Things we'd be talking about if the forum wasn't deadFollow

Silver lining, but abevigoda.com finally updated after like thirty years of inactivity.

Yeah. Very ironic in a "this isn't how things should work" kind of way. My issue here is that the only harm caused to PP is if they actually do something that causes a public outcry. It's not like the fake company was set up to embezzle money or defraud them or something, which is what the statue is really about. Not sure how well that will actually hold up.



Sure. But if the cop pretends to be a buyer and you agree to sell to him, he does get to arrest you, right? You get that this indictment is actually the equivalent of charging the cop with intent to buy, right? They had no intent to actually purchase fetal tissue, so how you charge them with attempting to buy fetal tissue is pretty absurd. They were the ones doing a sting, not the other way around.

Then again, what's that about indictments and ham sandwiches? What a coincidence that the big powerful politically connected organization manages to turn this around in a grand jury. It's almost like the system is corrupt or something.

If by "harm someone else" you mean "see if they will attempt to break the law". The law in question is designed to penalize false IDs and documents designed to commit fraud, not designed as honeypots for unscrupulous people. The only harm done to PP was their own willingness to buy human tissue in ways in which the public disapproves. CMP did not steal from them. CMP did not violate any contracts. CMP did not violate any laws.



No they did not. To prove this, you'd have to establish that CMP's intent was to purchase human tissue, which it absolutely was not. CMPs entire, very clearly established objective was to determine under what conditions PP was willing to sell human tissue. At no point was CMP ever going to actually purchase any human tissue. Period. Can't be a violation of the law here.



Um... Except you can't charge them with buying drugs unless they actually go through with a purchase. You can charge them with some form of "intent" law, but then you actually do have to establish that the person intended to go through with said purchase.



There's no "ignoring the law" going on here. The fact is that the law in no way prohibits private citizens from this thing called free speech. I am free to walk up to anyone and engage them in conversation, which may include queries about that other person's willingness to sell something to me. It's only a crime if the purchase we're discussing is illegal *and* is completed. There's a reason why cops doing stings have to actually wait until money changes hands before they can arrest a suspect. If I want to see if someone is a drug dealer, intended to record them offering to sell me drugs in order to shame them or something, I'm free as a private citizen to do this. And it that person happens to be an undercover officer, this might result in some hilarity, but it would not result in me having committed a crime.

That's the real absurd point here. CMP very clearly went in there with hidden cameras to try to catch PP violating the law. The intent on their part is exceptionally clear. You can't make the argument that they intended to ever actually go through with any purchase of human tissue. Therefore, they can't have violated the law.



People violating the law (or at least the public trust) manipulating the system in order to indict the people who ran the sting on them would seem to indicate some pretty serious problems with the legal system in question.

The law actually does prohibit private citizens from making statements against public entities with knowledge that they are false, or with reckless disregard of whether they are false. It's called defamation; Libel to be exact considering the statement was broadcast. There's also a reason why cops require warrants, and documentation of all equipment used.

It would be hilarious, so I guess he wasn't wrong there.

I thought slander was spoken, and in print was libel. Or do I need to go watch Spider-Man again?

Said harm was not caused via some form of fraud though, which is the actual intent of the law in question. The only harm that comes to PP is the PR harm of having their willingness to sell human body parts exposed publicly. That's not the sort of harm that the law is designed to prevent. I've mentioned this at least twice now and you have failed to respond to it. The law is intended to increase the penalty for false documentation used to commit fraud. It's not designed to prevent someone from using false documentation in order to reveal wrongdoing being performed by someone else.



And yet, you attempted to claim that they should be charged for attempting to illegally purchase human tissue.

What's amusing is that both of the charges are contradictory. If they actually intended to purchase human tissue (in violation of the law or otherwise), then they can't be charged with using false documentation. They would then have to have been an actual business interested in purchasing human tissue, and thus aren't using false documents. You do get that to set this up, they created a "real" business, including obtaining the documents, licenses, etc. Their only crime was spending the time and money doing that, but with no intention to actually use those documents and licenses for the purpose of buying human tissue for research.

Um... Which not a crime at all, baring some incredibly silly thought manipulation. So if they actually had labs set up to do research on the tissue they engaged in negotiations to buy, then they are acting perfectly legally? But if they don't, but just want to record the process of said purchase without actually going through with it, it's suddenly a crime? That makes zero sense. So if they had done the exact same negotiation, absent recording devices, and secured a deal with PP and then actually purchased tissue, they'd be fine? How then does deciding *not* to go through with any purchase become one?

It can't. The only thing they did differently than any of the other research companies that PP does actually sell tissue to is that they recorded the negotiations. Now, if you want to argue that *that* is a crime, then by all means, make that argument. But that's not what your (or the indictments) are claiming.

Again, the indictment itself just reinforces the ham sandwich concept.



Huh? That makes no sense at all. Which is it though? I thought that they harmed PP? If it was a dud, then they didn't cause any harm? So... yet another contradiction.


And, once again, the "harm" intended in the law in question is actual physical or economic harm. So if I use false documentation to pretend to be a pharmacist and sell people bogus pills to make money, then I have done harm to them physically (cause they didn't get the meds they needed), and economically (I took their money for sugar pills). That's what the statute is designed to punish. If I pretend to be a medical marijuana distributor in order to run a sting designed to catch people cheating the rules and attempting to purchase marijuana despite not having medical conditions that qualify, as long as I don't *actually* distribute any marijuana and don't *actually* take any money from anyone, then I'm not committing a crime.

CMP did not actually obtain any human tissue and did not actually enter into any false contracts, nor did any money change hands. Where is the crime? The only thing they did was embarrass PP by recording them negotiating the sale of human tissue. The only harm to PP is based on the degree to which the public thinks what they are doing is reprehensible. And that is *not* the sort of harm covered by the statute.

Because it's not true. CMP fraudulently created a sham company with the intent purpose of harming PP. There's really nothing else to reply to.


lolwut?

The false documents were fraudulent drivers licenses used to get the company registered. They'd be false documents if CMP was using them to harm PP or if CMP was using them to legitimately start a tissue wholesale business or if CMP was using them to buy beer for teenagers. Now, the fact that CMP was attempting to cause harm is what bumps it to a felony but they'd be fraudulent government documents no matter what the intent. Seriously, what are you smoking before you post?

But not the form of harm the statute in question refers to. They did not commit fraud. They didn't enter into a contract, take money or goods, and then disappear with it, leaving empty offices and a false paper trail behind. The only "harm" done to PP was exposing their willingness and methodology when it comes to the selling of human tissue.

PP was harmed with the truth about their own actions. That's the sort of "harm" you can't litigate. Well, you can, but any sane person should readily realize that you can't blame CMP for harming PP by merely exposing PP's own actions.



You can't simultaneously assume that they intended to actually purchase human tissue *and* assume that they intended to inflict harm by merely pretending to want to purchase human tissue. The harm alleged derives from the "sting" nature of CMP's actions. That they had no intention of actually purchasing tissue, but were just pretending to in order to get PP execs to look bad by discussing the sale of tissue. If CMP had actually been operating a real biotech company really interested in purchasing human tissue, PP could not claim harm because the intent of CMP would have been to actually purchase human tissue. The harm comes from falsely portraying themselves as an honest buyer.

They either intended to purchase or they did not. One charge requires we assume they actually wanted to buy human tissue. The other assumes they did not and the whole thing was a scheme to discredit PP (that's the "harm", right?). You can't claim both are true at the same time.




Again though, you're using an impossibly broad definition of harm. Let's imagine, for the sake of argument, that PP was actually engaged in illegally selling human tissues for profit (and not just to cover costs). Let's pretend that CMP did exactly the same sting operation, only in this case, PP actually did take the $1600 offer for purchase and actually did talk about making large amounts of money off the sale of tissues collected via abortion. By the definition you are claiming for this statute, CMP would still have violated the exact same laws and be punished for it, even though they did in this case actually uncover illegal activities.

Doesn't that strike you as wrong? And if this is an issue with bias regarding PP, let's pretend it's a chemical company instead. And CMP is an environmentalist organization that uses faked documents to pretend to be a disposal company and records the chemical company execs agreeing to allow their chemicals to be disposed of in a local landfill in violation of the law, in return for a very cheap disposal cost. Wouldn't you think it was absurd for a grand jury to indict the environmentalists for using false documentation in order to expose the illegal actions of the chemical company?


It's a ridiculous indictment. It rests on a standard of harm that is completely unusable since it would effectively make any use of false ID to engage in investigation illegal, since presumably all investigations into any business or organization would meet this criteria of "intending harm". The problem with such a broad interpretation of harm in this case, is it makes the application of the law extremely subjective. Everyone we chose to look at will be found to have violated this law, thus we can determine who gets punished based on who we choose to pursue indictment. That's a terrible legal standard to use, and I'm having a hard time imagining it actually standing up in court.

The attempt to purchase is equally silly. You have to actually prove they intended to purchase the tissues. Yes, the statute is worded such as making the offer is the crime, but the presumed spirit of the law is that said offer has to be genuine. Otherwise, you have effectively crafted a law which protects those illegally selling tissues from ever being subject to investigation because any investigator trying to get them to attempt to illegally sell the tissues would have to first offer to buy them. At some point, sanity should prevail and a rational person should step back and assess the intent by both parties when deciding where wrongdoing lies. And even if you decide that PP didn't do anything wrong, you can't then blankly apply wrongdoing to the group that attempted to catch them doing something wrong.

That application of the law would present an incredibly chilling effect on future investigations, not just of PP but of any business or organization suspected of violating the law (or just plain acting unethically). I'm assuming that most people praising this indictment are not fully thinking through the ramifications of this in the long term. You're so caught up cheering your "side", that you're losing sight of the bigger picture.

Edited, Feb 4th 2016 6:29pm by gbaji

I saw gbaji was talking about the law and my eyes just glazed over. I'd say it's physiologically impossible for me to read those posts.

This has nothing at all to do with the fact that CMP broke the law by using fraudulent government documents to found their sham company.

We have a term for private citizens who disregard and break the law in their own personal pursuit of justice: vigilantes. The law gives no special protection to vigilantes nor should it.

Says gbaji...

(I seem to remember gbaji using a very broad definition of "harm" around pages 23-25 or so.)

It has everything to do with it:



The indictment was for the felony version of that statute. Since there was no attempt to defraud PP, the only assumption is that the investigation itself was intended to cause harm to PP (which you yourself alleged earlier). The problem is that this would cause pretty much all private investigations of any entity to be a felony since all investigations presumably have the same intent to "harm" the subject of the investigation.

Which makes it a useless legal standard. Get it?



Interesting how you make this decision more or less entirely based on the subject of the investigation. Um... And the law actually does provide protection to whistle blowers. It also provides protections for members of press organizations doing investigative journalism. I'm not sure what you're trying to defend here. The right of a company to not be subject to private citizen investigation of their actions? Is that *really* what you think our law should be doing? I mean, I get that PP is a sacred cow for liberals, but the same interpretation protects a whole slew of organizations I'm sure you're not as supportive of from similar investigations by effectively forcing anyone attempting to investigate them to have to be willing to be charged with a felony merely for making the attempt.

You don't see the problem with that? Cause I sure do. It's not about PP. It's about how the law should work. And this isn't how it should work.