The Stop Snitchin' ethos has gone virtual. "There are three “rats of the week” on the home page of whosarat.com, a Web site devoted to exposing the identities of witnesses cooperating with the government," reports The New York Times. "The site posts their names and mug shots, along with court documents detailing what they have agreed to do in exchange for lenient sentences....The site says it has identified 4,300 informers and 400 undercover agents, many of them from documents obtained from court files available on the Internet. 'The reality is this,' said a spokesman for the site, who identified himself as Anthony Capone. 'Everybody has a choice in life about what they want to do for a living. Nobody likes a tattletale.'" But Capone does like paying customers. "For those who want to read the details on cooperating witnesses, whosarat.com charges between $7.99 for a week and $89.99 for life. The latter option comes with a free “Stop Snitching” T-shirt."
The government is, understandably, furious. "In one case...a witness in Philadelphia was moved and the F.B.I. was asked to investigate after material from whosarat.com was mailed to his neighbors and posted on utility poles and cars in the area." The government is using this as an excuse to seal all documents relating to plea bargains. The judiciary thinks that an overreach, and is pushing to simply hide those revealing cooperation. And us opportunistic political writers looking for a way to close this post may want to draw the straight line back to the drug war:
The site was started by Sean Bucci in 2004, after he was indicted in federal court in Boston on marijuana charges based on information from an informant. The site was initially modest and free, the seeming product of a drug defendant's fit of pique.
From there, it expanded, grew, went collaborative, tucked itself behind a subscription wall, and became a resource that will probably result in violent reprisals and even death. Small price to pay to bust someone for smoking pot, right?
