This sure sounds like free speech to me…. NWA had it right from the start:
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.
So, it’s fine for them to publicly post information about on everyone they’d like to cast in a negative light, but free speech must be destroyed in order to let them do their job of looking busy after the fact… I mean, “to protect and to serve”.
It is customary to add, “but of course, most police are fine individuals, blah blah blah.” Forget that. I’m sure there were nice individuals in the Red Guards too. The police are liittle more than a Praetorian Guard, corrupt, self-serving and lawless, slavishly devoted to the revenue-collection in all its perverse forms. The country doesn’t need them, private security guards do all of the actual protecting that is demanded and every community would be better off to fire them all and replace them with a combination of private security services and armed citizens.
Of course, without them, we’d also have to hire someone to assassinate guys about to get married and ninety-two year-old women in the comfort of their homes.
While there are no comprehensive statistics available on police shootings due to the stubborn refusal of these “public servants” to own up to the full extent of their fabulous, public-serving activities, if one assumes that the 1976 figure of 373 fatal police shootings in America has not increased, it still represents 3.3 percent of the 11,350 American gun killings in 2005.
UPDATE: Tim Lynch points out the different way in which police shooters and peon shooters are treated:
Yesterday, NYT columnist Bob Herbert observed (subscr. required) that the cops involved in the shooting death of Sean Bell have still not been questioned by internal affairs detectives. Compare that situation with a John Q. Citizen who claims to have shot someone in self-defense. The cops want to question John Q. as soon as possible — especially before he “lawyers up,” as they say on TV. By the same logic, internal affairs investigators should want to quickly question cops who are involved in questionable shootings.
The rules vary from one jurisdiction to the next, but police unions push to postpone the hour in which an officer-suspect must meet with detectives after a shooting. In Maryland, there is an incredible 10-day rule in effect.