Who Is A Rat?

[Shuftin]

Here Is A Web Site That I Currently Don't Have The Time To Check Out Although It Sounds Promising. I'll Pass It On. Feel Free To Post Anything You Find Of Value.

shuftin

whosarat.com/

Police Decry Web Site on Informants

Nov 30, 8:28 PM (ET)

By MATT APUZZO

WASHINGTON (AP) - Police and prosecutors are worried that a Web site claiming to identify more than 4,000 informants and undercover agents will cripple investigations and hang targets on witnesses.

The Web site, WhosaRat.com, first caught the attention of authorities after a Massachusetts man put it online and named a few dozen people as turncoats in 2004. Since then, it has grown into a clearinghouse for mug shots, court papers and rumors.

Federal prosecutors say the site was set up to encourage violence, and federal judges around the country were recently warned that witnesses in their courtrooms may be profiled online.

"My concern is making sure cooperators are adequately protected from retaliation," said Chief Judge Thomas Hogan, who alerted other judges in Washington's federal courthouse. He said he learned about the site from a federal judge in Maine.

The Web site is the latest unabashedly public effort to identify witnesses or discourage helping police. "Stop Snitching" T-shirts have been sold in cities around the country and popular hip-hop lyrics disparage or threaten people who help police.

In 2004, NBA star Carmelo Anthony appeared in an underground Baltimore DVD that warned people they could be killed for cooperating with police. Anthony has said he was not aware of the DVD's message.

Such threats hinder criminal investigations, said Ronald Teachman, police chief in New Bedford, Mass., where murder cases have been stymied by witness silence and "Stop Snitching" T-shirts were recently for sale.

"Every shooting we have to treat like homicide. The victim's alive but he's not cooperative," Teachman said. "These kids have the idea that the worst offense they can commit is to cooperate with the police."

Sean Bucci, a former Boston-area disc jockey, set up WhosaRat.com after federal prosecutors charged him with selling marijuana in bulk from his house. Bucci is under house arrest awaiting trial and could not be reached, but a WhosaRat spokesman identifying himself as Anthony Capone said the site is a resource for criminal defendants and does not condone violence.

"If people got hurt or killed, it's kind of on them. They knew the dangers of becoming an informant," Capone said. "We'd feel bad, don't get me wrong, but things happen to people. If they decide to become an informant, with or without the Web site, that's a possibility."

The site offers biographical information about people whom users identify as witnesses or undercover agents. Users can post court documents, comments and pictures.

Some of those listed are well known, such as former Connecticut Gov. John G. Rowland, who served 10 months in prison before testifying in a public corruption case. But many never made headlines and were identified as having helped investigators in drug cases.

For two years, anyone with an Internet connection could search the site. On Thursday, a day after it was discussed at a courthouse conference in Washington, the site became a subscription-only service. The site has also disabled the ability to post photos of undercover agents, Capone said, because administrators of the Web site do not want officers to be hurt.

Authorities disagree. In documents filed in Bucci's court case last month, federal prosecutors said they have information that Bucci set up the Web site to help intimidate and harm witnesses.

"Such information not only compromises pending or future government investigations, but places informants and undercover agents in potentially grave danger," Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter K. Levitt wrote.

While prosecutors haven't pointed to a case where a witness or officer was harmed because of the Web site, it has been used to shatter an undercover agent's anonymity. After Hawaiian doctor Kachun Yeung was charged with distributing narcotic painkillers this spring, a surveillance picture of an undercover Drug Enforcement Agent was posted on the site.

Federal prosecutors said they traced the posting to the University of Hawaii newspaper's photo department, where the doctor's son was a photo editor. The posting identified the names of three agents and described one as "a known liar and a dirty agent. He is an absolute disgrace to the American justice system."

Prosecutors in Boston have discussed whether WhosaRat is protected as free speech but have not moved to shut it down. In 2004, an Alabama federal judge ruled that a defendant had the right to run a Web site that included witness information in the form of "wanted" posters.

Earlier this month, federal judges from Minnesota and Utah urged their colleagues to be careful about how much information about witnesses is released in public files, noting that they could end up on WhosaRat.

Steve Bunnell, chief of the criminal division at the U.S. attorney's office in Washington, said the rules of evidence already require authorities to identity witnesses to the people most likely to harm them: the defendants. Most of the documents labeled "top secret" on the site are really public court records or information copied from other Web sites, he said.

His concern is that the site disparages the reputation of people who come forward to help solve crimes.

"We don't make those high-level gang and drug organization cases without somebody on the inside telling us what's going on," Bunnell said.

[Cu]

Kudos to the whosarat.com guys. It's about time that people charged of a non violent crime had a tool like this to use to investigate their accusers. This Informant situation is way out of control considering that most of the time the informants are a bigger threat to society than the people they are targeting, now consider all the inducements the government gives these scum-bags, plus in many states the Informant gets a percentage of the asset forfitures, so if you are having a say a party for your nephew in your 2 million dollar house and one of your nephew's friends happens to be an informant all he has to do is drop a bag of coke in your desk and than call his handlers and report you than guess what you get arrested and the snitch gets a piece of your house, go ahead do your own research or read the latest news section or message board on whosarat.com or just google informants I am confident you will be shocked to see what is really going on here, now my opinion is only aimed at non violent crime such as drug crimes and whosarat.com claims the same, Of course their are some who will try to sway others to their side in this debate by mentioning violent or horrific crimes and the need for informants based on this, In my opinion those people are witnesses not snitches there is a difference, i and i believe whosarat.com are talking about people who get caught commiting a non-violent crime such as using or selling drugs and turns on others to get out of his own mess or for financial or some other gain, those people are scum. People have a 5th and 6th ammendment right to investigate their accusers and a first ammendment right to free speech to discus or share this info if you do not believe me check out this short version of the federal case law that says the same.
1 of 2 DOCUMENTS

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. LEON CARMICHAEL, SR.

CRIM. ACTION NO. 2:03cr259-T

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF ALABAMA, NORTHERN DIVISION

2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13742

July 22, 2004, Decided


PRIOR HISTORY: United States v. Carmichael, 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13675 (M.D. Ala., July 20, 2004)

DISPOSITION: [*1] Request for protective order denied.

CASE SUMMARY:

PROCEDURAL POSTURE: Defendant was charged with drug conspiracy and money laundering. Shortly after his arrest, defendant set up an internet website and newspaper advertisement related to the case. The Government renewed its motion for a protective order directing defendant to remove the website from the internet. The government's motion was denied, and it appealed.

OVERVIEW: An exact reproduction of the website as it existed as of late April 2004, the third version, appeared as a full-page newspaper advertisement in a local weekly newspaper. The Government's requested relief went beyond the internet, as it asked the court to restrain defendant from taking any action that would harass, intimidate, or threaten any witness or prejudice the proceedings in the case, including, without limitation, placing the photographs or personal information of any prospective witness or informant on a poster, advertisement, or website. The Government indicated that its concerns about the website would apply equally to newspaper advertisements containing the same content. Defendant's website and newspaper advertisement were constitutionally protected speech because they fit within neither the "true threat" nor the "incitement" exceptions to the First Amendment's protection. Also, the Government did not show that its proposed protective order was the least restrictive means of eliminating the possible effect on jury members.

OUTCOME: The motion was denied.

COUNSEL: For Leon Carmichael, Sr. aka Beaver Leon Carmichael, Defendant: Amardo Wesley Pitters, A. Wesley Pitters, P. C., Montgomery, AL. Lisa Monet Wayne, Denver, CO. Mary Elizabeth Anthony, Anthony & Pratt LLC, Birmingham, AL. Ronald Wayne Wise, Law Office of Ronald W. Wise, Montgomery, AL. Stephen Roger Glassroth, The Glassroth Law Firm, PC, Montgomery, AL. For United States of America, Plaintiff: A. Clark Morris, U.S. Attorney's Office, Montgomery, AL. Matthew S. Miner, U.S. Attorney's Office, Montgomery, AL. Stephen P. Feaga, U.S. Attorney's Office, Montgomery, AL.

JUDGES: Myron H. Thompson, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE.

OPINIONBY: Myron H. Thompson

OPINION: SUPPLEMENTAL ORDER Defendant Leon Carmichael, Sr. is charged with drug conspiracy and money laundering. Shortly after his arrest, Carmichael set up an internet website related to this case. The government argued that Carmichael's website is threatening to witnesses and government agents [*2] and renewed its motion for a protective order directing Carmichael to remove the website from the internet. In an order issued two days ago, on July 20, 2004, the court denied the government's renewed motion. United States v. Carmichael, F. Supp. 2d , 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13675, 2004 WL 1616446 (M.D. Ala. 2004) (Thompson, J.). The dispute in this case is not limited to the internet, however, and the court writes separately to address the government's motion as it applies outside of cyberspace. An exact reproduction of the website as it existed as of late April 2004 (the third version) appeared as a full-page newspaper advertisement in the Montgomery Westside Weekly, a local weekly newspaper that targets primarily the African-American community; n1 also, there is no reason to doubt that the advertisement has appeared again repeatedly in that paper and in other similar papers. The government's requested relief, therefore, went beyond the internet; the government asked the court to restrain Carmichael "from taking any action . . . that would harass, intimidate, or threaten any witness or prejudice the proceedings in this case, including, without limitation, placing the [*3] photographs or personal information of any prospective witness or informant on a poster, advertisement, or website." n2 Similarly, at the May 21, 2004, hearing, the government indicated that its concerns about Carmichael's website would apply equally to newspaper advertisements containing the same content.

n1 See Order, filed May 7, 2004. n2 Government's renewed motion, etc., filed April 27, 2004, p. 18 (emphasis added). The court's reasoning regarding Carmichael's website applies with equal force to his newspaper advertisements. Accordingly, to the extent that the government's renewed motion includes a request for an order that Carmichael cease publishing the content of his website as newspaper advertisements, the motion is due to be denied. Carmichael's website is constitutionally protected speech because it fits within neither the 'true threat' nor the 'incitement' exceptions to the First Amendment's protection. Carmichael, F. Supp. 2d. at , 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13675, 2004 WL 1616446, at *. [*4] There is no reason to reach a different conclusion regarding Carmichael's newspaper advertisements because the First Amendment analysis does not turn on the medium involved. The court explicitly declined to find the fact that a website was at issue constitutionally significant. 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13675, 2004 WL 1616446, at *. Carmichael's newspaper advertisements are neither a 'true threat' nor an 'incitement' under the First Amendment. The court also held that it could not order Carmichael to take down his website because the government did not meet its burden to show that a prior restraint on Carmichael's speech rights was warranted. Carmichael, F. Supp. 2d., 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13675, 2004 WL 1616446, at *. The government did not show that its proposed protective order was the least restrictive means of eliminating the website's possible effect on jury members. 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13675, 2004 WL 1616446, at *. The same is true of Carmichael's advertisements. A juror or potential juror is more likely to come across Carmichael's newspaper advertisements inadvertently than to come across his website inadvertently, so [*5] a jury instruction not to view the advertisements will be somewhat less effective than an instruction not to view the website. Nonetheless, voir-dire questions and clear jury instructions will adequately address any possible impact that Carmichael's newspaper advertisements might have on the jury. Second, the government did not show that the website posed a serious and imminent threat to its witnesses and agents. 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13675, 2004 WL 1616446, at *. The government has not shown that the newspaper advertisements pose such a serious and imminent threat. Finally, the harm posed by the website did not warrant restricting Carmichael's Fifth and Sixth Amendment right to investigate his case. Carmichael, 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13675, 2004 WL 1616446, at *. Not only is the same true in the case of Carmichael's newspaper advertisements, but his Fifth and Sixth Amendment interest is actually entitled to more weight here. Carmichael's website is hard to find on the internet even if one is looking for it, and it is very hard to imagine that someone could stumble upon his website by accident. Thus, to the extent that there exist people [*6] who have material information beneficial to Carmichael and who would be willing to share that information with him but do not know about this case or do not already know how to contact Carmichael, it is unlikely that the website will reach those people. On the other hand, Carmichael's newspaper advertisements are more likely to attract the attention of a person who has--perhaps without being aware of it--material information useful to Carmichael's defense. Accordingly, the newspaper advertisements are more likely to lead to information, and this tilts the balance yet further in Carmichael's favor. n3

n3 Moreover, if the newspaper advertisements (which essentially reproduce the internet site) are allowable, surely the internet site is also. Accordingly, it is ORDERED that the request for a protective order barring defendant Leon Carmichael, Sr., from publishing his website as a newspaper advertisement, which request was included in the renewed motion for a protective order filed by the government on April 27, 2004 (doc. [*7] no. 181), is denied as well. DONE, this the 22nd day of July, 2004. /s/ Myron H. Thompson UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE