RateMyCop.com raises hackles
Thu Mar 13, 2008 12:00PM EDT
See Comments (20)
Perhaps the biggest tech story of the week surrounds RateMyCop, a website founded by one Gino Sesto only two weeks ago as a true form of citizen activism.
The idea: Give Americans a venue to complain about police brutality and inappropriate behavior -- not merely venting at The Man, but a direct outlet to target a specific officer for his or her actions. RateMyCop stored names and/or badge numbers for more than 140,000 officers in 500 police departments around the country. Commenters could leave remarks about any one of them.
That is, until Tuesday, when RateMyCop suddenly went offline.
A crush of press coverage caused traffic to skyrocket, immediately causing the site's database to crumble. But it was the reaction from police departments that has the civics-minded more suspicious.
That response was largely as expected. Cops don't generally care for watchdogs, with at least one officer complaining that public databases of policemen puts officers in harm's way. (It should be noted that this information is all a matter of public record, though, and that undercover officers are not included in the database.) Another police chief said he wanted to create a law to make RateMyCop illegal.
A new twist emerged, though, as RateMyCop's disappearance was initiated by its web host and registrar, the infamous GoDaddy. GoDaddy first claimed the site was closed due to "suspicious activity," then later said that the site had exceeded its bandwidth limitations. Sesto says he's arranged alternative hosting arrangements and had hoped to have the site back up by Tuesday, but as of this writing the web page still shows GoDaddy's brusque "Oops!!!" error message.
The conversation has now turned to speculation about what really happened.
Was GoDaddy threatened by one or more police departments to shut down the service? (Similar tales abound online of GoDaddy pulling the plug without warning.) Is Sesto's right to free speech being violated? And what happens to RateMyCop at its next destination?
It would be a shame to lose a service like this due to strongarming and paranoia; it's about time Americans had an outlet to discuss police abuses... aside from YouTube, I mean.
UPDATE: Site's back up, with some bugginess, probably due to traffic overload.
POLL: What do you think?
Comments on RateMyCop.com raises hackles
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Join in the discussion. Here you'll see the comments in the order they were posted.
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2 Posted by djtoil on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:45PM EDT Report Abuse
Citizens have the right, last time I checked, to free speech. Or I think they still do...! If the cops are threatened by people posting of their experiences with the law, they have something to hide. As long as the cops are acting within the law and common sense, they should have nothing to fear from this site. And what about the Police Log columns that show up in newspapers? People are profiled and their arrests noted without their permission. Why should a citizen's story about a cop's behavior be any different? They need to know that people are watching, and that people care.
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3 Posted by saviressej on Thu Sep 3, 2009 9:06PM EDT Report Abuse
i totally agree with what you are saying djtoil. i have always felt that the police should lead by example, not by fear. I have seen cops blatantly abusing their position for stupid things. For example, turning on their lights to not stop at a stoplight. As soon as they pass, the lights turn off. I feel they should be reported.
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4 Posted by missglimmer2 on Thu Mar 13, 2008 6:43PM EDT Report Abuse
i completely agree with the two posts above me.my mom is in the law enforcement field{not a cop} and she sees badge heavy cops all the time-most abuse their responsibility and their power.
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5 Posted by hedo4three2002 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:18PM EDT Report Abuse
Hmmm....I am at an impasse on this issue. I know the free speech and all and as a person who held for 20 minutes for a front liscense plate infraction can understand the need but I believe that with no rebuttal...is it really fair? that you can be slandered with very little recourse.
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6 Posted by marchfawn on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:06PM EDT Report Abuse
It is clear why the police don't like this site. It is also clear why we need sites like this. I hope the site stays up this time.
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7 Posted by tapsxviii on Thu Sep 3, 2009 9:56PM EDT Report Abuse
As much as I feel the police need to be policed I have to take pause with rogueist's comments. Sounds like you have a lot of run ins with the law if you are reporting that manu offenses. Where there is smoke there is usually fire. That being said, there are good cops and there are bad cops adn there are medicore cops. Just like in any other organization. The website works good in theory but there will always be people who will make a cop look bad because they got a ticket and didn't appreciate it even though they deserved it.
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8 Posted by mrkprairie on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:28PM EDT Report Abuse
Why not "rate" everybody? Anybody that ticks me off should be "rated", even if they live in India and I am trying to get help with a computer problem. Really, is this rating limited to the negative side of the scale? Or is there provision for the positive side?
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9 Posted by herb90027 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:18PM EDT Report Abuse
The problem I see is that unless the police departments or someone official doesn't investigate the claims and act accordingly, it's just a waste of time. It does no good to complain, if there is no follow up. Lets face it, most cops do there their jobs properly, it is only a small percentage that abuse their power. They are the ones that need to be exposed and dealt with accordingly. Unfortunately, people are going to slander otherwise good cops, just because they give them a ticket they probably deserve and that isn't right. The cops should be able to reply to accusations leveled against them, that would be the fair thing to do. As I said in the beginning, if there is no oversight, it's just a waste of time and energy.
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10 Posted by phantomfish78 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 8:09PM EDT Report Abuse
I see people complain ALL the time about police officers and what they dont realize is they do things sometimes that may appear one way to you but in reality it is something different. Such as turning on lights to go through a stop light. Some calls believe it or not require NO light NO siren, in progress burglaries, domestic abuse calls etc... I'm not saying they don't use them to run lights when their isn't a call but just because YOU think it is an abuse of power doesn't mean it is. I agree that if a police officer has nothing to hide he/she should not worry about camera's or reporting agencies. However; we live in the real world and OVER and OVER again the liberal news media picks and chooses which clips to play of video's. Everything is not as it appears!!
1 Posted by rogueist on Thu Sep 3, 2009 8:49PM EDT Report Abuse
That must have been a really GOOD site. I cant wait until it comes back up. I usually have to go thru Internal Affairs, the FBI, or the Justice Dept in order to get cops put behind bars. Maybe this will blow the lid off some of the worse offenders out there and halt the abuse of people by cops. With absolute power comes absolute corruption - unless a watchdog group is around watching them 24/7.