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.'"
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!
But what if you were the Police office who unfairly got poor reviews because you arested someone who deserved it..
So what? Free speech has nothing to do with what's "fair".
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
I disagree. The police have tremendous powers and a despicable thing called: "discretion". On my street, I watched two cops go down the street and give out parking tickets, which is legal. Then, this one guy ran out of his house and complained. He pulled some card out of his wallet and showed it to the cop. The cop responded by tearing up the ticket. Now, what do you think that guy showed the cop to make him reverse a legally given ticket? It's the discretion of the cops that is so unfair: they have the capability to pick and choose who they enforce laws against. This is the primary reason why sites such as this are valid.
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.
Maybe the guy was the driver for a disabled guy, and the card was proof of disabled vehicle exemption to parking restrictions in that area?
Don't be too quick to assume corruption.
Pirate Party UK
If cops are not doing anything illegal they have nothing to hide..
We should definitely have websites like this.
So what? Free speech has nothing to do with what's "fair".
No, but the Internet is a little skewed, don't you think? "Reviews" are often "criticisms", especially when anonymity and charged opinion is concerned. Check your local gaming forum for details. (Hardware and book reviews do a better job, mostly because there are user accounts tied to the reviews...not always. But even then, it's anonymous accounts -- and a rateyourcop site isn't going to have the single-author prolificness to tell whether they're angry or right.)
And then you think of rating your cop. I don't know any cops, though I'm sure my city of 100,000 has at least one. And if I did meet them, I would probably give them an honest rating, because I tend to be sort of level-headed, even on the anonymous Internet (well, since my 2nd year of Everquest back in 99...). But most people have bad experiences with police, even if the police were doing the right thing. "Yah, I was doing 85 miles per hour in a 30, but American Idol was on. The cop laughed at that, but still gave me a ticket. Bastard."
Cops have a sucky enough job as it is and while I see a rating system like this as useful for many things, it'll be used for pettiness most of all. The serious issues cops get called out on have more efficient means of getting handled.
Not a cop. I just think of pulling someone over at 3 AM and wondering, every single time, if you're going to walk up to that window and get shot.
That would also help the police determine just how long they have to take to respond to a call to your house, or from your cel phone. Give one bad review, and suddenly find that it takes the cops about thirty minutes to get to your house.
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes 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
So far, they've pepper-sprayed a girl having an asthma attack, kicked a pregnant woman in the stomach, illegally searched my car for pipe bombs, rear-ended me by driving with their lights out, and told me to watch out for "indians with axes" at night. I'd hate to see what they'd do if they actually knew our NAMES.
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
I disagree VEHEMENTLY. I don't think Secret Police belong in any country that claims to be a free society. IMO every police agent should be in uniform with his or her badge prominently displayed. Rather than bring a slashdotting to my site, I'll reproduce a blog posting from September 2005 here in its entirety.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Several things. One, free speech. Two, it even says in the summary about how they're hoping to allow cops to post rebuttals. Three, I'd rather have people venting at cops in a public forum then getting steamed enough to pop like the cork on bad wine (I recall a story a couple weeks ago about someone shooting up a town hall and killing several people therein over parking tickets).
Short of libel or fire in a crowded theater, I favor no restrictions on free speech. I think the cops can stand this free speech.
Well, first off, the cops can respond if they choose. They can exercise their free speech as well.
The example you post is silly; people will judge the comments too, they just won't blindly agree with them.
As far as cops having sucky jobs and "wondering if they'll be shot." Well, my only response is they choose that line of work. Given that I've been directly bullied by cops, and that none have ever directly protected me, I can't say that I really want them around anyway. Not talking about detectives.. I'm talking about the more or less useless ones that drive around randomly or park near an interstate with a radar gun.
I believe that this additional layer of transparency is helpful. Cops should embrace it, and try to be the best darned cops they can be so they get good ratings on the site. It isn't easy to make an arrest and leave a good impression. But if a cop is a real jerk, there shouldn't be anything preventing someone from posting that on the internet.
Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
Of course the site certainly could be used to shine a positive spotlight on the great officers we also have. The last time I was pulled over was a couple months ago. It was a female state trooper who pulled me over for doing 10 over on a county highway at 10pm and I had a trailer tail light out. I only got a warning, but it was actually an 'enjoyable' event. I was so impressed with her professionalism and personable attitude during the stop that I wish I would have gotten her name so I could write her superior to say she was an outstanding officer. When I worked in media, I knew many officers personally - they too were great to work with. A site like this would be useful to post this info to.
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.
No one should eliminate the Anonymous posting method.
When it comes to slander and libel, from an anonymous post, I would wager most people reading the post would consider the source and move on. Or at least I would.
Anonymous posting is great when it comes to combating injustice via the dissemination of information. The dissemination of vital information outweighs the risk of government retaliation of the poster is known. The elimination of this form of posting would hurt those working towards keeping the government accountable.
With respect to your response to unlikelyhood of a police force to systematically marginalize those who speak out, please consider a smaller community. A small police force can easily implement an unspoken marginalization technique against a citizen it finds to be a threat. I will concede that in a small community most people to recognize the anonymous poster.
Anonymous speech is an important technique to keep the government as honest as possible.
Sounds like a plan. you get the cops to agree to not only fire but imprison cops that violate personal rights or even kill people and I'll get them to take down the website for good.
I can show you countless documented cases where cops have killed innocent people or severely hurt them that were given paid vacations and then let back on the streets as a cop again. Make it so if a cop screws up they are removed from ever being a cop again and I'm all for it.
Until then, our only recourse is to publicly police the police. They refuse to do it themselves and refuse to clean up themselves. Hell most people know a cop or two that happily breaks the law daily simply because they are a cop. They speed like they are above the law in and out of uniform. That act alone should get their asses fired. If you are a cop you need to be held to a HIGHER standard than the rest of us.
Fix that nationwide and I will personally convince the guy to take down his website.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
But what if you were the Police office who unfairly got poor reviews because you arested someone who deserved it...Being a policeman is not a good job if you want to be popular...Police also need a strong watchdog towards them because they fail to police themselfs (sic)...There are a lot of good cops but there are also a Lot of bad cops. and we do need find a way to get rid of the bad ones...
I agree; there are good cops and bad cops. My wife used to be a police dispatcher where I live, and by virtue of that, I met a lot of cops. Every one I met was a pretty good guy (or gal), but I have had run-ins with cops who seemed to have a severe case of "Barney Fife syndrome". For example:
* when I stopped behind the stop sign at an intersection, waited for a car to clear the intersection, then drove through the intersection (all as I was supposed to do), but was pulled over by a cop who couldn't see me stop at the stop sign because of a bush on the corner of the third street where he was stopped. He intended to give me a ticket for failure to stop until the passenger in the car with me verified that I had, in fact, stopped;
* when, as a teenager, I was asked for ID while standing in my own driveway in front of my own open front door at dusk. I was doing absolutely nothing suspicious (talking with my g/f), I was in a place where I absolutely had a right to be, and I most likely hadn't been anywhere else since I was barefoot at the time (in fact, I had been in the shower until my g/f came by).
IMHO, web sites like this one are *exactly* what the framers of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights had in mind when they drafted the First Amendment. While that doesn't preclude GoDaddy from terminating a domain (it's a private entity, not a public one), it does reflect poorly on GoDaddy.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
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.
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"
I have been pulled more than once over and every time I have been treated with respect. You're making huge generalizations. Most police and troopers are good people. Heck, here in PA the State Police protested a raise in fines by not giving ANY tickets for a period of time a few years ago.
Are some cops assholes on a power trip? Sure. Are most just decent hard working people? Yep.
He didn't say boisterous, He said Batshit-Loco.
more of the same on Twitter.
Yes, I could - if it's my website I can set the rules any damned way I please. I agree wholeheartedly that the State should not ban anonymous speech, but I'm not the state.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Every time I see someone pulled over, I just thank God I'm white.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
How about the nobody tells me what I can and can't write about. If I want to write a post, blog, article, criticizing WHATEVER THE HELL I WANT, why should anyone be able to stop me?
evil adrian
Nightmare NYC cops? I'm not comfortable with such a generalization - I live near NYC myself.
I've only been pulled over once in my life. It was going into the queens midtown tunnel, aka, going from queens into manhattan. So yes, this qualifies as a NYC cop.
Going up to the toll booth, the cop was standing there, chatting up the tool booth lady. I probably should have picked another lane - you see, my registration had expired. The police officer noticed this and had me pull over. When he came up to talk to me about it, I realized I had lost my driver's license. I was flying frequently at the time, and had lost it in LGA. (I later got it mailed back to me anonymously after I had replaced it already.)
To keep this short, after explaning myself nervously, he let me go, no tickets for either my registration or lack of a license. There are some nice people out there. This counterexample to your nightmare NYC cops certainly doesn't mean there aren't nightmare NYC cops - there probably are. We just shouldn't lump all the people in any large organization into a single sterotype. There are good and bad - I tend to think there are more good cops than bad, but I'm not about to argue over the exact percentages. I haven't seen this site that was pulled down, but if it gave people an honest way to handle bad cops while not generalizing to every cop in the world, it was probably doing much more good than it was doing harm. People need to take things they read online with a bit of skepticism, and I think anyone reading a site like RateMyCop would realize that the people writing the reviews may have a rather large bias.
I have been pulled more than once over and every time I have been treated with respect.
Ah, so your anecdotes totally overrides his anecdotes.
You're making huge generalizations.
So are you. One problem with even "good" cops is that are extremely hesitant to turn in "bad" cops.