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September 10, 2007
Beverly Hills Serves LAist with a Search Warrant
On Friday afternoon, the Beverly Hills Police Department presented Gothamist, LLC, LAist's parent company in New York City, with a Search Warrant and Affidavit due to an e-mail threat to an officer after last week's controversial article about a Beverly Hills SUV driver attacking a bicyclist where the bicyclist was given two tickets.
The warrant states that the police are to search the author's information and any relevant IP associations (even though the author was with the police on Thursday morning) and all IP addresses with date/time stamps for all comments posted before and after the the warrant was served. The police suspect there may be a correlation in IP addresses from LAist's comments and the e-mail address the threat was made with. Did Digg.com, who received 300 comments more than LAist, get a warrant as well?
The irony of this situation is that when a bicyclist has an immediate threat to his life, he gets ticketed for standing up for his rights and for protecting himself and possibly others in the future. But when a police officer gets an e-mail threat, the police are all over it with swift force. It is understandable that the police need to protect their own (and they should), but it should be expected that the citizens themselves are part of that protection too.
Image from the Search Warrant served to Gothamist, LLC
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fuck the police!! and leave LAist alone...
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Wow, that seems heavy handed. I doubt it was a real cyclist - they don't tend to be the emailing threats kind.
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no , this isn't a police state . why do you ask ?
( posted via tor )
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Awsome, maybe they'll also find some pot lying around from "Anti's" drug reviews and arrest his ass and Tony Pierce's too.
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oh yeah, because a server is the perfect place to keep your weed!
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I say we do a sit in!
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In a fit of paranoia i smoked up all the evidence. har har.
and i review medicine, not drugs.
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Jeez... I'm glad I didn't comment on that one!
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Leave LAist alone but fuck the bicyclists who use the street instead of the sidewalk (especially during rush hour). Get out of our fucking way
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just make up an IP from China and give that to them.
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Have you guys checked out some of the comments? Wow. Most of them are sane and calm, and it's a credit to the contributors on LAist that the few offensive comments that were made were rightfully ignored.
Nevertheless, there were one or two comments that were more than a little scary, and would be regarded differently if the comments were made in another forum (i.e. snailmail.) Some folks seem to go a bit overboard when posting on-line ("F**** the [insert official establishment here]" is one thing, but making threats are still not cool!)
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People who actually posted with some constructive criticism will have nothing to worry about. It's the people who took it a little too far that have to worry.
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of course this is the direction they're going in. maybe they can slap the person on the wrist like they're gonna do to that cop
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"and i review medicine, not drugs."
What a joke.
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Guest #9 "...but fuck the bicyclists who use the street instead of the sidewalk (especially during rush hour). Get out of our fucking way"
During rush hour the cyclist will leave you in the dust and you will be getting high on some fumes from the car in front of you.
The law says that cyclist have all the right to the road. And bikes don't belong on the sidewalk, that's why it's called sideWALK nor sideRIDE. So chill, enjoy your tunes and the smog and stop harassing cyclists!
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I wish they would get a warrant out for the SUV driver for terrorizing people on the street! And for driver #9, who thinks he owns the road and who probably terrorizes pedestrians and cyclist too when s/he sees them!
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I can hardly read the pale pale text you use for us guests. And we're some of the most interesting people here.
I am so glad BH had to sit up and take notice of this. I hope the cop does have to go before the IA, and yes, I hope the license of the SUV that started this whole problem is somehow leaked so we can get in touch with her. Nicely, of course.
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#4: You seriously still salty about that Joey?
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Of course, by "fuck the police" I mean "love the police". Love 'em, love 'em, love 'em....
Gulp.
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"People who actually posted with some constructive criticism will have nothing to worry about. It's the people who took it a little too far that have to worry."
actually, the way it works is, nobody should have to worry about what they type here -- free speech anyone?
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Free Speech. What a quaint notion.
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I already have a Homeland Security dossier fifty feet thick, thanks to comment on this and other sites. If they were gonna nail my commie-loving, cop-shooting, Osama-hugging ass, they'd have done it by now. I'm not worried.
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FYI #20, you're incorrect.
Free speech has limitations, and if you don't believe me try screaming "there's a FIRE, there's a FIRE!" in a crowded movie theater.
But that's not the only instance when your freedom of speech has limits, there are many including: incitement, sedition, defamation, slander/libel, blasphemy, the expression of racial hatred, and conspiracy.
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Blasphemy? Really? I think not.
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And moments later I stumble across this:
http://tinyurl.com/ysm2jm
Of course, there is a difference between the law and network censors.
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"What day is it?"
"Tuesday."
"WRONG! It's NWA day!"
"No, no, absolutely not."
"It's all right, I've got it under control..."
Help! Help! Help! Help th' police!
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Costal cities like LA are a lost cause. You will be under 80 feet of water in under a generation. If America doesn't give up on cars now, you will never cut carbon emissions by the at least 80% necessary to prevent a 2-3 degree C warming before 2030. Unless private cars based on hydrocarbon industry are banned in less than 10 years, it's pretty much a given that LA will be under water within out lifetimes.
Go ahead LAPD, hate the bikes.
I hope you're a good swimmers.