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Comment by croes | Hacker News Reader

So pretending to be a 12 year old girl to catch a child predator is illegal then?

This law is about lying during interrogation. When a police officer is wearing the uniform, asking questions, acting in their capacity as a protector of the public, I think directly lying to your face should be a crime. Their authority as an officer is the very thing they are using to get you to believe their lie. That is a critical piece.

A detective doing undercover work may require a degree of duplicity to achieve their aim, their authority as an officer is not what gets you to believe their lie, they almost always conceal that fact from you.

I think these are clearly distinct arenas of law enforcement.

Parents comment says to anyone that includes people outside an interrogation

Do you think that a person wearing a police uniform (that every person has an obligation to obey so long as they make a lawful order), can also, in the performance on that same duty, lie directly to a member of the public?

Depends on the reason

As the law stands, they are allowed to lie as much as they want when in uniform, in public, and anything you say or do in response can be held against you in court. The proposed Virginia law forbids that in the case of children who are interrogated.

Fun fact, that is already illegal. Perverted justice was an entirely civilian organization.

reading some of the criticisms of their former behavior does highlight pretty strongly why exactly that kinda thing is problematic.

there was a dude who the police told they had footage of him committing CSA. It was a lie but he trusted them, so he genuinely believed he was losing his mind as he never contemplated that law enforcement would lie. They arrested, charged and sentenced him, despite the fact he never did.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrapment

>Contrary to popular belief, the United States does not require police officers to identify themselves as police in the case of a sting or other undercover work, and police officers may lie when engaged in such work. The law of entrapment instead focuses on whether people were enticed to commit crimes they would not have otherwise considered in the normal course of events.

--your source

Not as straightforward as you're implying.

Now tell my how pretending to be a 12 year old girl forces somebody to commit a crime?

Forcing somebody isn’t entrapment. Entrapment is providing opportunity to encourage someone to commit a crime that they might otherwise have not committed.

Then tell my how pretending to be a 12 year old girl encourages somebody to commit a crime?

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