Sting ops are immoral entrapment
[QUOTE=LDontFkinCare2;5429594]The ad I noted as a potential LEO ad is gone?! It probably was LEO's.
In terms of the excessive enticement, I do not know whether the legality of instruments used in an ad in a sting NEED to be argued, if the entrapment argument by and large do not work any more in court as a valid defense. Stings are in effect entrapment, and they are legalized in the US system of law. Apart from the UK, in the vast majority of European countries, stings are not permissible.[/QUOTE]Clarification. You do have a point, GadgetIT. I see entrapment as the greater degree than enticement of essentially the same possess. And if entrapment in the form of stings is totally acceptable legally, then enticement should also be acceptable. I do agree that the means and tools of enticement and entrapment can be questionable morally (meaning, can the public servant and representatives of the state use private parts—the morally reprehensible material in their stings). No, the police as presumably the keeper of law and order (and by implication, morality) cannot use sexually explicit material in their work—by doing this the police likens itself to criminals, as the argument might go. But morality is a very malleable area and can be interpreted from various and different viewpoints. For instance, sting ops in the form of entrapment.
I think it's an immoral and inappropriate practice. In a sting op, the police provoke you by asking you questions and eliciting incriminating responses; the police lead you into responses they need, which in a natural situation you would not even have thought of certain issues or would have responded differently when actually seeing the girl face-to-face. The police create a reality for you (needed to ensnare you into incriminating yourself)—you do participate in that construction of reality but you are led into saying incriminating things. So the police, courts, and legal practice equate a manufactured and engineered situation / reality (that they devised and constructed themselves to ensnare you) with a real situation that never happened (The courts convict you on intent but not on the actual act). I know of cases when people were convicted on the basis of text messages alone. They came to the hotel and were arrested in the parking lot; never gave any money to the girl, never touched the girl, never entered the room, but the text messages had enough incriminating implications that might lead to a conclusion beyond the reasonable doubt, a concept easy to manipulate.
So practical implications: when not sure of the provider, never initiate any incriminating acts or information in text exchanges-do not say I want this and that; do not ask for prices first, or if you ask, say I do not want anything sexual but could pay for time and companionship only, no unlawful or sexual acts; wait till they initiate questions and respond vaguely or ambiguously in a way that may be interpreted in a couple of ways.