Site Claims to Reveal 'Tattle-tales' 565
Dekortage writes "Have you ever ratted somebody out? If it was a legal case, you might end up on Who's A Rat, an online database of police informants and undercover agents, identified through various publicly-available documents such as court briefings. The data-mined information is now available online at a price. As reported in the New York Times, 'The site says it has identified 4,300 informers and 400 undercover agents, many of them from documents obtained from court files available on the Internet.' Understandably, U.S. judges and law enforcement agents are upset, although defense lawyers seem to like the idea. Where do you draw the line between legal transparency and secrecy?"
Re:Undercover Agents? (Score:2, Interesting)
I mean do they not see the dangers in doing this? Or do they just not care?
Re:Undercover Agents? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sean Bucci, a former Boston-area disc jockey, set up WhosaRat.com after federal prosecutors charged him with selling marijuana in bulk from his house. Bucci is under house arrest awaiting trial.
Re:Wow (Score:3, Interesting)
That's like giving Slashdot credit for terrorism hysteria when all Slashdot did was post links to the stories on CNN, FOX, and the BBC.
Pretty interesting. (Score:4, Interesting)
When anyone would get busted in Marshall for any reason, they were given 2 choices.
A. Go to Jail and pay the consequences.
B. Go to WVU to school and continue your education on US, while working undercover.
You would be surprised at how many times this happens. It also happened with people I knew (or thought I knew) when they were busted at WVU and sent to MU for "REHAB".
Nonetheless, it's funny they're doing this, simply because if someone's a supposed "rat" and they're found out... you're more than likely not messing with the scene anymore. If you're honestly doing anything that has risk, your best bet is to just not meet new people and don't deal with people that wouldn't go down for you.
In other words, you're going to get caught if you're stupid or deal with stupid people. When messing with drugs, you're usually messing with fucked up people. If you stay in long enough, those fucked-up people are going to get you caught.
My suggestion is, if you MUST, just do drugs, don't sell them.
;)
Re:Undercover Agents? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Undercover Agents? (Score:3, Interesting)
Well individual acts may be legal, but still expose you to criminal and civil liability if you carry them out. It's not illegal for me to tell my friend that he can use my car any time he wants without asking, and it's not illegal for me to cut the brake lines on that car; but if I don't inform my friend that driving it might not be a good idea, and he subsequently drives off a cliff, that's probably murder on the criminal side, and wrongful death on the civil side.
Re:Undercover Agents? (Score:1, Interesting)
What will happen is that this guy will have the book thrown at him with such force that his great-great-great-grandfather will feel the pain.
Just Draw a Real Line *Somewhere* (Score:2, Interesting)
Because these people whining about publishing it have been irresponsible in not drawing a real line to protect real secrets. Of course, they draw all kinds of lines to protect public info from public view that isn't really secret, but on which their power depends.
So they're incompetent to actually protect secrecy, which any crypto person can tell you first requires minimizing the secret info any way possible, then controlling only secret data with nonsecret logic. While covering up all kinds of info people need and have a right to see.
So of course they react by blasting a mere demonstration of their own blabby, yet prohibitively inconvenient management of public data.
"Fingerprint File [seeklyrics.com]", by The Rolling Stones
Re: Ripped from Law & Order (Score:2, Interesting)
Law & Order sort of tackled this in the 2004 episode Gunplay [tv.com]. A website very similar to WhosARat.com, run by a defense lawyer, got two undercover cops shot while they were trying to score some illegal guns. (The story was apparently inspired by the deaths of James J. Nemorin and Rodney Andrews on Staten Island in 2003, although I don't think the website element was present in that incident.) As is typical of Law & Order, they raise the tough question, but they don't answer it: The prosecutors are let off the hook when they discover a much more sinister wrinkle.
Anyway, if the site does not get shut down preemptively, I'm sure that a death like this is only be a matter of time. When that happens, the investigators and prosecutors will stop at nothing to make a very messy example of the site owners, First Amendment be damned.
Re:Sure, why not (Score:5, Interesting)
As opposed to racial profiling. As opposed to beating suspects mercilessly when they present no danger to the officer. As opposed to taking their sweet time to respond to inner-city disturbances while rushing to rich neighborhoods. As opposed to villifying teenagers that are just bored and want to hang out in a public place and not causing any trouble. As opposed to the "we are above the law" attitude that many many officers seem to have.
I remember getting pulled over by an undercover detective for looking at him wrong. Quite literally. He parked his unmarked vehicle with illegally dark tints across two handicapped spaces at my local bank branch and some old lady had to park considerably farther. As I left the ATM I saw him getting into his vehicle and I saw this poor thing with the appropriate handicapped tag in no more complicated than a nightgown struggling with her walker.
I stared at him nastily. I wanted him to feel the shame that others were judging him. Obviously I rubbed him the wrong way since I drove off maybe three blocks before this guy turned on ol' red and blues mounted on his dashboard. I was pulled over and given a lecture about how HE was keeping me safe.
Pro tip: in those situations, the only thing you should do is "Yes, officer" lest you get tazered.
Hell, I live in South Florida... NBC did a story on filing complaints to police stations. Most of the stations just wanted a verbal report and wouldn't provide him with the anonymous forms required under law. To top it all off, when the report got on the air, the investigator had a BOLO notice posted! "Fuck da police" isn't just because we're rebellious: it's because so many DO WRONG.
Questioning witnesses for murders is movie-time. Law and Order on CBS time. It happens, but it's not so prevalent that doors are being knocked on day in and out to find out where they were on August the 11th at 3:19am.
If the police stopped intentionally being antagonists to the citizenry maybe we'd cooperate more.
Re:Haven't we seen this before? (Score:2, Interesting)
Richard Armitage, who has consistably undermined the efforts of the Adminstration.
Richard Armitage, who, ignored an express Presidential Directive in the Plame investigation when he failed to notify the White House that he was the source of the leak.
Richard Armitage, who left the Administration to twist in the wind.
Yeah. I'd call him a Democrat supporter. He may not carry the card, but his heart is right with them.
Re:Who is a rat??? (Score:5, Interesting)
"Among other things, the jury returned a general forfeiture judgment of $2.7 million against BUCCI, and judgments of forfeiture of his house at 23 Marshall Street in North Reading, a 2002 Chevrolet Avalanche SUV, a boat, and $35,000 in a bank account."
Re:They deserve to be outed (Score:3, Interesting)
Please specify what the heck you're actually talking about and I imagine I will conclude that either it is victimless, or that "drugs" is not the problem.
Note that I do not endorse the other posters suggestion that undercover agents be outed. Undercover agents should not be outed, they should be quietly laid off.
Re:They deserve to be outed (Score:1, Interesting)
Now, what do you think would happen if I were to snitch on him and tell the police about his little operation? He would probably go to jail for a good long time and I could end up on this list. We'd both be in worse places than we are now.
I'm not saying that it isn't possible to have someone cause all this damage over drugs, but like you said, since you've seen it happen with legal drugs was it the person or the drugs that caused this problem? Did the dealer cause the problem, or was the problem with the users. You can't support your claim that drug dealers create victims in their crimes if your anecdotal evidence doesn't apply.
The best counter-example I can give you is Holland, where pretty much any drug is legal. According to http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=10051
"Honestly, I could care less about the people who know the risks, and still use the drugs to the point of harming themselves. It's those that use them and harm others in the process, that bother me."
Yeah me too, but perhaps we should focus less on the dealers/drugs and more on the people that harm others.
Posted a/c since disagreeing with the legality of marijuana could cause me to not get a job or end up in jail (with the help of a snitch, possibly from this list). Hope I get modded to +2 since that's where my karma would have carried me
P.S. the captcha to post this was "burglary". How ironic
Re:They deserve to be outed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:They deserve to be outed (Score:3, Interesting)
I didn't check the web site. Does it specify what sort of crimes the informants exposed? Does it specify who they ratted out?
You might be thinking in terms of drugs, but what about the pawn shop owner who reports stolen goods to the police? Or the aerospace employee who tells the FAA about maintenance shortcuts and uncertified parts on commercial airplanes?
Many years ago, I helped the local cops break up a large burglary ring. Meanwhile, although some of my friends were known to partake of weed and other harmless substances, they were never at risk of my ratting them out. Interesting note: The cops weren't too happy, since they figured it was the stoners doing the thefts. It turned out to be the high school jocks. After a time, details of my activities became known in the community. Had this been posted on line, some uninvolved person might mistakenly attribute their legal misfortune to me and seek retribution.
Re:They deserve to be outed (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, the fact that the police are responsible for enforcing good laws as well as bad ones does present a problem. Taking steps to prevent them from enforcing bad laws often makes it more difficult for them to enforce good ones, so the question become one of compromise: Should we just sit back and accept the abuses of the police because they also help us in other situations?
Most oppressive institutions are like this. Dictatorships kill and imprison people to maintain power, but they use that power to provide social stability and safety. To undermine dictatorship is to threaten the stability and safety that it provides as well, and yet to tell someone not to "rock the boat" in that situation would be absurd.
More practically speaking though, I think if more people took an active role in making law enforcement's job extremely difficult as a response to unjust laws, those laws would get changed very quickly. Instead, we sit quietly and accept whatever injustice the police commit, because we love the safety offered by corrupt authorities more than we love freedom.
Re:They deserve to be outed (Score:2, Interesting)
I used to be somebody productive, I used to have a normal life. I never hurt anybody. How else can I understand why they would do this to me other than to think that there is something seriously wrong with the system?
Re:Sure, why not (Score:3, Interesting)
One time, when I was following my girlfriend in her car (I was driving my car), I saw her pulled over. To make a long story short, after a few minutes, the cops walked away from her car, and we continued on home. I called her up, expecting her to be crying over a ticket, or scared about a warning.
In reality, they pulled her over to ask for her phone number, and her friend's (who was sitting in the passenger seat) phone number.
This made my blood boil.
You see another man hitting on your girlfriend or wife? You kindly tell him to give up.
You see a cop hitting on your girlfriend or wife while pursuing their "official" duties (I'm talking lights flashing on a major, crowded public street), what do you do? Walk up to him and expect to get tazered?
Another one:
A few days ago, after the Cubs/Soxs game at Wrigley Field, I was out on Lincoln having a drink. We're walking to a restaurant around 7 pm, and I see a cop (sitting in the passenger seat of cop car, with another officer driving) get out of his vehicle, and walk up to a bar to talk to some bouncers. Interestingly enough, I see his hand cupped around something.
It was a can of Miller Light. Now, what would the cop have done had he seen me getting out of a passenger-side door with a can of beer. Tackle me?
I hate this kind of legal inequity. Police should not be above the law. Acting as if they are, and enforcing unjust laws will result in this kind of anti-police speech, and it should.