Google Cracks Down On Mugshot Blackmail Sites 251
Google is apparently displeased with sites designed to extract money from arrestees in exchange for removing their mugshot pictures online, and is tweaking its algorithms to at least reduce their revenue stream. From the article at The New York Times: "It was only a matter of time before the Internet started to monetize humiliation. ... The sites are perfectly legal, and they get financial oxygen the same way as other online businesses — through credit card companies and PayPal. Some states, though, are looking for ways to curb them. The governor of Oregon signed a bill this summer that gives such sites 30 days to take down the image, free of charge, of anyone who can prove that he or she was exonerated or whose record has been expunged. Georgia passed a similar law in May. Utah prohibits county sheriffs from giving out booking photographs to a site that will charge to delete them. ... But as legislators draft laws, they are finding plenty of resistance, much of it from journalists who assert that public records should be just that: public."
The solution is simple. (Score:5, Informative)
The simple solution is to press extortion charges against websites that offer to take down pictures of the subjects for money.
Re:The solution is simple. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure the pictures are considered public domain, in the same way that certain other legal information is. That's assuming that the person really was convicted of the crime and the picture was officially released or otherwise searchable through traditional means.
Otherwise, we'd have constant reports of celebrities filling lawsuits every time one of their mugshots is posted.
Re:The solution is simple. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's obviously public domain, but by when require a ransom to take it down, it becomes extortion.
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Easy solution, don't pretend to be someone you are not and don't be a bloody hypocrite. How often are those whom are the most embarrassed and humiliated by this, the very same people who attack others for it. Who scream for laws banning others from doing it while they do it themselves.
The best solution is suck it up and bite the bullet, when enough people get busted and the questionable behaviour gets exposed as being the norm people become less embarrassed by. For the lying hypocritical jackass politica
Re:The solution is simple. (Score:5, Informative)
Uhm, no?
~five years ago I was arrested by US customs and handed over to the FBI when arriving in the USA (on my own ship). Accused of smuggling drugs and being part of a criminal organisation. As the charges were bullocks I was eventually freed and actually apologised to ("wrong ship, we acted on an anonymous informer" etc etc etc... turns out this happens to sailors a LOT when entering the US..). My photo can still be found on those websites though and as the business I'm in is based on trust (I'm a consultant doing IT network safety for big companies / governments) I loose work on this. Basically I'm being punished even though I did not nothing wrong.
Re:The solution is simple. (Score:5, Informative)
The best solution is suck it up and bite the bullet, when enough people get busted and the questionable behaviour gets exposed as being the norm people become less embarrassed by. For the lying hypocritical jackass political types, who try to make our lives a misery expose the more and more and more.
What about the people who were arrested as they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and subsequently released without charge. Why should their photos be up there, and why should they be expected to pay to have them removed.
The Dutch have the right idea - you're not allowed to publish a person's name or likeness (photo, artist's rendition) unless they have been convicted. It has occasionally resulted in the amusing situation of CCTV stills being published with a box over the eyes, but it certainly stops people's lives being fucked up by the media who will plaster faces on the front page, and then ignore it when they are never charged.
Re:The solution is simple. (Score:5, Interesting)
In other countries such pictures get not published. They are property of the government (hence copyrighted) and according to privacy laws and laws about your personal right to have control over the fotos taken from you, publishinig them is a copyright infringement, a infringement on privacy and demanding money to remove them from "the internet" is blackmailing and fraud.
If some one would do that with my mugshot in my country he had bad luck. Surprising that in gods own country people obviously have no rights at all and need a new law every year to combat such exploits.
Re:The solution is simple. (Score:4, Interesting)
Public records are publicly available and government photos are "not subject to copyright in the United States and there are no copyright restrictions on reproduction, derivative works, distribution, performance, or display of the work.". [usa.gov].
That said, it should be slander to post the records with the implication they mean someone is guilty of something. Posting the final disposition of charges, or something along those lines would be sufficient to defend against that.
Re:The solution is simple. (Score:4, Interesting)
That applies only to the Federal government. State, county and municipal governments, who generate the vast majority of mugshots are free to set whatever copyright policies they wish.
Re:The solution is simple. (Score:5, Informative)
Good, somebody read the exceptions.
There are also privacy rights, which go beyond the copyright.
http://www.loc.gov/homepage/legal.html#privacy_publicity [loc.gov]
Since these web sites are trying to make money, there may also be publicity rights, which are subject to even greater restrictions.
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To a lot of people (employers among them), having been arrested is the same (or, at best, almost the same) as having been convicted. To me, an immigrant, this was a rather unexpected (in addition to unpleasant) revelation...
Thus, even if there is an explicit statement under your picture, that you were only arrested and spent a mere 45 minutes in jail, while the bond-officer was roused to take t
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Yes, that's what we need: more regulation allowing the government to control what we can and can't know.
Well one thing to note about copyright in the US (Score:2)
Is all works of the US Federal Government are, by law, public domain. This isn't to say that something can't be done with regards to mug shots (and they are generally not federal anyhow) but just FYI with relation to copyright and ownership. You'll see a lot of pictures on Wikipedia that note they were taken by a government employee in the course of their job, which makes them public domain.
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In the U.S., the people have a right to know who's broken the law or been accused of breaking the law. See, way back before the U.S. was a country, the government running the show had this nasty habit of secretly detaining people indefinitely without charges. So I think I'll side with the U.S. on this one.
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That does not make it OK to use the pictures for extortion.
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That's not extortion though. It's not like they are threatening to spam your facebook friends with it if you don't pay up.
Re:The solution is simple. (Score:4, Interesting)
...what sibling said.
If you were arrested at some point in the past and your face/mugshot winds up at the site, with a full (as possible) record of what happened to you? It's simply the truth. Now the ideal says that you paid your dues, did your time, etc. On the other hand, reality says you're not going to be able to bury such information anymore.
In spite of all that, I'm perfectly okay with such sites on these conditions:
1) a sunset period occurs where faces/records get automatically deleted after a period of years (5, 7, 10, whatever - maybe set one period for misdemeanors, a second for felonies, a lifetime for convictions involving pedophilia or death, etc).
2) a clear listing of what happened after the arrest must accompany the picture (dismissal, not guilty, fine, conviction, plea bargain, whatever). Some of these sites only list what the arrest was for.
IMHO? If I were ever arrested, and if it were my image on such sites? Fuck it - it would cost too much to chase down every two-bit operator with a web host and a bit of Perl scraping-script (seriously, there's like dozens of such sites out there. The reason why I know all this? I'll explain at the end...) Besides, it's not like a background check would miss such a thing in the first place unless the record was well and truly expunged.
(So, how do I know these things? I happened to find an ex-boss of mine on it after a friend of mine heard a rumor, and discovered the dude is currently in prison for doing things to his daughter that were way the hell wrong. Took four different sites before I found enough of the story to discover what happened. Pity - he seemed a really cool guy, and technically he's sharp as hell.)
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Hang on, so even if found not guilty you're OK with the sites posting up details and slandering individuals? Sounds like you're advocating "guilty until proven innocent - and guilty even then". Boy, do the federal prosecutors have a job waiting for you!
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Is it slander, if it is perfectly true? Unpleasant, yes, but "slander"?
Re:The solution is simple. (Score:4, Interesting)
Wait, I have to pay my dues for being arrested? I thought I have to pay my dues if I'm convicted.
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I'm pretty sure the pictures are considered public domain, in the same way that certain other legal information is.
Yes, you can post information that is in public domain.
However, according to TFA, some prosecutors are treating it as a crime of extortion or blackmail to keep the photos on your web site unless the person pays you money.
My gut reaction is that I would like it to be a crime, but it may be difficult to establish in law.
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My gut reaction is that I would like it to be a crime, but it may be difficult to establish in law.
Not difficult at all - threatening to do something completely legal unless someone pays you is still blackmail!.
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How can we do that if you don't give us the name?
Re:The solution is simple. (Score:5, Funny)
How can we do that if you don't give us the name?
Simple, just google "sexual predator", and she's the one beside him.
cheers,
Re:The solution is simple. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The solution is simple. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Most employers are going to conduct a criminal background check, and the data will come from the courthouses themselves, not Google.
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Most employers are going to conduct a criminal background check, and the data will come from the courthouses themselves, not Google.
Ultimately, employers are people, not machines. One of my friends was recently told by a prospect that they weren't interested, despite a pretty stellar career. One thing that's been happening in his life is a an ex gf has for the past 3 years been conducting an on-line smear campaign against him. He suspects this is why he didn't get the job. I'd post links but that only increases his google hit score to those sites, so, just take my word for it. Where was your courthouse god in that case?
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Obviously I can't read the mind of the hiring manager who passed on your friend, but hiring decisions can seem arbitrary at times. Maybe some other candidate was a better fit for the team or had previously tackled the exact same situation that the team was currently facing. There are any number of legitimate reasons that an otherwise "stellar" candidate might get passed on.
For the sake of discussion however, let's assume that the employer passed on your friend based on the online bile spewed by a mentally u
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The solution is to ban discrimination based on prior arrests. Make the accused, but unconvicted a protected class. And then enforce that protected class status. Run stings against employers, landlords, credit agencies, etc. (as we should be doing for other protected classes...).
We can stop this behavior without criminalizing free speech, or damaging government transparency. All it takes is for the people to decide they want a country that treats people fairly, and to enforce laws in a way that treats p
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The simple solution is to press extortion charges against websites that offer to take down pictures of the subjects for money.
Indeed... I would suggest a law that it will be a criminal offense for the CEO or Management of any company, to execute that particular form of extortion.
Then the CEO can have their mugshot posted all over the place, and see how it feels.
Re:The solution is simple. (Score:5, Informative)
It doesn't work.
Google should ALSO be pulling the plug on that "rip off report" site that let's anyone leave negative comments of any kind about anyone under any circumstances (including name, phone number, domains, address, etc) and never *ever* removes it . . . but will work with the person being attacked . . . if they pay for the "business/corporate relation services".
I banned a user from my website almost a decade ago for defrauding other users, using false information for their account, and sending death threats to other users (and myself) and shortly after, that person posted some pretty awful stuff on the site which I have no way to ever remove, unless I want to submit to the extortion of the guy behind that site. Google includes their results right at the top of most people's results (though I believe Yahoo! has since dinged the domain for SEO spamming).
It's no different than these mugshots, except that at least with mugshots, you have been arrested. With these "reputation" and "consumer protection" sites that are actual extortionists (especially this one), you don't have to have been arrested. Or even have done business with the person making the attack. Or even *have* a business (I don't and didn't). You can literally just take anyone you're pissed off at and sale vile things about them on the site, include personal information and contact information and so on, and it'll be up there until the end of time, marring any searches for them in the future.
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Have you filed a defamation suit?
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Re:The solution is simple. (Score:5, Insightful)
I applaud Google for this move but the solution is for LEO not to release pictures or other personally identifiable information about people who have not been convicted in the first place because doing so can ruin an innocent person's life and innocent people get charged with crimes all the time. On a related note, when Strauss-Kahn got the "perp walk" treatment, many in France were shocked because the practice is banned [telegraph.co.uk] there to protect the innocent,
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I applaud Google for this move but the solution is for LEO not to release pictures or other personally identifiable information about people who have not been convicted in the first place because doing so can ruin an innocent person's life and innocent people get charged with crimes all the time. On a related note, when Strauss-Kahn got the "perp walk" treatment, many in France were shocked because the practice is banned [telegraph.co.uk] there to protect the innocent,
This indeed is the correct solution. If governments were not tossing these pictures about willy-nilly, these sites would not have any content of anybody who was later found not guilty. The sources are frequently sheriff's department websites that amount to a big giant campaign sight at taxpayer expense saying "Hey! Look how many people we are arresting for YOU!"
It is pretty haphazard too. I have been trying to get an FBI wanted poster from 1972, of a guy who was caught and confessed (for real) in 1986
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Because everyone's rich enough to afford legal representation after paying for rent, food, clothing, and medicine?
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I'd think the simple thing to do is make the picture copyright of the person of whom it is taken in the case of exoneration/dropped charges.
Re:The solution is simple. (Score:5, Informative)
> the simple solution is not to be a bad person.
They're putting up *ALL* booking photos. Even those who are innocent. Your solution would work if nobody was ever wrongly arrested.
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> the simple solution is not to be a bad person.
They're putting up *ALL* booking photos. Even those who are innocent. Your solution would work if nobody was ever wrongly arrested.
And if the consequences to sharing the arrests of the guilty were always commensurate to the alleged crime.
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Your solution would work if nobody was ever wrongly arrested.
...no, but it'll add one hell of a sum to the total lawsuit.
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They'll never let you move to Texas with that attitude.
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They're putting up *ALL* booking photos. Even those who are innocent. Your solution would work if nobody was ever wrongly arrested.
I remember there were sites in the USA putting up pictures and addresses of doctors performing abortions. _Probably_ not so that people would send them flowers for doing a good job. When there was some public outrage about it, a Dutch website published all the info in the name of free speech. However, they also added info about many anti-abortionists. Without telling who was who, so that the risk of receiving a letter bomb would be fairly shared.
Re:The solution is simple. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think you know how things work.
Even for the simple exercise of free speech and assembly, the order of the day is increasingly "catch and release", often without so much as a ticket for most yet all are routinely fingerprinted and photographed. This was not uncommon all the way back to anti-war protests in the '70s and it's only gotten worse.
Will you seriously contend that exercising basic rights [once-upon-a-time] protected by the constitution makes one a bad person?
Mayhap you presume that anyone arrested is automatically guilty of something and deserving of conviction? Is someone convicted under what is later shown to be bad law also a bad person?
Well, then, carry on, Citizen, the State needs more like you.
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When I moved from the USSR into Massachusetts some time ago, discussing the evil of the Soviet Union I'd usually encounter an Illiberal, who'd nod thoughtfully and state, that, yes, they also had "similar" problem in this country.
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One of the women in TFA was arrested because her partner was beating her up, she called the cops, and he accused her of a crime when the cops came.
Re:The solution is simple. (Score:4, Informative)
It isn't simple at all, my dear ass, because as other comments have pointed out these pictures are taken for *anyone* that gets booked... whether or not you even committed a crime.
Re:The solution is simple. (Score:5, Interesting)
In the US since the late 1980's, getting arrested for any (and no) reason has become a huge socioeconomic problem as many employers, including low-tier employers, run background checks on prospective employees that flag subjects in the Federal NCIC database which records all arrests regardless of conviction, acquittal, guilt, or innocence.
As a result, many people (but especially black males and LNWI's, or Low Net Worth Individuals) are relegated to a lifetime of poor employment prospects, unable to land jobs even as burger-flippers. This is true even if these arrestees are innocent!
Dale Carson, a criminal defense attorney with experience as a police officer and an FBI agent, has written a book called "Arrest-Proof Yourself" [archive.org] which basically makes the argument that individuals should do anything they can (within the law) to avoid arrest for the simple fact that in the United States being arrested will bring incalculable financial harm to people who find themselves arrested for any reason.
The book is enlightening and can be profitably be read by almost everyone, even if one's risk of arrest is low.
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Article? My link is to a book which, to my memory, contains examples of many kinds of arrestee cases, some of which ended in acquittal.
Re:The solution is simple. (Score:5, Informative)
You still missed the point.
An arrest doesn't mean you're guilty. It doesn't mean you even had anything to do with what happened.
You go out in an Old Navy T-shirt and jeans one day and someone wearing the same clothes snatches an old lady's purse. You could very well get arrested because you match the description. Even if you prove that you're innocent of everything but similar fashion choices as a criminal, you still have an arrest record (no conviction, but an arrest). A lot of places will discriminate on that arrest record - even when found innocent. That is not fair, and is by no means an accurate way to gauge the trustworthiness of potential employees.
Re:The solution is simple. (Score:5, Interesting)
Even if you prove that you're innocent of everything but similar fashion choices as a criminal, you still have an arrest record
Precisely. That is why Dale Carson suggests in the book that you don't dress in clothing that is commonly worn by criminals or at least the street walking kind. A suit and tie combined with neat personal grooming, clean haircut and respectful attitude is best and will buy you much leeway with most police officers, but at the very least avoid sports jerseys and baggy pants and be polite. The better that you look and act like an honest upstanding citizen the less likely the police are to stop or arrest you. If you drive a car, make sure that it's clean and well maintained. The basic premise here is to be the person that you want to be seen as, not the person that the police like to arrest. You might call that profiling and it is, but that's reality. These things are doubly true for young blacks and hispanics who are more likely to be stopped by police than a WASP, all other things being equal.
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An arrest doesn't mean you're guilty. It doesn't mean you even had anything to do with what happened.
A while ago there were photos published of a woman arrested for a robbery in a store, identified by the store detectives, and almost convicted - side by side with a photo of the woman who actually did the robbery. I wouldn't have been able to keep them apart. She was totally innocent and lucky to not be convicted.
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I've been arrested twice and of those, booked (with mugshot) once. In neither case was I convicted of a crime. So what's your advice for those who
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So what's your advice for those who are arrested despite not committing a crime?
Most job applications only ask if you've been convicted of a crime. You can honestly answer no and simply not mention the arrests. If it comes up, don't deny it but explain the circumstances as best you can in a positive way. If those asking believe that it was something that could have happened to anyone, they're less likely to hold it against you. In short, be polite and truthful but don't simply volunteer this information to everyone you meet. There's a better than average chance that it simply won't com
Re:The solution is simple. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, it is simple. Don't do illegal stuff.
And don't be black.
Re:The solution is simple. (Score:4, Insightful)
Or hispanic.
Or middle eastern.
Or look like you're poor.
The solution is simple (Score:3, Interesting)
Stop automatically thinking people are criminals because they were arrested. Wake up and realize that you are living in a police state where anyone can be arrested at any time because a cop wanted to. A friend of mine was pulled over for running a stop sign and the cop asked to search his car. Of course he said "no" so the cop arrested him and took him to jail for running the stop sign, which allowed him to search the car "incident to arrest." This crap happens all the time in Texas.
Why don't they just copyright the mug shots (Score:2)
The pictures are still public and any one can see them.
However permission would be required for use. Use could be stipulated as part of that.
Requires some administration, but the other solutions do as well.
3rd party solution (Score:3)
Contract with 3rd party photographers to take the pictures, with a suitable license agreement (perpetual use by police/courts/etc.). Let the photographer sue for unlicensed commercial use by other sites.
The problem will be solved rather quickly.
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And why would our local police want a 3rd party photographer (whom they would presumably have to pay) to take the pictures? It's not like these things are carefully set up with hair lighting and a nice background. It's a mounted camera on a wall. They tell the perp to stand there and somebody pushes a button.
On newer digital systems, you don't even have to hold the sign.
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This is a fantastic idea -- every photographer I've ever met can certainly afford the court costs and legal fees to take on sites such as these.
Hell they have entire legal teams! I can't believe no one has ever thought of this before.
Quick -- you better go patent your idea!
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Legal/Illegal in the USA is irrelevant (Score:2)
US laws are meaningless if the web site is hosted and managed by somebody outside of the USA.
Ya, but... (Score:5, Funny)
This is irrational (Score:2)
Why do governments post this stuff anyway? (Score:2)
An arrest isn't an indication of guilt. Can you imagine being falsely accused of something like rape or murder, never being even charged, but having a "Rape" mugshot following you around?
I bet the wrong VIP's mugshot got posted (Score:2)
...or his kid's. Nothing changes in this country unless someone rich, famous, or powerful is affected. Google was saying just a few months ago they didn't care at all about this stuff.
My autistic sister has her mugshot online (Score:5, Interesting)
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Something is seriously wrong with a society that criminalizes people with disabilities because it doesn't take the time and compassion to understand them.
This sort of unforgivable xenophobia was characteristic of the Nazis. America is just doing the same thing under a different guise (though the difference is shockingly small).
Why are we protecting google? (Score:2)
Wasn't one of the protections for google being a search engine the fact that it was indiscriminate?
All it did was use robots to report information that was out there.
With all the massaging of search results and removing of links and other things it's becoming increasingly obvious that google can and will modify those results on a direct basis rather than simply giving "search results"
I think that whatever protections they've enjoyed under the various IP laws and I'm sure other kinds of laws where their defe
BS, Google is only adding to the problem (Score:2)
This blurb is different from the article. I don't see in the article what Google itself is doing to correct the problem. To me, it seems simple on their part, just band justmugshots.com and whatever other domains are being used. That's what I was hoping to see, but nope, the Do Know Evil company is still not only including mug shot sites in their image search results, but they're unjustifiably highly ranked.
Here's my problem...
My name shows up in image search results. Great here's what "first_name last_n
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It's in the article, but you have to click through to page 4.
Google’s team worked faster than Mr. Friedenfelds expected, introducing that algorithm change sometime on Thursday. The effects were immediate: on Friday, two mug shots of Janese Trimaldi, which had appeared prominently in an image search, were no longer on the first page. For owners of these sites, this is very bad news.
Google's unbounded power (Score:2)
Doesn't anyone find it troublesome that a private company (Google) is the one deciding whether this should be permissible? A private company, not democratically elected representatives, is deciding if this speech is protected or not? And that private company has the power to make or break the companies doing this?
Don't get me wrong - I don't think that posting booking photos should be legal, and I think that our representatives need to work on the issue of digital memories, where a stupid mistake made a lon
Google is becoming meddlesome (Score:2)
I don't log onto a site unless I have to, then log off when I'm done, keeps the tracking down a tad.
I have two Youtube accounts Googles aware of. Yesterday I logged in to do some work on the videos
and joined Google+. I don't want to be part of Google+, I've no interest in the "social networks".
I've changed the settings to send no Email my way and keep from displaying my actions, but
don't wish an account I want no part of. Took me 4 years to finally get out of Facebook,
an account I started but never did any
May work for states, not feds (Score:2)
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The simple solution is to distribute these images with stipulation that they may not be used in any commercial manner, whether to charge to display them or to remove them. It's the ultimate "free" distribution.
There are legal restrictions on using somebody else's picture for commercial profit without their permission. You can't use John Lennon's picture to sell beer. Whether it would work for a booking photo of someone who was not convicted (or convicted of a minor crime) is something that lawyers are working on.
Trade sanctions (Score:2)
[Blatantly infringing photo] sites will continue to operate, just from some other country
That's what SOPA was supposed to be for. But even without SOPA, copyright owners could do the same thing the RIAA is doing: work through the US Trade Representative to threaten foreign governments with trade sanctions for violating the Berne Convention.
Re:Not legal (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Not legal (Score:4, Insightful)
It's the American obsession with mugshots. Again, something the rest of the world will never understand. Here in .cz, you'd be probably thrown into jail for spreading such photos in the first place.
Actually, it's an important civil rights issue. Arrests are public as a way of preventing secret arrests, which were used in pre-revolutionary time and, sadly continue in many places. Its origins lie in the sixth sixth amendment to the United States' constitution [wikipedia.org], which tries to guarantee a swift and public trial as a check on the police, the public prosecutors and the judicial system.
Sure, it's not perfect. The system can and is being abused by jerks (but then again there are jerks in every country). The "perp walks" [wikipedia.org] that cops do are also an exploitative use of a tool designed to rein them in. And I suspect the prohibition on secret arrests has been violated from time to time :-(. Not to mention a arrest is something most people would not like spread around (I wouldn't!).
But don't condemn the obsession with public mugshots without understanding their purpose.
Re:Not legal (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the conflict isn't as much about public arrests but about a clash between free speech and privacy rights. In America, you can take a photo of someone and distribute it without their consent. This is limited in many other places. There's still footage of arrests, but the faces have to be blurred out on TV.
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If you had quoted more of my comment you would have included my point that yes, secret arrests occur, but they are fortunately extremely uncommon. A lot of the outrage (such as it is, which sadly isn't enough) over FISA is its secret nature, and what has resulted from it.
There are many many problems with the system at large, don't get me wrong. Plea bargains seem like fundamentally abusive, and are illegal in most countries. "Civil forfeiture" is a top to bottom abuse. One could easily go on, and go ahe
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You live in a free country, here in the USA things are not that way.
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That's right. In most of Europe you can't defame people, even if you are speaking the truth. In most of Europe defamation trumps freedom of speech.
Anything to substantiate this claim? Such as, an in-depth analysis of the few dozen national laws on that matter? No?
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If we Americans stopped being pretentious assholes, maybe foreigners would stop being obsessed with us.
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Look, it's the insecure American doing name-calling.
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Another funny thing we have here - you can use truth as an affirmative defense for defamation.
I fail to see the relevance to the matter at hand (widespread distribution of personal photos without the consent of the photographed subjects), but this is something that all decent countries have, including mine.
USA (Score:2)
The sites are and have never been legal in Sweden.
Read the featured article and discover that many states of the United States of America do not ban this practice. Even the summary has clues to the jurisdiction: "Georgia" could be a former Soviet republic, but "Utah" is a U.S. state.
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Not only are there websites in the US, but we have actual print publications (some put together by the websites) in the US that are available at news stands and contain nothing but recent mugshots. It's pretty hideous. It's one thing to have someone's mugshot on television or in a paper, because it is relevant urgent news, but it's another to have every person who has ever for any reason been arrested, such as for being at a rowdy party with a bunch of people and then being released later, after you'd been
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Extortion is illegal pretty much everywhere.
Re:Not legal (Score:4, Interesting)
Not when the police does it. It's 100% legal when performed by your local, state, or federal law enforcement.
You are confusing laws for you compared to what they have to abide by.
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The police are not the ones doing the extortion here.
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Who released the photos? the police.
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And who invented the Camera they were taken with?
Alhazen, obvious a ringleader in this Muslim extortion plot.
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The police are not the ones doing the extortion here.
No, we have a new name for it these days: plea bargaining.
Common names have their own pitfalls (Score:5, Informative)
Someone (like a prospective employer) searching your name on Google will not know if a mugshot photo is you or just someone with the same common name.
On the other hand, having the same as a criminal can still confuse human resources departments who assume that the person whose name is on the application is the same person whose mugshot is on the site, provided the skin color matches. It's happened with the no-fly list, and it's happened with a 4-year-old rapist [cracked.com].
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And, of course, get their mugshot posted call over the internet.
If you're wealthy you move (Score:2)