Washington – Police and prosecutors are worried that a website claiming to identify more than 4,000 informants and undercover agents will cripple investigations and hang targets on witnesses.
The 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 website 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, Denver Nuggets 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.
On Thursday, a day after it was discussed at a courthouse conference in Washington, the site became a subscription-only service.
