The Grey Lady kindly informs us (subscription) of a website of some passing interest to criminal defense lawyers, www.whosarat.com.  The feds are concerned.  My guess is that a lot of people have reason to be concerned.

On the front page, whosarat shows everyone the three top rats of the day.  But if you want more, you have to be a subscriber.  For $90, you can be a lifetime member, though it’s not entirely clear whose life they are talking about. And they through in a “Stop Snitching” t-shirt.  Of course, if you happen to be a target of a current federal investigation, the subscription fee seems positively reasonable, particularly when compared with the cost of not knowing what your BFF is doing when he’s not hanging around with you.

And so, an issue arises.  Should snitches be outed on the internet?

But there’s a second issue as well.  How do we know that the people who have been identified as rats are, in fact, rats.  Consider the ramifications of abuse.  Wouldn’t this make a great weapon to use against your enemies?  Want to get rid of someone?  Just post that he’s a rat.  Boom.  It’s not like you can turn to the feds for confirmation.

And what about all those criminal defense lawyers who had their clients flip “because it’s the only way,”  assuring them that no one would ever know they became a snitch.  Oops.  Sorry, pal, but who knew that you would make the front page of www.whosarat.com.  And the feds are not happy about this.  Ya think?