Slashdot Mirror
GoDaddy Silences RateMyCop.com
mikesd81 writes "Wired is running a story about GoDaddy shutting down a police watchdog site called RateMyCop. However, GoDaddy can't seem to give a consistent answer as for why. From the article: 'RateMyCop founder Gino Sesto says he was given no notice of the suspension. When he called GoDaddy, the company told him that he'd been shut down for suspicious activity. When Sesto got a supervisor on the phone, the company changed its story and claimed the site had surpassed its 3 terabyte bandwidth limit, a claim that Sesto says is nonsense. "How can it be overloaded when it only had 80,000 page views today, and 400,000 yesterday?" Sesto says police can post comments as well, and a future version of the site will allow them to authenticate themselves to post rebuttals more prominently. Chief Dyer wants to get legislation passed that would make RateMyCop.com illegal, which, of course, wouldn't pass constitutional muster in any court in America.'"
I am hopeful that mankind can avoid ending up like in 1984, for the simple reason that the same technology that enables today's widespread spying by our government on its own citizens can also be leveraged to help us keep tabs on them. Even if they make sites like this one illegal, they will be hosted elsewhere. Furthermore, unless they figure out how to take away all of our camera cell phones, tiny solid state audio recorders, etc then we will continue to have vastly more power to document police corruption than we did just 10 years ago when you'd have to have a camcorder at hand, charged and with a tape in it, to capture anything.
I might even go so far as to say that I'd _like_ to see the government try and crack down on sites like this (and wikileaks etc), as this will only draw more attention to the problem, causing replication of the data and hastening the process of smart people finding even better general solutions for circumventing censorship.
The current situation in America really does look like 1984 already - not just the spying and media manipulation, but also the continuous fearmongering and blatant lies to justify this protracted and costly war. However I believe there really is hope for us to turn this around, and that the solution lies in leveraging the internet, encryption, and the same technologies being used now to spy on us. Let's keep finding better ways to protect information, let's keep uncovering the corruption, and let's turn this around before it's too late.
Hot-or-not-cop.com.
Careful What You Wish For....
And why does his opinion matter?
Seeing as the site is back up now, they should just be thankful that godaddy didn't pull the domain registration.
ratemycop.com is back up now... which makes this story pretty uninteresting.
Film at 11!
When a company gets to a certain size, particularly relative to the industry it is in, it begins to associate more and more with various branches of government. Lobbying begins, favors are asked and given, and in the end government branches get their very own wiretap rooms in the offices of the naturally "private company".
GoDaddy is the largest registrar and webhost. Do you think, even for one second, that they would dare sully their good relations with government by allow a "seditious" site like ratemycop.com to exist on their servers? Of course, we can talk about the rights of "private companies" and "free association", but lets face it; that's mostly a crock of shit.
Western governments no longer officially nationalize companies. They now get the companies to come into the fold all by themselves.
May the Maths Be with you!
Who the hell is Chief Dyer? Some actor or something? Why should I have heard of them?
I smell a lawsuit coming on . . . Godaddy 1, RateMyCop.com 0. Good luck to the website owner. I will no longer continue to be a godaddy customer if this is the type if sh*t they are going to do.
The ONLY valid reasons I can come up with why anyone would want this site down are the exposing of undercover officers (not good for anyone, especially the undercover cops, except the criminals they're infiltrating) and the usual state of online abuse anyone who posts to a forum is subject to (but maybe the David Brame tragedy could have been better avoided had there been more voicing of his abuses?).
Reasons not valid... oh, those are numerous and probably why the cops freaked and GoDaddy's knees buckled.
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
At 400,000 page views per day * 30 days = 12,000,000 page views. At 250k per page view, doesn't that equal 3 TB?
Maybe I'm missing something, but that doesn't seem too absurd. Someone tell me where my math is off...
How soon before someone starts selling Streisand Effect World Tour t-shirts?
This will earn its place on the list for sure.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
In January of last year, GoDaddy took down entire computer security website -- delisting it from DNS -- to get a single, archived mailing list post off the web. On that occasion, at least, it gave the site's owner 60 seconds notice.
At least some good can come from all of this: a reminder to avoid this ISP (as if their terrible ads weren't enough of a warning).
I...I'm attacking the darkness!
Well, not for long....since it made the front page of Slashdot I'm sure he'll exceed his 3 TB limit within the next hour.....
If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
Where did you get the 30 days from?
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
If cops are not doing anything illegal they have nothing to hide..
We should definitely have websites like this.
With most of the Police Chases I, II, III, IV,... there always seems to be a desire to portray the police as infallible, reliable, honest, level headed, better then everyone. While I do like cops, I know that this is an exaggeration. Is there any reason why public domain footage of police stops, copter cams, dash cams, couldn't be aired on a show, regardless if whether or not it paints the police as "good guys"?
AFAIK this site went down after it was mentioned on Fark last night. That could easily surpass the limit for a GoDaddy hosted site.
I've been using them for domain hosting and e-mail hosting. Their e-mail service is letting a ton of spam through and rejecting at least 4 of my customers for reasons that are, at best, dubious. I have had those customers send to me at gmail and they have not had trouble.
I'm moving off godaddy.
become a participant for http://www.copwatch.org/ .
All you gotta do is just simply watch the police go about their usuall routine. If they threaten you to leave remind them that they are public servants and that you are fully within the scope of the law if doing so
Go on and observe, It is your patriotic duty!
perpetually dwelling in the -1 pits
The site is a stupid, terrible idea anyway. I'm personally aware of many people who have an irrational hatred for the police and police officers, simply because of what they are.
Yes, you have bad cops. You've also got a lot of good cops who would be harassed and defamed by users of this site. Frankly, it's as stupid as that site that lets high school kids make unsubstantiated complaints about their teachers. Just because you have free speech, doesn't mean that you can use it to make a person's life hell.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
I want a site with all their pictures so I can rate them 1-10 based on looks alone.
... a girl, right?
American Indians, cowboys, construction workers, leathermen and military types everywhere respond with cries of "Unfair discrimination!" while the guy in the back wearing a trenchcoat says "Hey girlie, would you mind wearing this?"
You are
As for the 1984 allegories? I suspect that you all-too easily attribute to malice what can be more easily attributed to incompetence, greed, and disparate desires that happen to run in parallel.
I suspect that you all-too easily assume that the erosion of our freedoms is driven mainly by malicious intent.
Protect your liberties. Donate to the ACLU
... than GoDaddy. It just goes to show if you're not running a website that shows all people in a light and happy and cheery manner, don't use GoDaddy hosting or GoDaddy DNS registration services. They've interfered with other sites as well, if they cannot shutdown your website, they'll just turn off the DNS resolution for your IP address like they did with Seclists.Org http://seclists.org/nmap-hackers/2007/0000.html
GoDaddy is the Self-Proclaimed Internet Police and just because they have the ability to interfere with certain websites they think it's OK. Of course they'll argue Terms of Service, but no company should be able to interfere with one's First Amendment rights. Also why should they want to disable websites in this manner anyway? All the negative press must affect their profit margin.
Why couldn't s/he be a man? Is the concept really that unthinkable for you?
+1 meta-Godwin
who's a rat? site
i forget the name, slashdot had an story abouth it here awhile back. that site that kept track of snitches and federal witnesses that also got shut down
that site and this ratemycop site is not in any way an empowerment of the common man, it is an empowerment of the kind of constantly cranky loser you find in every small town, and it gives voice to the criminal element too: tracking cops, slandering cops, etc. it is not a control method over bad cops, it is a tool for slander and unfound rumor. it's a way fo rinternet trolls to spread lies
the truth is, you have control over your cops: via your government. yes, there are those alientated from their government. for many reasons. many of those reason being the crank's own bad ideas and bad social skills. but if a cop is genuinely bad, the government will get rid of him or her eventually, through regular channels, as regular people sound off about any mistreatment the cop makes
not through this site
so yes, close the site down. sure you can say godaddy may not have closed the site down in the most proper procedue, but the site should definitely be closed down, if you have any understanding of ethics
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Slashdot the phones over at GoDaddy.
In a few years, they'd just take away the ability to write negative reviews in order to "improve the user experience."
In his blog, Personally, using an american registrar sounds like trouble, eNom did it to cuba*.names. Can you trust an American domain registrar for your business ?
In the States, anonymous political speech is held -- at least to date -- to be strongly protected under the 1st Amendment; furthermore, slander and libel, especially in the case of discussion of a public official's official conduct, are insanely hard to prove (much easier in Commonwealth countries, and thus, they have their access to information cut off in cases -- most recently, the Tom Cruise biography -- where there is a powerful corporation or government against them.)
Protect your liberties. Donate to the ACLU
Like any other public employee, the policeman is evaluated by his supervisor, not a graffiti wall. He or she needs to worry about what his sergeant and captain think, not about AC posts on a website.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
it would be easier to put a colony on Mars than to organize that gaggle into any sort of overlord-type Big Brother organization...
I've often rolled my eyes when people have suggested varying data-collection-from-various-agencies kind of conspiracies; here in Massachusetts, they can't even handle informing the Registry of Motor Vehicles when you've paid a parking ticket that was overdue.
However, competence and thoroughness are not necessary to suppress and control. You can have a third world dictator whose goons are lazy slobs and sleep all day and never manage to come to the right conclusions on investigations when they're not taking naps. What makes them feared is whether they run around shooting people.
Want a great example? The TSA. They're feared and hated, and it has nothing to do with them being thorough or competent. Tests have repeatedly shown that they miss more than half the stuff secret testers try to sneak by. Rather, it is their complete ineptitude and nearly limitless power- you never know if you're going to get pulled out for additional screening, or told your car key is a 'switchblade' key and thus can't be allowed on, or told to drink your own breast milk because agents think it's liquid explosives instead of milk for your baby, or, or, or...and there's always the thought that you could end up in Gitmo with a black bag over your head 18 hours a day.
In fact, incompetence and power are more likely to suppress the population, because now they can't even count on living by keeping their noses squeaky clean.
Please help metamoderate.
if it was that unthinkable, he wouldn't have bothered asking.
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
I use GoDaddy, and even though I don't have anything remotely objectionable on my site I'd like to change services. Who would people suggest as an alternative? Also, what does this mean for the remainder of time paid for through GoDaddy? Do I have to wait until the end of it?
There is a legitimate concern for cops that do go undercover (they tend to do so off and on throughout a career), in that once they do, there's a big, fat online database that folks can check against before even asking "are you a cop?". This can present a legitimate danger if there's pictures or other personally identifiable information right there on the site.
Where in the US Constitution is the right to conduct undercover investigations, or to do so free from risk? Or to conveniently use the same officers for beat duty and undercover duty, instead of having separate officers/departments?
Please help metamoderate.
A former employee of my company had a handicapped parking permit, and she was told by the police that because of her handicapped parking permit, in Illinois the parking rules basically did not apply to her. She could pretty much park anywhere and not get a ticket. She'd park all day in the two hour parking spaces on the street, park across the lines, you name it - and there was nothing the police could do - nor did they make any attempt.
Had she been blocking traffic, that might have been another question, but the simple reality of it was that she never got a parking ticket in a town that lives on parking ticket income.
Putting moderation advice in your
This is a few minutes away from where I live: A driver got a ticket for driving too fast to the hospital. He was taking his buddy who was accidentally hit by a co-worker's powerful nail gun.
Now if this cop only had discretion enough to waive the ticket.
Banning the site would not pass constitutional muster in any court in pre-9/11 America - but I could easily see it happening today.
a cts comment that I agree with!
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
I wonder about how useful this is anyhow? A store rating site I can see, you don't shop there. A political one perhaps, you don't vote there. With the police what do you do?
"Sorry officer, I can't accept that ticket because you have a poor rating on ratemycop.com?"
Can you use it in court? The best I could see is perhaps being more wary than usual about dealing with certain officers, but it's not like you generally have time to pop up and look them up in the heat-of-the-moment.
Not to mention that it incorrectly implies that all cops are male.
All I want is a kind word, a warm bed and unlimited power.
I wonder how many police departments will allow cops to post on such a website. At best, you might see something posted by a police PR department, after being vetted by the police legal advisor. What that will probably mean is that both sides of the debate on the website will have about the same level of truthfulness, which is what you normally see whenever such a debate plays out in a local paper or other such medium. From my personal experience, police departments aren't any more truthful than random joe citizen... in fact in some cases they can be depended upon to lie.
I have a better idea. It should be ILLEGAL and punishable by immediate death (without a trial) to write or publish anything, whether in print or online, without a special license from the government, and without every word being placed under government scrutiny and censorship. The current system in which anyone can post online is extremely dangerous, as it may expose embarrassing scandals in the government. It doesn't matter if there are scandals. The important thing is not to allow those scandals to be exposed by the public. Not to mention that it is extremely unfortunate when such exposure causes our leaders to be accountable for their actions. That's definitely something we don't want, either. No, what this country really needs is traffic cops who can stop you for no reason, plant a joint on your dashboard, and then force you to bribe them to avoid arrest.
wouldn't pass constitutional muster in any court in America
like warrantless wiretapping or torture?
+1 fashionably cynical
If the person who owns this domain wants to move it to my company, we will provide free hosting for said person. Get ahold of me by replying to this post.
"My immediate reaction is "WTF? What kind of moron doesn't make things 64-bit safe to begin with?" Linus
Doctors for instance have them. Think next time will you?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Free speech doesn't mean you only get to say things that are nice, or things that are true. but if a cop is genuinely bad, the government will get rid of him or her eventually, through regular channels, as regular people sound off about any mistreatment the cop makes Oh, I get it, you're being sarcastic. Never mind then!
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Data suppression is outdated in the age of the internet. From what I read here, it sounds like
1) cops cycle in and out of undercover work and
2) use their real names (which Hollywood does not seem to be aware of)
so a criminal can google a potential cop and identify him as one rather easily.
Claiming the website should be taken down to protect undercover cops is an untenable argument.
"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool" - Jane Wagner -
At what cost? The average person in a state of panic trying to rush to a hospital in an unmarked vehicle is a pretty damn big danger to the public. A nail in the head could easily be the least of their concerns.
Is anyone surprised? GoDaddy is the worst registrar. The will shut down your domain without notification or verification. They truly suck.
OR
"Takes one to know one! I'll see you at the meeting on friday!"
So...who is a good company for domain name registration or web hosting?
I have never found a name registrar that will not take down a site w/o warning. (I do run contreversial sites, and they do tick off powerful people.)
DirectNic is as bad as GoDaddy. I considered Yahoo, but their TOS says they will take down and "offensive" site. (e.g., if you mention women voting, that is offensive to some.)
Who can I turn to? (other than Tim McVeigh?)
Andy
You know what? Fuck undercover cops. The idea that my tax dollars go towards tricking people into doing illegal activities annoys me to no end. This website has far more potential for good than bad. Hell, I am a clean looking law biding white male, and I have been arrested and lied to by police. Just last week I had three rifles pointed at me by overzealous police. A friend of mine from Kenya who has never committed a crime in his life gets thrown down on the street with guns pointed at his head about once a month. How the fuck is that fair, or even legal?
I should mention that I live in Portland, Oregon. We have one of the lowest crime rates in the country. Whenever there is a story of a shooting on the news, it is most likely a police officer shooting an unarmed man. A few years back, police tasered a man to death while he was still in his car with his seatbelt on. The excuse that the police gave was that it looked like he was putting drugs in his mouth.
A couple summers ago, in the neighborhood I grew up in (A peaceful lower middle class suburban neighbourhood, I never heard of a crime anywhere in the area the entire 18 years I lived there), a woman called the police saying that her 18 year old son was suicidal, and he needed help. When the police arrived, three officers shot him a total of 8 times in the back.
http://blog.oregonlive.com/washingtoncounty/2008/01/previous_stories_and_the_tort.html
These police officers are all back on duty doing their regular routines after murdering all of these people. These are the people that are protecting and serving me. This is why we need services like this.
This needs to be +5, Informative. It's a direct link to a relevant Supreme Court ruling that explains in simple terms exactly why anonymity is considered protected under the First Amendment. I, too, was wondering why prohibiting anonymouos speech wouldn't solve this problem... now I know!
ilians? Other cops can turn on them, too. Just look at the book about the LAPD, in which the author wrote because his fellow LAPD cops decided he was a risk to their clandestine, domestic-CIA-like ops. They shot up his house from a moving motorcycle, sent him messages to conform, and so on.
Cops who are problems to other cops sometimes get dispatched to an "upcoming shootout" radioed as a domestic disturbance or petty theft or 2-11 in progress, or something. If s/he's riding alone, it's easier to take him out. The shoot out starts, s/he agonizingly awaits non-arriving backup, and other radios and their freqs are blacked out or knowingly ignored until it's pretty certain that s/he's a a gonner.
i've sometimes tell people that the Rodney King incident would NOT have happened had things been different. Oh, you ask, "what?" Well, as i understand (read/heard from a source), it was a FEMALE CHP officer in pursuit, but she was (purportedly) bullied by LAPD officers assisting in the pursuit. If this is true, then since CHP has authority to pursue and arrest just about ANYwhere in the state, whereas local LE has to make a courtesy request (can't have Rosemead police running over Glendale or Burbank pedestrians or crashing into property outside PD jurisdiction...), she recalled the history of "The Jungle's" PD (LAPD) and knowing she was outnumbered and could be felled, she likely assented to their demand to take him into custody themselves. Likely THEY wanted him because he had a history with them.
So, had SHE taken custody of him, the LA Riots might VERY WELL not have happened.
A rate-my-cop system might very well have weeded out overly-aggressive cops and forced them to resign or STAY undercover instead of interacting with the general public. I'm not for "rooting out and endangering" u/c cops. I'm just saying, just as in war and spying, they KNOW the risks/statistics when putting on the uniform, taking/making the oath, and hitting the beat or warrant task. I'm not trying to be inhumane. It's a dirty, dangerous job at times. Not one I'd rather do, mainly because i'm not one for suppressing corruption and malfeasance if I see it. So, DEFINITELY, i'd be set up for a fall, most likely, if I were a cop in a PD of over, say, 2 officers.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
American Indians, cowboys, construction workers, leathermen and military types everywhere respond with cries of "Unfair discrimination!" while the guy in the back wearing a trenchcoat says "Hey girlie, would you mind wearing this?"
You are
Who cares? He/she likes disco!
I am not a crackpot.
His point is that a sizable minority of cops are petty and vindictive. Remember the youtube of the kid skateboarding? How about Rodney King?
Plus, the people who become cops come from a mentality that *YOU HAVE TO LISTEN TO THEM* and if you don't, then they'll kick your ass and then claim you were resisting (Think "Cartman"). In a small town, cops will ignore stuff to protect their "buds". Cops will protect their own.
If anything, we should insist cops record every moment of what they do and then the video would be available to the public immediately. That would be shown to the jury, as well.
I have no doubt that if the police's actions were transparent to the community, we'd get rid of bad cops pretty quickly. We'd get better cops.
Everybody would benefit.
Certainly not the first time godaddy has pulled the plug on a legitimate website because someone complained. I was hosting a parody website for a while that was registered at godaddy, and they pulled the plug because some people didn't like the content. Nowadays I use moniker, but that's not due to careful comparisons of all the top registrars; it's because insecure.org uses them.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24
they are smarter THAN you.
I've heard good things about http://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Taxi drivers, fishermen, and garbage men all die at a rate greater than police. This was in mainstream media just a few months ago -- article probably still up at CNN.com. Meanwhile, police act like this, and pretty much get away with it the majority of the time. Criticism is more than necessary, and being skewed has nothing to do with it -- They are already skewed by being in the position they are. They can already shoot someone in the back and have internal affairs clear it in a week. That's pretty skewed too. Like the others said, Free Speech isn't necessarily about being fair. You need a little more perspective into the police. Go RSS subscribe to BadCopNews and read EVERY article for 6 months and tell me if your worldview is not changed by the experience.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Right now, it looks like the site is being moved. The name "ratemycop.com" is registered with "name.com", not GoDaddy. GoDaddy was providing hosting only. So moving it to another server is easy.
Checking with the authoritative name server for the domain (NS1.MYCPANELHOST.INFO), we get back [205.234.222.18] as the IP address. That's actually "mycpanelhost.info", indicating this is a site using named virtual hosting (many domains on the same IP address). So addressing the site by IP address just gets you a default "Welcome to Apache" page.
The new IP address hasn't propagated through DNS yet. My local DNS is returning "Addresses: 72.167.159.53, 205.234.222.18". That 72.167.159.53 address is the old GoDaddy address. There's a 7 day TTL on the DNS entry, with 6 days 5 hours to go, so it may take a while for the DNS system to purge the GoDaddy address worldwide. Some users are seeing the new site; some are seeing the old GoDaddy page.
GoDaddy is already out of the picture and has no control over the site. We're just waiting for DNS propagation, after which the new site should be visible everywhere.
So you're saying that we've got more of a Brazil-style totalitarian bureaucracy than a 1984-style totalitarian bureaucracy? That isn't exactly comforting.
AEIOU: open-source anonymous internet currency
The main page of Slashdot alone is over 580 KB when you include the images and JS files. And Slashdot is not a very rich site.
"an action that causes direct harm to another" is a tort, which is handled by civil, not criminal, law.
My truck is like a series of tubes.
1. Does the company have a right, under whatever contract exists with the customer, to terminate service?
Actually, I really don't have a second question, because that is the only question that matters here.
If GoDaddy is in breach of some contract, it should be straightforward to argue this in court. Point
to the clause of the contract that is in breach, and ask the judge for relief. They might even be able
to suppress any information about the nature of the site from being mentioned.
If GoDaddy.com has a right to terminate service... take your business elsewhere. There are providers that
will not shut down a website until they receive an executed court order. There are also providers that are
located beyond the legal reach of US courts.
Or you can just whine on slashdot about how some company violated your right to free speech... but that's
not going to get much in the way of results.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
is cultural. If the culture of a policing body is not to tolerate anything shady, to take pride in their honesty, and *never* to cover up or look the other way when something happens to a fellow officer, then corruption diminishes tremendously. But when it becomes socially acceptable within the police to look the other way or not get involved when you know an officer is breaking the law, corruption thrives.
That's not to say other things aren't important--things like transparency and accountability to their communities--but that's the single biggest thing you can do to prevent corruption. (After making sure cops aren't terribly paid, anyway.) There are some parts of our society where being a tattle-tale is the right thing to do, and it should be venerated--I don't mean going after people and trying to get them to engage in illegal activities, but I do mean reporting them when you have reason to believe it's likely they're engaging in those activities. (That's an important distinction--at least a number of police forces run undercover investigations where they encourage people to commit crime in order to prosecute them, where they're enabling the crime if not causing it.)
The .COM is already registered by a domain squatter. But the .NET appears to be available.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I've had bad experiences with GoDaddy ranging from first level tech support/CS screaming at me for forgetting my password (they have a 3 time lockout policy), then hanging up on me and screening my calls afterwards.
She refused to give me her name or transfer me to her supervisor while she was berating me also. They actually went as far as to pick up the phone then hang up, when I called from a different number they answered. I didn't bother reporting the person because I figured someone with those types of issues/disposition will have it coming to them sooner or later anyways.
In another incident I have had them totally hose content through software upgrades (Simple Machines Forum) and then deny it ever happened. After pursuing the issue up the chain it was finally restored "free of charge."
I would not recommend them to anyone else after the way I have been treated, I will be moving all my domains to slicehost shortly.
Have a squat over at the hobo house.
Those in positions of power must not have the same protections as those who are powerless.
1: The position of police officer is a position of great power.
2: The position of police officer is extremely attractive to sociopaths.
3: Some (many) police agencies are--umm--less than perfect at filtering out these especially-eager applicants. Some departments do not filter at all (i.e. they don't perform personality inventories on applicants), with the obvious results. Given that non-sociopaths generally strongly dislike working with sociopaths, it stands to reason that these departments quickly become dominated by the latter. I've lived in city with a police department that did not test its applicants for mental disorders, and that's a large part of the reason I now live in a city with a police department that does.
4: It does not make sense to give a person in a position of power all the protections that are afforded to others. For those in a position to cause suffering to members of society, the interest of the society in preventing abuse clearly outweighs the interest of the individual. (If you want all the usual job protections, don't pursue a job that lets you hurt people.)
Yes, some police officers will be treated unfairly in such a forum. Some will be publicly embarrassed when they don't deserve it. If the forum is effective, some will lose their jobs when they shouldn't. I would think it would even make undercover operations more difficult. All these issues are far outweighed by the benefit of exposing those who should not be allowed to be in positions of power.
It's easy to overestimate how much people understand how an open and free society is supposed to work.
I was lying in bed one recent morning, listening to a profile of an anti-immigration politician. I practically jumped out bed when I heard he was advocating for a law which would limit the application of the Fourteenth Amendment to the offspring of illegal immigrants. How could anybody so ignorant get elected to office?
It's distressing when a senior law enforcement officer or an elected official is so clueless, because they're in a position to do far more harm than they're proposing to prevent.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
What could they have possibly been thinking to use GoDaddy (with a record of this sort of behavior) as the registrar for this domain?
From the article summary:
When Sesto got a supervisor on the phone, the company changed its story and claimed the site had surpassed its 3 terabyte bandwidth limit, a claim that Sesto says is nonsense. "How can it be overloaded when it only had 80,00 page views today, and 400,000 yesterday?"
Ping flood. A rather nasty denial of service attack which chokes bandwidth and costs the victim money if they're charged for bandwidth. Will also exhaust a traffic quota if it's in place.
Can't say whether Sesto's had that happen, but, it would easily explain the sudden over-quota traffic.
It's called a rap sheet. Only negative incidents(ie crimes) of your life are posted on it.
Now with ratemycop.com we have a balance.
Yay!
Most police forces in the US are pretty hostile to the idea of any kind of kind of civilian oversight. I can sympathize to some degree because cops by the nature of their job have to do things that civilians don't like. They aren't out there to pick up the trash and mow your lawn, they are out there to maintain civic order, which means keeping civilians in line.
However, there are enough bad cops, and enough other cops who will protect their own even if they are doing something clearly wrong, that *some* kind of civilian oversight is needed most places to avoid the worst abuses. That said, I think this board is a really bad idea, and is actually probably illegal.
First, why it is a bad idea:
The fact is that it will get a lot harder for police to do their job if anonymous systems like this become widely used. Anyone from someone receiving traffic ticket, to someone who got busted for heroin trafficking can them go online and anonymously pretend to be some totally innocent guy who suffered horrible police brutality for no reason whatsoever by officer John D. Law. Hell, people could go online from *jail* and talk smack about their arresting officer in a totally anonymous system.
Second, why this is probably illegal:
Libel and slander are and always have been illegal. The fact that it happens on "the intertubes" where information "wants to be free" does not change the law. If you start false rumors (the false part is important here) about someone being a murderer or something equally horrible and that person can't get a job and their wife leaves them, etc because of it, that person can legally sue the crap out of you. To make this clear why this is, consider if there were a website called "ratemyemployee" and people could go online anonymously and say that they were your boss and give you a performance review. Now, since that person did not have to identify himself, he could be anybody including some random guy you never worked for who had a grudge against you. You could easily lose your current job and not be able to find a new one in such a situation. Suing the person who started the rumor provides a way to clear your name in court and get monetary compensation.
As it stands, the web site may be liable for slander or libel if they don't give up information on who posted.
I think the correct thing to do is for the site to hold users contact information in escrow, and to provide some kind of means of redress, without immediately handing out addresses to police officers who just want to find out who talked smack about them. Futhermore, the site itself should probably require a contract is signed and make it clear it will fine users if they make a habit of posting slander on their site.
People on both end, police and civilians, need to be held accountable for their actions.
They are people too with families and life outside of work. Being a policeman is not a good job if you want to be popular. As a college professor students can post reviews about me to ratemyprofessor. However even more importantly promotion decisions are strongly based off of student evaluations filled out at the end of each semester. I'm a person with a family and life outside of work, yet my career is inextricably tied to what anonymous people say about my work. For my part I embrace the criticism, it helps me become better at my JOB. I have no respect for someone who wants to be protected from criticisms about their work and behavior. While it is certainly true that evaluations where the evaluator has to go to some effort on their own part, have a slant towards the less flattering, they still provide useful feedback for improving ones performance.
Unfair poor evaluations are a fundamental problem with this process, however they are usually easy to spot: one of my colleagues got the following, "He actually expects you to remember what he says in class". Clearly this student's poor assessment of his professor is likely less than accurate.
Did a federal, state or local government body shut down the site? I didn't think so. The 1st Amendment is not in play here.
Is buying a Harley Davidson as your first motorcycle since you were 16 at age 49 a midlife crisis issue?
Ok the very fact that "Chief Dyer wants to get legislation passed that would make RateMyCop.com illegal" really just smacks of disconnection with the values of the founding fathers. Silencing free speach and efforts to release PUBLIC OFFICIALS from any responsibility for their actions equates to Racketeering and at best communism. The real problem is Chief Dyer, the very thought that silencing free speach is a good idea means this guy is completely disconnected from the values of the constitution and hints to me that he is the real root of the problem. I would think that a charge of treason could be argued.
Questioning authority is unchristian. That's reason enough for GOD-addy.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
I'm keeping a list of stories about GoDaddy on Slashdot, in order by date:
Go Daddy Usurps Network Solutions (2005-05-04)
GoDaddy Serves Blank Pages to Safari & Opera (2005-12-08)
GoDaddy.com Dumps Linux for Microsoft (2006-03-23)
GoDaddy Holds Domains Hostage (2006-06-17)
GoDaddy Caves To Irish Legal Threat (2006-09-16)
MySpace and GoDaddy Shut Down Security Site (2007-01-26)
That incident prompted this web site:
Exposing the Many Reasons Not to Trust GoDaddy with Your Domain Names.
Alternative Registrars to GoDaddy? (2007-02-03)
GoDaddy Bobbles DST Changeover? (2007-03-11)
850K RegisterFly Domains Moved To GoDaddy (2007-05-29)
GoDaddy Silences RateMyCop.com (2008-03-12)
Any error or stories not included?
It's also a good idea not to get your domain service from a US registrar if you're going to be annoying to US-based interests. Gandi's based in France, or at least find some Canadians, and maybe get yourself an additional domain name that's not in
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Not available at 13:54 PDT.
Cops are all to complicit in the government's plan to extract ever more money from honest people through excessive traffic ticketing.
So tickets are merely about revenue-generation? What about the laws of physics? As a father, I know that sometimes my kids have incredibly bad judgment, and that can mean them running out in the street without thinking.
It's important to enforce speed laws because of the laws of physics. This site is consistent with what I've read elsewhere, so I'll quote it...
If you're driving down the street at 25MPH and my kid runs out in the street, you'll stop in ~85 feet. If you're going 35 MPH, you need 51 MORE feet to stop - in my neighborhood that's the length of another HOUSE! I want people driving the speed limit or less to give them the chance to stop without killing my kids or the ones across the street where the crazy people live who let their 2 year old play outside WITHOUT SUPERVISION (and yes, I've called CPS.)
traffic law enforcement is important. Ticked off about tickets? Stop speeding? I did and found that my tension level decreased, my mileage went up, and I no longer hit the brakes every time I see a police car.
It's up to you, but I'm fine with the cops writing speeding tickets.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
Are some cops assholes on a power trip? Sure. Are most just decent hard working people? Yep. I've been pulled over at least 10 or 12 times in my 11 years driving. I've found almost every single cop to be extremely friendly -- even the one who pulled me over for going vastly over the speed limit. It only makes sense to be nice, since their attitude and behavior can be used against them in court, and if they're writing a ticket they get the last laugh anyway. Note that I've never been pulled over for anything more serious than speeding, and I pull over immediately; perhaps an arresting DUI or domestic disturbance officer would not be so friendly.
However, 2 times I've been pulled over, the cops were tremendous assholes. It's probably because neither one had a good reason to pull me over. One kept loudly insinuating that I was lying and twisted my words, then threw my license at me when he left (screeching off to another call; probably pissed that he couldn't stay to write me a BS ticket), and the other guy never even told me why he pulled me over, just asked me if knew not to pass a cop (I was going maybe 61 in a 60 and he was still on an onramp that could not legally merge when I "passed" him).
So, it seems the police are like anyone else. I dread having to pull over and maybe get a ticket, but don't dread actually dealing with them.
Then again, since I moved to CA I haven't been pulled over in 5+ years, in stark contrast to the copland that is the Seattle area.
If someone were to post a website that lets anonymous folks rate you on your job, exposing personal information and possibly endangering you at the same time? I'm sure you'd be demanding much the same thing.
I have no problems with oversight, and in fact think it to be vital. My only problem with it is the fact that they could unwittingly endanger someone (or more than one...)
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
And yet http://www.copswritingcops.com/ , which DOES post personal information on officers, continues to run, and run...
It is an interesting perspective when you consider that the police do look at the criminal record they believe belongs to the citizen they're about to interact with in a traffic stop or whatever, in making decisions about whether to keep their weapons holstered or call-in heavily armed backup (and all levels of precaution in-between). There was a case in Denver a couple of years ago when police thought they were busting into the apartment of an armed gang member; their target wasn't home, but they accidentally shot an older relative of his to death, who was sitting in bed with a can of soda. The main difference is that citizens can't really choose the officers they may encounter on a daily basis...but they may be able to compare notes with other citizens if a particular officer acts unprofessionally and bring complaints to the proper channels if the unprofessional conduct compromises public safety and having a healthy relationship between the citizenry and the police force.
Sounds like they need more info posted under GoDaddy's entry in the RateMyCop.com database.
Any comments posted by officers to a website such as this would only serve the needs of attorneys (both defense and personal injury) and their clients. That's why police departments have PR people to deflect questions and criticisms in the first place.
.... Most criminal cases involve coercion or entrapment.
It is truly unfortunate that people make up their minds with ridiculous assertions based on anecdotal evidence. And yes, your personal bad experience with law enforcement does count as anecdotal evidence.
Fortunately, most criminal cases do NOT involve coercion or entrapment. I have been around lawyers long enough and participated in enough criminal trials to know that even the most inexperienced lawyer is much more likely than not going to be able to have charges dismissed if there was any sort of coercion or entrapment going on. And this isn't to say coercion and entrapment don't happen, or that some rogue cops don't get away with it on occasion. But this is to say that those instances are much, much farther and few between than you seem to believe.
The system isn't perfect, to be sure. But the bottom line is, it is a system run by humans with their inherent faults, and because of that, it is probably about as good as it is going to get. By all means though, if you have any feasible suggestions, do feel free to bring them up.
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
Speaking of Los Angeles area cops, I went to the site in question to rate a particular Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy (an upper-level officer who lied outright in a deposition, knowing it was their word against the defendant's word) and found the LACSD conspicuously absent.
Give me a break. You know how many hosting companies I've gone through over the years. GoDaddy is one of the best because most of the time their stuff just works. No down time due to maintenance or just bad bandwidth. No technical issues with their hosting. They have the cheapest rate for registering domains and unlike Network Solutions they don't put a reservation on a domain for a week just because somebody checked it's availability. I hate Network Solutions and I'm glad you included that story. Network Solutions should be put out of business. They just suck!
Pre-post info: I am a police officer with three years of work experience. I work in Florida.
Having a site like this is a great idea. As long as it doesn't show any protected or privaledged information (such as address, phone number, marital status, date of birth, etc), people should be able to see their police officer's and rate them.
I'd be proud to be rated by the citizens in the city where I work. If I'm doing a bad job as an officer, I want to know.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaveytx07vs If you are one of the two people on the planet that hasn't seen this, then you MUST see it :)
The moment they became public figures they opened themselves up to open criticism from the public. Every politician, judge, even bean-counter has to deal with it because they are OUR 'servants.' Whether that criticism be voiced orally or written on an internet forum, they are subject to bear it, until it crosses the line into slander and defamation and falsehoods. Then they have means to fight back. The site should stay up, period.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Undercover work is dandy if it's investigating forced prostitution or embezzlement - not so much if it's investigating non-violent drug offenses. Which is what most undercover work probably does.
That's a good point, which I hadn't thought of -- if a law requires secret police to enforce said law, then maybe it's the LAW that's at fault, and should be eliminated.
I don't think this concept conflicts with *legit* undercover police operations at all (such as mobster investigations that another reply mentions) -- provided those are blessed with a warrant first. Yep, now that you mention it, it occurs to me that these undercover ops should require a warrant, since they effectively trespass into private affairs (not really different from a wiretap).
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
"Chief Dyer wants to get legislation passed that would make RateMyCop.com illegal, which, of course, wouldn't pass constitutional muster in any court in America."
Oh, come now, that's just self-delusional stupidity. The upper echelons of power in the US have near complete control over their common people. If it ever becomes necessary to change legislation to make sites like RateMyCop.com or any other public accountability tool illegal, they will do it without much effort. It would be a trivial matter, and the common people are so docile and domesticated that it would barely be noticed.
GoDaddy wants the site to success beyond its wildest dreams, nothing screams "gotta-click-internet" like censorship, especially if it doesn't involve censorship for obscenities sake...
...
I'll be sure to visit when it comes back up - not like they can take it down for very long
AIK (Arrested for picking up litter in NC - you bet I'll visit)
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Drink the coolaid.
http://www.whosyourdaddyinc.com/
This situation is nothing more than a manifestation of human behavior. Learning to embrace the truth about humans rather than sidestep it, is the first step towards a practical solution.
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."
Lord Acton
Police are humans and without adequate regulation will run outside their proper boundaries unchecked. I find it appalling that a website like this has been met with such hostility, it seems so neccesary. Despite it's inherent flaws I think its deeply unjust for it to be thrown out because its not perfect, nothing is, at the end of the day if it does more good than bad, I say support it.
It's not about protecting the safety of cops. They have the ability to call for backup and they carry guns. This is about keeping critics silent. I suspect that there's an element of not wanting their mistresses to scream to the world when they end affairs.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I just want to point out that above all else cops are trained to PROTECT THEMSELVES. If bullets are flying and even if innocents are in danger, or worse, getting killed execution style, cops are trained to duck and cover. Firefighters, on the other hand, are still trained to put themselves in harms way to save lives; they still RUN INTO BURNING BUILDINGS when everyone else is running out. I guess you could say the same for those Swift Water Rescue crazies, or Coast Guard Rescue. I'm not saying cops are bad, or that there aren't true hero cops out there, nor that cops should gladly die protecting some scumbag, but in general, they care more about protecting themselves than they do innocents.
Also, doctors (and dentists) are in it for the money, period. And there is no Santa Clause.
And so as not to sound too cynical, I conceed that there are good people out there, there really are, and they pop up and save your ass when you least expect it.
The Admin and the Engineer
Every time I hear about one getting his or her head blown off, it just makes my day. Why do I say this do you ask? Because I have been a WITNESS to not police brutality but Police ATROCITY. They are half the problem most of the time: Wasting taxpayer money, or causing it to be wasted. Eroding people's respect for the justice system. Planting evidence. Murdering suspects. Bullying law abiding citizens. Taking bribes. Stealing drugs and/or cash from suspects. Perjuring themselves in court, on the stand. Lying on affidavits. Fucking up cases for the prosecution thereby causing the GUILTY to go free. Fabricating evidence, thereby causing the INNOCENT to end up in prison, or executed. Biggest criminals in any ghetto are the police themselves. Being plain little punk ass bitches hiding behind their uniform and badge and gun . . . you don't see guys and "women" like them acting like that minus the uniform/badge/gun . . . FUCK THE POLICE
SARAVA!
...is strictly forbidden.
Have gnu, will travel.
The owner of the company is ex-military, and probably doesn't like the idea of hosting something that might damage any government power structure.
I just tried calling GoDaddy multiple times to protest their actions. All circuits busy.
Keep hammering at them people!
Here are some phone numbers from their site.
24/7 Sales and Support: (480) 505-8877
Billing Questions? Call (480)505-8855
Mention a switch to 1and1. We can all give our money to the Germans.
How else do citizens let the cops know what is wanted and not? The things "cops" (include D.A.'s FBI/CIA/DEA...etc) will go through torturous lengths to falsely win your confidence, to get something on you so they can threaten you to leap through whatever hoop they have up for the day. They want you to spy and rat out your neighbor? Ok, how about they come with some bogus charges as they appear to pick up a bag of coke as they approach your car to issue a ticket? They claim it's yours, you're goin' down. Cop a plea to smaller amount for possession instead of a larger amount w/intent to sell, if you turn in ...whoever...give them a name...etc.
... tell ya what, well believe this isn't your coke if you tell us you are down here looking for paid female company. Since coke and prostitution are the only things we are busting for tonight. Or how about...sure come on with us and we'll take care of you flat tire...imbibing have we? Guess we need a urine and blood test....and your car -- you can pay extra to get that out of the tow yard -- we're taking you in and marking this down as an accident. But...it's a flat tire. Right, you just come over here and sit down while we call a tow truck...Uh huh...honey...how long have you be doing it? You can see it in your face -- you don't think people notice, but they do...how many years has it been? (has what been? oh...she's being my friend, and wants me to come clean with her ....about what?...) Huh? You know, the drugs how long have you been hooked? !?!? Cops are so so swarmy....even when they seem like they'd be nice, that's just a really polished swarm. Always have to assume they are investigating you for "something" .. anything .. it's their job. Never do you a favor if they can use it as an excuse to 'disarm' you and have you speak a bit too candidly about anything...That car of yours is totally muscled out. Did you do the custom work? (whether there is or not, let's charm the civilian, see what he says)...How's the torque? What's it do in the quarter?....(too obvious)...but that's the tact. Even if I see a cop, 5-10 years ago I might normally have thought was an ok guy...now, I know the evil bad cops appear identical in every way to the one's you think are ok. In fact the evil bad ones may appear to be more trustable -- that's their M.O. The result being -- none of them are.
The whole law prosecution thing has become a big scam -- where they can pick up anyone they target -- anyone who makes a few too many waves...etc. Wrong place, wrong time, -- must be guilty, confess, come on, I know how it is, you wanted to come down get some coke
There is no way to avoid the logic of a corrupt cop. If he tells you to do something and you don't, you are disobeying a police officer under section xxyyz. If you do it and he asks you, you can answer yes or no.
Either way, he'll either trap you into lying or doing something illegal -- both of which are reason for him to arrest you. Sure you might sort it out -- eventually, but maybe not. Who's the judge going to believe, the cop, or the black guy asserting his innocence or that he was setup. Hey, you want a plea bargain deal -- give up dope on your friends and family share plans....so we can spread the misery around.
If enough people complain about the same cops -- or enough of one 'type' or and organization, maybe trends can be seen. Maybe eventually they'll trip up in a way that is seen by someone who knows its wrong. As it is now...how many bad copy stories are just not known about because no one cares -- or at least no one who should care is looking in the right places. But with a bit of media spotlight pointing the way...maybe it will be just another part of our checks-n-balances system. After all, remember, cops know where you live, where you live, and alot of other details about your life if they want to. All with little oversight.
Power does corrupt. So does exposure to the dregs of societ
Hello all, I put a petition up on iPetition for this issue. http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/ratemycop/ Thanks.
In shocking news, Bob Parsons, a pro-torture Republican who owns GoDaddy.com astounded people by censoring a legal but controversial site that disagreed with his personal politics. Millions of intelligent people took it as a reminder that GoDaddy should be avoided at all costs.
Check out NameCheap.com. They are an eNom.com reseller.
GoDaddy's reputation is not one of a few bad stories. In my opinion, GoDaddy tries to confuse non-technical people by offering services they don't need that are presented as valuable.
Or how about snitches? Many cases involve "cooperating witnesses" that are ALMOST ALWAYS lying (in part), but people seem to get convicted anyway.
You simply don't know what you're talking about.
You aren't wrong about the police review system being totally incestuous. Policemen will never give each other a fair review unless there's a tremendous amount of outside pressure applied to the department.
One of my dad's friends was a guy named Sam Knott. On my 9th birthday, his 20 year old daughter was pulled over by a CHP officer named Craig Peyer, then raped and killed by a bridge overpass.
The real sticking point for Sam was that the CHP has received a ton of complaints about the guy's aggressive and threatening personality. Not only did they not even bother to investigate any of them, they didn't even have a system for tracking them. They all went into a filing cabinet and ignored. Sam investigated the black hole of police accountability, and really didn't like what he found, and crusaded tirelessly for the next 20 years to reform the system. He showed up at city hall meetings, befriended politicians, antagonized police chiefs that were desperate to preserve their above-the-law status, and got the bridge where she was killed renamed after her (it's a couple miles from my house). He got the laws changed, too.
He died from a heart attack in 2000 while cleaning up the bridge where his daughter was killed.
There's countless other examples of police being never held accountable - you can watch videos on Youtube of some black guys trying to file complaint reports, and being dismissed or turned away. Hell, my dad was held at gunpoint by a Texas Ranger because he didn't think he should have to fill out his SSN on the speeding ticket he got (for doing 70 on the highway). When we called to complain, they said, yeah, he's been having some psychological issues. Kind of an understatement - the guy turned purple with rage when my dad just questioned if he could be asked for his SSN, and they guy drew his gun and threatened to throw him in jail for the night.
But Texas still let him go on patrol -- he was just having "some issues".
So yeah, sites like ratemycop which provide even a totally unofficial level of police accountability should desperately be encouraged. In fact, something like this should be mandated to be part of every department's internal affairs office.
The saddest bit of the whole thing is that there's no wikipedia article on either Sam or Cara Knott, even though he was tremendously influential and the stories got a lot of press. I guess having one's daughter murdered by an evil cop and having the father crusade and win systematic change isn't as notable as a pokemon character.
http://www.sandiegomagazine.com/media/San-Diego-Magazine/February-2004/The-Killer-Cop/index.php?cp=1&si=0#artanc
>But because it is happening on the Internet, nobody can prove who committed the crime.
>Sure, there was an IP address logged. What, exactly does that prove? Nothing.
It's pretty easy to look up your home address given your IP address, and law enforcement officials do this on a regular basis... and this sort of thing has already held up in court. IP addresses are allocated to various institutions, such as ISP's, and they generally keep records of who has what IP address at what time, so all a cop has to do is get a warrant, and he can find out what person is responsible for what internet traffic.
The belief that people are anonymous on the internet is largely not true. I read your post and I am deeply concerned that you might end up in jail if you act on this false belief.
>Then they want someone to "enforce the law".
>Only there isn't any law - as long as it stays on the Internet.
This is another common misconception. The internet is not legally distinct, because it is in fact not a place, just a technology. If you do something on the internet, you are bound by the laws of your local government. For instance, I live in Washington state, where the amazon.com company is. Even though I am doing my purchasing over the internet, I am a citizen of washington making a purchase from a washington state corporation, so I have to pay washington state sales taxes (amazon.com automatically adds them in). If you're a business in washington state, and you fail to collect these taxes and turn them in, the government will find out about it and will come down on you hard, whether you sell stuff over the internet or in a brick and mortar store.
Similarly, as an individual there's rising risk when downloading, say, movies over bittorent, because various organizations regularly connect to trackers and check who is downloading what files, and map those IP addresses to home addresses. A lot of people are getting (successfully) sued now.
Much like Ross on Friends, you are a sissy-dick. A sissy at all the wrong times, and a dick at all the wrong times. If you want to bleat about "move to another country if you don't like the laws" and then turn around and grab your ankles the second a LEO looks your way, knock yourself out. But don't expect the rest of us to follow in your little bitch ways.