Slashdot Mirror
Site Claims to Reveal 'Tattle-tales'
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?"
Didn't some guy write an article something along the lines of "Who's a Government Agent Whose Husband Disagrees With the Policies of the Current Administration?"
There was a bit of a kerfuffle over that if I recall.
"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Drink deeply or not at all."
When you risk getting informants or cops murdered in reprisal killings. That seems like a good line to draw.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
They don't care. This is probably from the crowd that things the only thing wrong with comitting a crime is getting caught.
That being said, they need to put the creators/curators on the list - aren't they rats themselves now?
34486853790
Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
If this site does in fact gather all its information from documents that are in the public domain (as it claims), then there's not much in the way of recourse.
I wonder if soon we'll see a prohibition on this sort of data mining...making it a crime, or at least a regulated activity, to collate publically available data into a more usable form. I don't see how such a law could be enforced, however, since data-mining technology is already available to practically everyone. Perhaps we'll see restrictions on data-mining technology we currently see on encryption algorithms.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
What exactly is the whole premise behind this idea, if not to protect those who do wrong from being called out or caught? Isn't the whole point of being a whistleblower or informant that you can either help put bad guys behind bars or expose a corporate scandal or safety breach without fear of reprisal, because your identity is kept secret? Or am I completely missing the point here? It just seems to be that the whole point of this website is to give bad guys the ability to track down and "punish" those who actually help the authorities curtail their wrongdoings.
If judges and prosecutors are going to use people's MySpace, Facebook, and Google search results against them and claim, "Hey, it's a public record!" then they shouldn't be surprised or outraged by this. The whole trend of using publicly available online data to snoop on people is a two way street.
If they are using public records to compile the list, then how "secret" is the information expected to be?
in east coast cities like baltimore and philadephia, street violence continues unabated, and police have a problem getting witnesses to cooperate in shooting death investigations due to t-shirts, songs, and the like that demonize cooperating with the police
but of course, you will hear the regular cacophony of folks here on slashdot who can only think of subjects like this in a vacuum, outside of real world effects, and support "who's a rat", just because it's vaguely antigovernment
as if the government is the source of all of our problems in the world. as if the police are only the brutal shock troops of tyranny
gee, i dunno, maye sometimes law enforcement is there to fight simple straightforward crime and protect us and we should help them do that?
i know, wacky reactionary ultraconservative fascist and authoritarian of me to say that, huh?
pffft
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"This definitely seems like attack on law and order - when properly authorized and overseen, undercover investigations are one of the few legitimate means of acting to prevent crime in a way that can be ethically and logically defensible for a state."
Bullshit. Informants are often criminals themselves and are paid for their information. Undercover policework walks a very thin line to keep from crossing over into entrapment. Not to mention, almost all of the "wrongdoing" that this network of lies is trying to stop is victimless drug crime.
If you fall off a building, go real limp, because maybe you'll look like a dummy and people will be like hey, free dummy
So because you know some people who went overboard, everyone is automatically a victim.
"Victimless crime" is usually meant to exclude the person committing the crime.
Even if you don't buy that, "drugs" isn't a crime. "Drug Possession" is a crime, and IS victimless. Now, people who use the drugs may have made themselves victims. That is something else, though.
Selling marijuana to consenting adults is the very definition of a victimless crime. It's the government's own fault for not legalizing it & collecting taxes.
There is a war going on for your mind.
Criminal neglect is a separate issue from drug use. Neglect can be the result of legal or illegal drug use (including alcohol use), or it can be the result of other mental problems. We can pursue and prosecute criminal neglect on its own merits, distinct from the question of drug use. We take this approach with alcohol as it is.
Yes, when parents don't feed their children because they need drug money, its a victimless crime, no one other than the parent is hurt!
No, it's child abuse, just the same as if they spent the children's money on a trip to Vegas. That doesn't mean that staying in a luxury hotel or selling someone an airline ticket is or should be a crime.
When people cant think properly because they've taken too many drugs
No, it's criminal negligence, just the same as if they put on a blindfold and got into their car. That doesn't mean that owning opaque pieces of cloth should be a crime.
People dealing drugs to others, even when the others haven't been shown how dangerous the drugs are, is a victimless crime. The people who recieved the drugs certainly weren't hurt!
If you choose to consent to something, you aren't a victim of it. Now, there might be a small minority that were addicted by someone else, in which case they are victims, but most people who use drugs choose to do so.
(And so on for the other examples)
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.
The vast majority of drug users don't harm others. For the minority that do, harming others is already a crime, so punish them for that.
What would Lemmy do?
Yes, when parents don't feed their children because they need drug money, its a victimless crime, no one other than the parent is hurt!
Dude, that's not drug use, that's abuse.
When people cant think properly because they've taken too many drugs, or can't afford what they a mentally or physically dependant on, and rob/kill others for drug money, its a victimless crime.
Again, that's not drug use, that's robbery.
People dealing drugs to others, even when the others haven't been shown how dangerous the drugs are, is a victimless crime. The people who recieved the drugs certainly weren't hurt!
It's a consensual transaction.
Listen, I smoke pot every day. I have a job. I pay my bills. I did well in college. I have a nice home. I'm friendly with the neighbors. I'm good with kids. I love my family. Who is the victim here? If you believe I should go to jail for this, you're a far more dangerous man than I will ever be.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Well, that is the point of the sex offender lists. Whether you agree with them or not, it is plainly obvious that the lists were designed to help generate vigilante behavior.
I think that's what most folks arguing this tend to miss. Sure, people can be cold sober and still commit crime - usually as the result of mental retardation, ignorance, stupidity, or an over-sized ego. OTOH, when an otherwise normal brain is soaked in a narcotic, burns through it, and suddenly that brain cries out for more? All bets are off.
Thanks to the dumbasses who want to out the "rats" so bad, good luck finding out (much less prosecuting) anyone who commits a crime against you or your property in the future. Folks aren't going to be so eager to be a witness on your behalf if the odds are good that the perpetrator looked like some sort of psycho or gangster type, and potential witnesses stood a solid chance of facing bad mojo for the simple act of telling the truth in a court of law.
Feel safer now?
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Good for him, drug dealers are the freedom fighters in the War on Drug Users. Anyone taking that kind of risk upon themselves to distribute marijuana to needy people is a hero in my book.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Why shouldn't we try to actually prevent crime every now and then? How about, if you take the drug out of the equation? Parents don't need drug money, so they can feed the children. Child neglect prevented. Or someone didn't become physically dependant on some drug, and doesn't rob/kill anyone to get the money.
And before you go all "future-crime" paranoid, please be aware that there are such things as victimless crimes which are real crimes, because it will lead to someone being hurt. Drunk driving is such a crime. How would you feel if some jerk drank two whole kegs of beer and hit the road, and the police couldn't arrest him because he hasn't hurt anybody yet? Do you really think we need to wait until the guy kills a whole family with his reckless driving before we stop him? Until he hit someone, there's no victim, yet I do believe it is a crime.
Or how about someone walks into a bar with a pocket full of date rape drugs? Possession is not a crime, there are no victims, so nobody can arrest him. Let's wait until the guy rapes a couple of women before we can start an investigation after which we're not even sure we'll find anybody guilty because the woman can't even testify.
Walking into a bar with date rape drugs in your pocket is a victimless crime and should remain a crime, because it is very likely somebody will get hurt eventually. Driving drunk is a victimless crime and should remain a crime because it is also very likely that somebody will get hurt.
After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
- The Tao of Programming