Situational awareness (and 15,000 hits)
READ THIS
You may have noticed our naughty language post slightly below this one. We meant every word of it. For those of you unaware, some small brained individual posted the same half assed comment in three or four threads. We deleted them and let fly with both barrels. Experience tells us that sometimes it takes a slap along side a fool's head to get their attention (haha). Here's exactly the reason why:
If you go over to medialine.com and do a search on a subject calling himself "fearmonger" he claims he found the racial crap on our blog without telling how he found it or by whom it was written. A second (smarter) individual points out that is wasn't the Moderator posting it, but an anonymous commentator. Another individual asks "what do you expect from fearmonger?" So evidently, "fearmonger" has a reputation as a loose cannon. Judging by the time stamps on the messages here and there, it looks an awful lot like "fearmonger" may have posted his BS in our threads anonymously, then run over to medialine.com in an attempt to bring a bunch of unwanted attention back here. He labels himself a TV reporter with an interest in crime and the courts so we just know he wouldn't sell half baked truths to the general public in hopes of creating a story, would he?
This just reinforces the message that this is a PUBLIC board people. Strangers wander in all the time and some would love to make trouble for cops. If you want to make a fool of yourself, go do it on your own time and on your own site. Nothing requires you to hang out here. Of course, the fact that we have managed to generate a rather nice sized audience (we hit 15,000 visitors yesterday - THANK YOU!) probably encourages the tiny brains to attempt to show off their not-so-towering intellects. Every idiot loves a crowd.
But we didn't set up this board for the idiots - we set it up for coppers. And real coppers KNOW what's appropriate in PUBLIC and what's appropriate whispered in a tavern over drinks with your team, your watch or cops YOU TRUST. Yes, this is a tempting forum. But although we've made every effort to keep it anonymous, a halfway decent hacker and a marginally competent lawyer could make a very easy run at stripping away the anonymity, especially in Cook County and Chicago where lawyers and politicians run hand-in-hand through the daisies. Beware.
You may have noticed our naughty language post slightly below this one. We meant every word of it. For those of you unaware, some small brained individual posted the same half assed comment in three or four threads. We deleted them and let fly with both barrels. Experience tells us that sometimes it takes a slap along side a fool's head to get their attention (haha). Here's exactly the reason why:
If you go over to medialine.com and do a search on a subject calling himself "fearmonger" he claims he found the racial crap on our blog without telling how he found it or by whom it was written. A second (smarter) individual points out that is wasn't the Moderator posting it, but an anonymous commentator. Another individual asks "what do you expect from fearmonger?" So evidently, "fearmonger" has a reputation as a loose cannon. Judging by the time stamps on the messages here and there, it looks an awful lot like "fearmonger" may have posted his BS in our threads anonymously, then run over to medialine.com in an attempt to bring a bunch of unwanted attention back here. He labels himself a TV reporter with an interest in crime and the courts so we just know he wouldn't sell half baked truths to the general public in hopes of creating a story, would he?
This just reinforces the message that this is a PUBLIC board people. Strangers wander in all the time and some would love to make trouble for cops. If you want to make a fool of yourself, go do it on your own time and on your own site. Nothing requires you to hang out here. Of course, the fact that we have managed to generate a rather nice sized audience (we hit 15,000 visitors yesterday - THANK YOU!) probably encourages the tiny brains to attempt to show off their not-so-towering intellects. Every idiot loves a crowd.
But we didn't set up this board for the idiots - we set it up for coppers. And real coppers KNOW what's appropriate in PUBLIC and what's appropriate whispered in a tavern over drinks with your team, your watch or cops YOU TRUST. Yes, this is a tempting forum. But although we've made every effort to keep it anonymous, a halfway decent hacker and a marginally competent lawyer could make a very easy run at stripping away the anonymity, especially in Cook County and Chicago where lawyers and politicians run hand-in-hand through the daisies. Beware.
posted by SCC at 6:45 AM
10 Comments:
This SECOND CITY COP blog site has been cross-referenced under Illinois>Chicago PD at the NATIONAL LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS Blog Site:
www.LEOaffairs.com
'Mayor Sam' City Hall Blog Unmasked
The people behind the online source for L.A. political dirt and inside information have been anonymous for 11 months -- until now.
By Steve Hymon
Times Staff Writer
September 2, 2005
For 11 months, the tell-all blog Mayor Sam's Sister City has both entertained and roiled the workers of City Hall.
In no particular order, the site has featured attacks on members of the Los Angeles City Council, stories of scandals that purportedly involved them, the posting of internal e-mails and regular polls asking who is the hottest city worker — politically and physically.
One post from December: "Who would you like to wake up and find under your tree, menorah, that Kwanzaa candelabra, etc.? Post them here!"
Visitors to http://www.mayorsam.blogspot.com frequently found it to be an anything-goes site, with anonymous rants about micro-issues in council districts, profanity-laced tirades, personal attacks and gossip.
The most notable element of the site has been — until Thursday — its anonymity. The hosts of the site and those who posted there did not have to reveal their names, which have in their own right become the source of City Hall gossip.
That ended Thursday morning when two of the key players on the site confirmed their identities after being asked by a Times reporter.
Brian Hay, 29, who has worked as a political consultant to former mayoral candidate Bob Hertzberg, said he has posted items as "Mayor Frank" since last year.
Mike Trujillo, 26, a spokesman for a preschool ballot initiative headed by Rob Reiner, said he was "Chief Parker" for several months during the mayoral campaign earlier this year.
The creator of the site is a community activist in the San Fernando Valley named Michael Higby, 40. Higby could not be reached Thursday morning, but later in the day he and Hay revealed their identities on the website.
"I only expected three or four people to read it, for it to last maybe a few weeks and that would be it," Higby wrote on the site. "It has gone beyond my wildest expectations. I am quite proud of the service we provide to our city."
Last year, another City Hall blog lasted several weeks, and shortly after its demise Higby started the Mayor Sam site.
The name was a reference to former Mayor Sam Yorty. Three main characters played host: "Mayor Sam," "Mayor Frank" and "Chief Parker," the latter two a nod to former Mayor Frank Shaw and former Police Chief William Parker.
The blog, Hay said, was a way to bypass reporters and disseminate information that he believed city residents deserved to know. He said that about 10 people have rotated through the characters of Sam, Frank and Parker, but that he did not know who all of them were.
Hay said he volunteered for Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in his unsuccessful 2001 mayoral campaign and was on his paid staff for three weeks that year.
"A lot of times the mainstream media is under a lot of different pressures from editors; you have things that you can't do or things that would never make the L.A. Times, so we provided a location for those insiders and hacks to go and do what they like to do," Hay said. "The water-cooler chat. That's all it is."
Hay said he was posting to the Mayor Sam site at the same time he was also running the mayoral campaign blog for his boss, Hertzberg. On Thursday, Hertzberg said that he was unaware of Hay's involvement in the anonymous blog and that he rarely looked at the site.
"I probably would have stopped him if I had known. I certainly believe in blogging and the Internet, and it's doing fabulous things for political participation," said Hertzberg, who was the chairman of Villaraigosa's transition team.
Hertzberg said he understood the concern of many elected officials that no identified person could be held accountable for information on the blog.
Trujillo said that he was "Chief Parker" on the site for several months during the mayoral campaign and that he supported Villaraigosa. Trujillo added that Reiner, who also backed Villaraigosa, was unaware of his role. Reiner, through a spokesman, declined to comment.
"I think the folks that run the site probably shed light on dark corners in City Hall sometimes," Trujillo said. "I think people give the site too much credit for knowing more than it should. I don't know anything; all I know is the e-mails that I receive and would post. That was it. At no time was it me going around and looking for stuff."
Villaraigosa has been both praised and pummeled on the site. Janelle Erickson, a mayoral press secretary, on Thursday said, "Anonymous blogs are not sources of credible information, and we pay very little attention to them."
"It's a very little surprise that one campaign had something to do with it," said Bernard Parks Jr., chief of staff for Councilman Bernard C. Parks.
Parks Jr. said he felt obliged to check the site each day in case something was written about his father.
He said a major distinction between the Mayor Sam site and the mainstream media was that mainstream reporters usually called him to get a response for any story that was critical of his father. The blog did not.
"Therein lies the danger," Parks Jr. said. "We support freedom of speech as much as anyone else. I think because the Internet is still relatively new, there aren't a whole lot of laws to protect a name or reputation. You can say something as ridiculous as he has two left feet, and it gets blogged everywhere."
The loss of anonymity may be a good thing, Hay said.
Fearmonger is a great name for a news reporter. The shoe fit!
Hooray 15,000 hits!!!
Will liberals be invited to the studio apartment bash, Bush Boy? I say no. Perhaps Rev. Meeks?
Re: NEW ORLEANS RELIEF
I have received an eMail from the Detectives' Endowment Association (DEA) of the NYPD "www.NYCdetectives.org" to advise active and retired CPD members that they can contribute to New Orleans relief efforts at "www.NAPO.org".
However, I informed the DEA of the NYPD that we can also contribute through our own CPD Lodge 7 of the Fraternal Order of Police.
Enter "www.chicagoFOP.org" and click on "Current Updates" in left column.
Hey Northside
Screw the FOP where has the mope president been since the beginning of the summer. You are a moron
When's the party at Bush Boy's Studio Apartment. I've got a Big Jim Thompson photo for his wall.
ATTN: 2:21 AM "ANONYMOUS" Poster
So I am a "moron"?
Well, to you and other despicable and "ANONYMOUS", back-stabbing piece(s) of feces that (on more recent threads) attacked the poster who identified himself by name as "Det. Kazupski", I have a not-so-eloquent message:
FUCK YOU, COWARD(s)!
If you have a problem with that, contact me at:
cpdfop7@yahoo.com
Have a nice day, asshole!
LEOaffairs.com is a cop web site I started in Florida and we are now expanding across the country. It is free and getting 5.5 million hits a month. Not trying to advertise - here is our issue: The Hillsborough County Sheriff (Tampa) is issuing subpoenas to us to get IP addresses of posters on the site who have offended him. Our attorney managed to get the first two subpoenas quashed based on the first amendment. Not satisfied, the sheriff has now issued 6 more subpoenas for information about the identities of the posters and our moderators. My question is have you faced similar problems and if so how did you handle it and if not look out if we lose and the word spreads to other departments.
The local Sheriff says he doesn't like some of the posts critical of him or his administrators. Some were deleted for being too crude. Now he claims some were racist and he wants to discipline the deputies who posted. He issued subpoenas for the IP addresses of those who posted. We do not archive the posts and after they scroll off they are gone. So in effect we could not give them to him even if we wanted. But he passed out a memo at roll call advising the offending deputies to turn themselves in. Fat chance, no one responded. Our attorney successfully argued that the speech is protected by the 1st amendment and a judge quashed the subpoenas. The sheriff's legal counsel tried to argue that deputies gave up their rights by becoming deputies. Not a very popular argument with the troops. And again the judge did not agree. The Sheriff is appealing.
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