Gideon at  A Public Defender has put together a number of posts about a website called Rate My Cop, which has so outraged police officers that they have proven, yet again, how even the mighty cower when the cops come a’calling.

The concept isn’t novel of tricky.  Indeed, it’s pretty much the cop version of websites that exist for judges, sex offenders, lawyers, and a host of others.  As explained by Reason Hit and Run :

The premise is simple: [Gino] Sesto wrote to police departments across the country, and obtained a list of the names and badge numbers of their officers. He then posted the names online in a format broken down by state and city, and encouraged users to rate their experiences with individual officers. All of the information he posted was already open to the public. He didn’t post the identities of any undercover officers.

But this time it’s cops.  And that changes everything.

Law enforcement agencies freaked out, saying that making public information available on this website threatened their safety. The site does not post home addresses or information about undercover officers, so that claim seems hollow.

First, they scared Godaddy into pulling the site. Then Rackspace.  These big, tough internet companies shaked and quivered when the cops called and said, “we know who you are.”  They don’t shake when you or I call.  But we’re not cops, now are we?  Isn’t this a bit of a commentary about how much Americans fear the police. 

Even the good, law-abiding folk, the ones who claim that the cops are there friends, aren’t about to take a risk and withstand their ire.  Let’s face the truth:  Americans are scared to death of the cops, and will do anything to avoid angering them and making themselves a target.  In their hearts, people fear the police.  Great!

But as Gid notes, cops only have an issue when it’s some outsider shining the light on them.  There’s no issue with Cops Writing Cops, the website where cops rip each other’s head off for not showing their brother cop “professional courtesy” (read, allowing other cops to break the law as a perk of the job).

For all the freedom that purportedly exists on the internet, it seems that we’ve finally hit the wall.  And the wall is Blue.