SNIP LEOs can use deception with impunity. It may not be nice, but it [is] not unreasonable under the Fourth amendment.
Not according to the courts, anyway.
Cites? For further discussion. I would really like to hear this, honestly. What courts have said so?
I don't know of any cases that expressly said so. I was referring more to the general concept that since it exists pervasively, the courts are doing nothing to prevent it.
When I last checked on it, I just googled the term "permissible deception." Plenty of info came up.
Andrew Napolitano, in his book,
Constitutional Chaos, touches on the upper end of the scale of police deception--in the form of enticement and entrapment. The government deceiving a person so much so that they encourage him to commit a crime. Napolitano doesn't particularly address the deception angle, just the entrapment. But, the one is the natural extension of the other.
Recall Randy Weaver's original brush with BATmen--they entrapped him into making a sawed-off shotgun or short-barrelled rifle or something.
Recall the several people out west earlier this year, arrested on terrorism charges. Part of that story was government agents encouraging them.
The forces of light are having an effect, though. I read just the other day a newspaper article on the Catonsville failed-bomber. The fedgov went to a lot of trouble to make sure they alleged to the press all the little angles about the bomber's consent and willingness--direct quotes of the security apparatus agents and bomber in [strike]undercover[/strike] permissible-deception conversations. Whether those quotes are genuine remains to be seen; but the fedgov felt it important to get the info into the press to undermine an entrapment defense, or undermine an anti-entrapment campaign by folks who view these "terror" arrests as false-flag operations to simply justify additional fedgov overreach, growth and budget.