FBI shared child p*rn to nab pedophiles

Some evils are worth it for the greater good.

This wasn't one of those instances.

 

You can see why they did it and let the word out... Now every guy looking at that stuff has to wonder if he is looking at an FBI-run site.

 

FBI is probably a haven for pedos. After all, if they're doing it in the name of good, who would question their motives?

 

Don't forget the TSA!

 

Ok, this is just super creepy.

 

Yes, people aspiring to have a career in the FBI are thinking "I hope I end up in the pedophile division."

 

I see the obvious ethical complications of them running the site. But, I do have to say the practical benefits are pretty substantial. Since, they were not producing any of the contraband, but only maintaining a transmission system for a short period of time, maybe the practical benefits in arresting some pedophiles and perhaps deterring others justifies the ethics? Maybe.

 

There is always a good reason to do a bad thing

Rocket River

 

It is continuing the exploitation of children. There has to be a better way.

 

Assuming that the FBI did it to catch bad guys and send a message to those it didn't catch, it presents an interesting moral dilemma that law enforcement faces all the time. Do you let the drug dealer deal while using him to find out who the drug lord is? Do you let the made guy continue to commit crimes while using him to nail other mobsters?

And it is not just in crime. When I first read this, I thought of the WWII example of Churchill allowing the bombing of Coventry without any preventive measures to keep the Germans from realizing their code had been broken.

It seems we've mostly reached consensus on this moral question. What makes this one a little different is of course, the child angle. I guess I'll give the benefit of the doubt to the FBI at this time unless additional info comes out that changes the story.

 

It isn't clear that keeping the site open an extra couple of weeks enabled any more exploitation and suffering than would have occured anyway. Primary producers of pedophillic content would likely have not changed their behaviors over 2 weeks because of the website -- the only difference being where they'd be able to post the content they made. As far as actual crimes committed against children, running the website for 2 weeks is the same as delaying the bust for 2 weeks -- which I'm sure happens a lot for a variety of bureaucratic, legal, and operational/logistical reasons. The only significant difference being how much evidence you can collect on those criminals.

The FBI allows itself to buy and sell cocaine in order to catch and prosecute cocaine dealers. Is this functionally different? People suffer from cocaine producers just as they suffer from child p*rn producers.

And like the recent Liberty Reserve bust, a sophisticated child p*rn host could maintain user anonymity, even within the system so its records can't be searched for clues. Taking over the site and putting in software to track users is a counter-measure.

With that in mind, which is worse, implicating yourself in a crime in which your participation does not affect victim outcomes, or allowing up to 5,000 pedophiles evade prosecution and potentially (probably) exploit more children?

It's easy to be the white knight and say you should not implicate yourself in anything immoral. But, there are people who are denied justice when you choose to not get your hands dirty. Isn't there a rationale we can apply that is a little more exact than a platitude? Isn't there an ethical reproach for an agency that has an opportunity to prosecute 5,000 pedophiles and doesn't take it? If there's always a good reason to do a bad thing, what is the real bad thing being justified -- running the child p*rn site or letting pedophiles go? I'm not so quick to put a definitive judgement on it.

I think something like this should be governed. You need some kind of ethical oversight body. And it should be participated in as lightly as possible (taking existing operations, keeping time frames very short (say, a month), and remaining a passive operator) so as to not be encouraging or enabling the new production of child p*rn. Built right, I think I could be comfortable with the trade-off of moral ambiguity for concrete prosecutions.

 

A complicated matter. In general I don't like entrapment. Don't know much about pedophilia. They claim pedophilia is almost impossible to treat. I can't say I would like to really delve into learning that much more.

As someone said if the images are out there, so how much more harm is done to the original victims by another two weeks of showing.? Is trapping those pedopholes who simply look online the way to go?

I do wonder if perhaps allowing pedophiles to view a standard set of images, would keep them from physically victimizing more kids. Chemical castration? Are there any societies where it is much less common? What?

 

Agreed. Unless there's some sick financial incentive like how some profit off drug busts, I'm okay with them facilitating a honey pot of source to attract pedophiles.

Of course over time, law enforcement usually take their powers too far and get the book thrown at them with the entrapment angle, so some oversight Juan mentioned is the only way this madness can be justified or contained.

 

This is not the equivalent of letting "the drug dealer deal while using him to find out who the drug lord is?".... rather, this is the case of letting the drug lord deal while using him to find out who the users are.

It's an important distinction because there should be a difference between how you pursue a drug lord vs how you pursue a drug user. If you are pursuing these two in the same way, then you're not really allocating resources fairly.

 

This isn't entrapment.

 

I think that's a good point. However, the drug industry and the pedophilia industry are structured differently. Drugs are sold in a more traditional maufacturing chain, with raw materials suppliers, processors, wholesalers, retailers, and consumers. Child p*rn is a peer-to-peer network, where consumers are also producers. The website host is just a market-maker. So, you're not just catching consumers, you're also catching producers.

I agree. If they started a website and/or produced their own child p*rn and then busted people for watching it, then it's entrapment. With this bust, they just collected data on a machine somebody else built. The only thing they'd really have to do to 'run it' is to not immediately pull the plug.

 

James Worthy

 

Interesting angle. I guess I would like to see that happen with this Nebraska case so the courts can work out if the FBI would have culpability.