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Wikipedia Entries On NYPD Violence Get Some Edits From Headquarters
First reported by Capital, and picked up by Reason, it seems that "Computers operating on the New York Police Department’s computer network at its 1 Police Plaza headquarters have been used to alter Wikipedia pages containing details of alleged police brutality."
Computer users identified by Capital as working on the NYPD headquarters' network have edited and attempted to delete Wikipedia entries for several well-known victims of police altercations, including entries for Eric Garner, Sean Bell, and Amadou Diallo. Capital identified 85 NYPD addresses that have edited Wikipedia, although it is unclear how many users were involved, as computers on the NYPD network can operate on the department’s range of IP addresses.
Besides edits to entries about specific instances of misconduct, edits from the same NYPD IP blocks were discovered in Wikipedia entries about the city's stop-and-frisk program and about NYPD misconduct more generally.
Police tampering with what amounts to evidence of their own crimes? Wow, what a suprise.
Control of information is Paramount in maintaining a docile populace.
I wouldn't dismiss the criminal aspect of this so quickly. There are plenty of laws on the books designed to prevent government agencies from using taxpayer resources on misinforming the public. If any of the edits were deliberately false, it's entirely possible it was a crime for the NYPD, even if it's not a crime for the jerk down the street.
I can see the revised police procedure manual now.
"When a suspect resists, but them in a "warm embrace" by placing your arm around their throat and squeezing."
"If a suspect does not follow your instructions, give them a "gentle scalp massage" with your night stick."
"Once a suspect is down, form a "cuddle pile" of 6 or 7 officers on top of them until they stop struggling."
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
But he broke into a Harvard networking closet (that's physical trespass),
You mean he walked in. The door is always open. Hell, there were homeless people living in there at one point. Besides, this is a college campus we are talking about. MIT is an open campus.
and rewired a router (that's computer trespass)
That's an unfounded allegation, and "computer trespass" is not recognized in Massachusetts. Really, look it up.
in order to download the journal articles that he otherwise did not have access to (or at least not at the speed with which he downloaded them
The journal articles are freely available for downloading by anyone for any reason.
The tragedy is that his life ended before he got a fair trial as none of the allegations against him had any real merit