Quote from: kmfkewm on March 05, 2012, 03:44 pmQuote from: pine on March 04, 2012, 10:36 pmQuote from: nospainnogain on March 04, 2012, 10:10 pmGovernment agents don't worry themselves with the legality of any particular action or situation. They will do whatever they want to bust people. Anyways, much of the legal ramifications of their law-breaking actions get softened if they actually do manage to bust people.Really? Because I can't count the number of times I've heard cases getting thrown out of court because the police forgot to sign the right paperwork, or gave the wrong information, or...We're not talking about small fry stuff here, murderers have walked free on slip-ups of bureaucratic procedures.A decent lawyer would have a field day if it were known that the police posted real drugs to people on the Silk Road.If you look at the rules that govern controlled deliveries, you'll notice that they deliberately replace 90% of the drug with a substitute. This is despite the fact that ten minutes after delivery, there's a team with a door hammer smashing into the house. Apart from the law, they know the press would have wall to wall coverage if the police delivered drugs and didn't manage to retrieve them later.No, although there may be some sellers who are FBI/DEA/other three-four-five letter acronyms, there are not using real product, that would defeat their purpose. They might try to collect names/addresses to scare the crap out of buyers though.I don't think it would be illegal for them to post drugs. And it certainly wouldn't be illegal for them to get an informant to post drugs and decide not to charge them for it in return for gathered addresses.I think the 2nd is more likely. This is not based on some naivety about dirty LE practices, it is based on blowback. If there were ever a bunch of people perpetually trying to cover their asses more than politicians, it is the police. They live in fear of blowback, they know the press is always hungry for story. They hate lawyers because a lawyer looks for 'plot holes' in their stories. Lawyers love playing with narratives.It is not about the DEA or local LE being 'morally upright'. It is about their almost exclusive self interest in career progression and fear of anything that might influence their review panel, which is a fairly murderous process in of itself. It is also relatively unlikely that the Fourth Estate is corrupted and in league with the DEA or local LE, because their interests do not fundamentally coincide. Dog bites man is not a Story. Man bites Dog is a story. Journalists know that a LEO getting caught with their pants down is 100 times more lucrative a story than some drug dealer getting busted, which is seen as business as usual.In fact I think the most likely reason why LE would not play by the book, is because an underling is deliberately attempting to 'boost' his superiors or competition in the ranks. You see, that is the danger of a conspiracy, it becomes vulnerable like a soap bubble the larger it gets, eventually somebody in the system has self interest against the conspiracy and all hell breaks loose. Again, I refer people to the NY situation.tldr; It's a complicated tangled web of interests.