Comments on: Cure worse than disease

By: John Smith

John Smith — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 06:07:27 +0000

I think what you are referring to is Criminal facilitation. Which from what I understand about ny law to mean is the act of facilitation as a means for another individual to commit a class A felony. Which means you would be entitled to a a class B felony charge for every act.

By: Xrlq

Xrlq — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 05:24:36 +0000

My guess is that the feds are immune to any law against importing into NY. If not, the fact that they are doing it to nab someone else is irrelevant. Cf. Bloomberg. And saying they wouldn’t have committed the crime if ATF hadn’t smuggled them in is a bit like Marion Barry saying he wouldn’t have smoked crack if that bitch hadn’t set him up. Which is true for the particular time and place where he got caught doing it. True in general, not so much.

The good news is that one more WP upgrade, and the rest will take care of themselves. Modern versions of WP just tell you there’s a newer version out there, and prompt you to upgrade themselves.

By: SayUncle

SayUncle — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 03:55:36 +0000

Plotting to commit v. facilitating?

Also, the actual crime is importing cigarettes into NY. That is a crime. They do, however, have a defense in that it was as part of their duty to, err, I guess arrest people for the crimes they wouldn’t have committed had ATF not smuggles cigarettes in.

I need to upgrade wp again.

By: workinwifdakids

workinwifdakids — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 03:45:46 +0000

I could think of better ways to spend between $35million and $70million.

By: Xrlq

Xrlq — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 03:02:23 +0000

BTW did you know your WP is still on daylight savings time? The good news is that once you fix it and upgrade to the current version, this issue will be handled automagically from now on.

By: Xrlq

Xrlq — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 03:01:33 +0000

No. Conspiracy means two or more people plotting to commit a crime together, and at least one of them taking an overt act in furtherance of that cause. Sting operations are a completely different matter.

By: SayUncle

SayUncle — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 01:28:56 +0000

I’m not a lawyer but isn’t that the whole purpose of ‘conspiracy’ charges?

By: Xrlq

Xrlq — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 01:23:20 +0000

If “facilitating” crime were itself a crime, all criminal laws would be crimes, by definition.

By: SayUncle

SayUncle — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 01:14:21 +0000

other than creating crime by facilitating the black market?

By: Xrlq

Xrlq — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 01:07:50 +0000

Cute heading, but is there a scrap of evidence that ATF is actually committing any crimes here?

By: AntiCitizenOne

AntiCitizenOne — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 22:03:01 +0000

isn’t that the whole point of undercover agents though, to get in close with their suspects?

By: dusty

dusty — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 19:47:09 +0000

Is the BATF responsible for paying state taxes on those smuggled smokes? This sounds Iran/Contra-like, a way for an enterprising federal agency to build slush funds for off-the-books projects.

By: Robert

Robert — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 19:33:06 +0000

“250 million cigarettes” “a pack and a half for every man, woman and child in New York City”

So, about a 3 or 4 day supply for NYC, total.

Or we could just drop sin taxes altogether.

By: John Smith

John Smith — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 15:20:08 +0000

Sounds just another day at the batfu office.

By: Standard Mischief

Standard Mischief — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 14:46:46 +0000

or we could, you know, have reasonable taxes for legal products instead of letting New York City support terrorism by creating an attractive smuggling zone.

By: Chas

Chas — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 14:20:58 +0000

BATFE is now “Big Tobacco”. If we stopped giving them a billion dollars a year, maybe they’d act better, or at least they’d act less, which would be an improvement.