Heres the link the Boston Globe could have left out of their article:
http://whosarat.com/preview_informant.php?id=NDg5
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Website rouses informants' fear, investigators' ire
By Kathleen Burge, Globe Staff | March 21, 2005
When a team of police, federal agents, and a drug-sniffing dog burst
through the front door and scoured every corner of the house, the woman
and her boyfriend figured they knew who had turned them in. So she
struck back: In the shadowy realms of cyberspace, she publicly
identified the informant who she suspected had ratted on her boyfriend,
landing him in court on drug possession charges.
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On a website launched seven months ago from the North Shore, the woman
posted a note saying her alleged informant, a 27-year-old man from the
Tewksbury area, was a ''narc" who made a practice of snitching on others
to minimize his own legal problems.
''In this day and age, you can't be a rat and not have people know,"
said the woman in an interview, speaking on the condition that her name
not be used. ''I think it kind of opens up people's eyes in town to
people who are doing shady deals."
The website, which was launched by Sean Bucci, who is battling his own
marijuana charges, has quickly become the largest online database of its
kind. It currently holds more than 800 profiles of alleged informants,
and new additions appear frequently, posted by people who want to take
revenge on federal agents, former friends-turned-snitches, and others
who they believe have informed on them to law enforcement agencies.
Law enforcement officials worry that the site will impede their ability
to use undercover agents and informants, who often provide information
critical to criminal cases, especially those involving drugs. And they
worry that criminals might use the site to find out the names of
informants, which could imperil the people whose information is posted
there.
The Globe is not naming the website because it is impossible to verify
whether all the people listed there are informants, and because
publicizing access to their identities could jeopardize their safety.
In Boston, a paid informant for the FBI has been living on the run,
afraid for his life, since his profile appeared on the website about
seven months ago. The informant had been working undercover on a case
when he got an ominous phone call from one of the men he was investigating.
''I'm looking at your information on the website," the suspect told him,
recalled the informant, who spoke on condition that his name not be
used. ''You're an informant."
The FBI informant said he immediately hung up the phone, fear coursing
through his body, and fled his apartment. ''I ran as fast as I could,"
he said.
Now, he never carries identification, worried that someone might learn
his true name. He has not worked for the FBI since his cover was blown,
but hopes he can soon return. In the meantime, he said, he spends his
days walking around Boston.
Since it debuted last August, the website has grown popular, both among
people who want to unburden their anger at those they believe have
wronged them and others who peruse the profiles of alleged informants.
The site has about 7,000 registered members and has received an
estimated 1.5 million hits, said Anthony Capone, a spokesman for the
site who said his day job is in marketing.
But not all the profiles posted on the website are real. The woman who
publicly identified the Tewksbury man said that she had knowingly posted
false information about people she did not believe to be informants.
''You're going to find a mixture of truth and fiction because pretty
much anyone can go on and post," she said.
The site's home page includes a disclaimer, which notes that information
posted ''may not be 100 percent accurate and should be used for
information/entertainment purposes only." It also states that the
website's administrators do not condone violence against alleged informants.
Capone said that websites such as his are protected by law. He cited the
website of Leon Carmichael Sr., a Montgomery, Ala., businessman charged
with drug conspiracy and money laundering. Carmichael had posted the
pictures and names of government agents and informants who were
scheduled to testify at his trial, and asked for information about them.
Last year, a federal judge in Alabama ruled that Carmichael's website
was protected by the First Amendment right to free speech.
Capone said the administrators of the North Shore website use a computer
server in India, to ensure further protection.
The website contains information about suspected agents and informants
across the country and overseas. The lists suggest that informants come
from all walks of life: the Massachusetts files include a plumber from
Worcester, a 17-year-old swimmer from Belmont, a tanning salon owner
from Peabody, and a stripper from Revere.
The Department of Homeland Security has warned its employees to stay
away from the site, since even visiting it could provide website
administrators information about government computer networks.
The department has issued an advisory, warning that ''danger exists for
exploitation by criminal and/or terrorist entities."
Law enforcement officials in Oklahoma have also issued a warning that
the website could jeopardize the work of undercover agents and informants.
The site does not contain the profiles of notorious informants such as
Salvatore ''Sammy The Bull" Gravano, who turned state's evidence against
Mob boss John Gotti.
Many of the alleged informants on the North Shore site have been posted
on the site by people who got in trouble with the law for buying or
selling drugs, or by their own relatives.
''We specifically ask people not to add any information that's related
to violent crimes, because we don't agree with violent crimes," Capone
said. ''But as far as drug problems, and people setting people up just
to get out of their own problems, that's a no-no in our books."
The woman who posted information about the Tewksbury man said she
believes the website performs a service by warning others away from
informants.
''This punk has bragged on several occasions about doing a controlled
buy to bust a known local dealer so he could get a lesser sentence for
getting caught with shrooms, ecstasy, steroids, and funny money," she
posted on the site about the man she believes had informed on her now
ex-boyfriend to the police. ''He has admitted to being a snitch to
various people."
Jeannie Stokowski-Bisanti's husband, former Springfield chiropractor
John Bisanti, was sentenced last year to 41 months in federal prison for
income tax evasion. After she saw a magazine ad for the North Shore
site, she posted information about a car dealer and a tax attorney she
believes cooperated with federal authorities, who then, in her opinion,
wrongly brought charges against her husband.
''We put it on there, kind of just in a little way, to make a
difference," said Bisanti, a flight attendant. ''Honestly, I'm angry
that this injustice took place and nothing will be done about it."
Another local poster turned to cyberspace after her brother was arrested
and charged with helping plan a bank robbery. One of his friends, she
argues, exaggerated her brother's role in the plot in his testimony to
the police to bargain down his own sentence.
''I think people should know, he's not a man of his word," she said.
So she posted his name on the website, promising to add affidavits from
the case.
''This kid can be out of jail, but he'll never have a life," she said.
''He's known within the whole entire city as a black sheep."
Kathleen Burge can be reached at kburge@globe.com.
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