

Anyway, the Constitution is only relevant in the USA. The fundamental moral question is universal. I've never been a fan of this "It's unconstitutional so it's wrong - end of argument" positions. Something could be against the Constitution yet not, in itself wrong (and vice-versa of course) so in philosophical discussions like this I think you should assess them independently of Constitutional arguments, just as you would regarding other existing legal positions. After all, how else would the Constitution get amendments?

Do you accept that your evidence is very limited and grossly one-sided? That's like judging cars by only looking at crashes.

 

I also believe it is wrong under Article 4, Section 2 regarding the privileges and immunities of the citizens in the several States under our republican form of Government and its emphasis on equality.

If there is no such thing as Perjury against the People laws or Espionage against the People laws, then Persons in offices of public trust under the United States have no basis to complain when comity occurs.

 

In theory I am sure someone could provide examples of it where I would be ok with it. But in practice I don’t trust the government to do it properly. And most of the time it is used to combat vice crimes, something I don’t think we should be expending ANY resources on.

 

I have this case in my head;


Syllabus

An undercover federal narcotics agent, by misrepresenting his identity on the telephone, was twice invited to the home of petitioner for the purpose of executing unlawful narcotics transactions. Petitioner was thereafter indicted and convicted under 26 U.S.C. § 4742(a). Rejecting petitioner's motion to suppress the purchased narcotics as illegally seized without a warrant, the trial court found petitioner guilty, and the Court of Appeals affirmed.

Held: the facts of this case present no violation of the Fourth Amendment.

(a) The Government's use of decoy's and undercover agents is not per se unlawful. Pp. 385 U. S. 208-209.

(b) The petitioner invited the agent to his home for the very purpose of illegally selling him narcotics. Gouled v. United States, 255 U. S. 298 (1921), distinguished. Pp. 385 U. S. 209-210.

(c) When the home is opened as a place of illegal business to which outsiders are invited for commercial purposes, the Fourth Amendment is not violated when a government agent enters pursuant to an invitation and then neither sees, hears, nor takes anything either unrelated to the business purpose of his visit or not contemplated by the occupant. P. 385 U. S. 211.

http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/385/206/case.html

 

I believe Article 4, Section 2 of our supreme law of the land is a rational choice of law in any conflict of laws arising under the United States; regarding our privileges and immunities.

 

When it's to get a child molester to confess, or a kidnapper to give up the victim's location, hell yes, I have lied. As for undercover police, we would not have to use them if every bad guy had "Criminal" tattooed on his/her forehead.
Enjoy!

 

I guess the morality of bearing true witness to our own laws instead of false witness, simply for the sake of a McCarthy era phrase in our pledge doesn't mean much to you. It is only about the greater glory of our immortal souls.

 

To make it fair I should be able to pretend to be in law enforcement without getting fined and threatened with jail time.

 

Sure, and unless you're legally carrying a weapon, what do you do when someone who isn't pretending to be a bad guy decides you are a real threat and pops a cap in you?
Enjoy!

 

I believe Perjury against the People and Espionage against the People can only be crimes via comity. Article 4, Section 2 is a rational choice of law in Any conflict of laws arising under the United States.

 

This is something to be decided by those with boots on the ground. Its easy to pass judgment over those who serve and protect, instead of holding law breakers accountable.
I.e. leaving a luxury car in a poor neighborhood. If people in that neighborhood are honest and law abiding citizens, what does it matter? No one is twisting anyone's arm.
If people had more integrity, we wouldn't need undercover operations.

 

They do that now. Google impersonating police officer. Seriously, why do people think that criminals who by definition ignore laws are going to listen to..........a law. I suppose you think that gun control must work because the criminals who have lived a life ignoring laws all of a sudden decided to follow the gun control laws for some strange reason.

 

I don't quite understand your response. What I posted was merely to give you something to consider if you want to impersonate a police officer. If it's just to get free food or impress some chick at the bar, even though you might just pull that on a real cop, that's one thing. My point was if you misrepresent yourself to the wrong person(s) I would hope for your sake that their only response is "Go ahead, arrest me". And I am well aware that criminals will not adhere to any law that restricts their willingness to do harm. That's why they're criminals.

 

Oh, I thought you were referring to a bad guy impersonating a cop, sorry. My state allows conceal carry so I could if I wanted to. And I certainly wouldn't impersonate a cop.......BORING! Also, maybe its different where you live but being a cop here doesn't get you any further with the girls. In fact its kind of a buzzkill since half the (*)(*)(*)(*) people do for fun is illegal these days.

I would impersonate the NSA or the FSB or MI6. Or better yet MJ12, that way I wouldn't need an ID since they are a secret organization and I would assume that you don't carry around Secret Organization ID cards.

 

My choice would be Mossad.
Enjoy!