MUGSHOTS:
A VIOLATION
OF INTERNATIONAL LAW
By: Onno
Vocks.
In the U.S.A.,
a number of website owners thought they could legally defame people
by posting their mugshots in a Search Engine friendly way. Perform a
search using someone’s real name and their mugshot shows up on the
first page, if they have one. In the U.S. that is nearly a Quarter of
the population, about 72 million people. Not all police departments
list their mugshots, but website owners such as Kyle G. Prall, of
Busted mugshots, are working hard to change that through Freedom of Information Act requests. He’s managed to pry loose and list some
11 million, and counting, mug shots, 30% of those are from arrestees
that were never, or never will be convicted of any crime according to
F.B.I. Statistics.
Of course,
these website owners do not list their own, or their colleagues
mugshots and now a movement to stop the on-line extortion is starting
to make it’s presence known.
Trouble is that
a lot of these websites are hiding offshore, and local law can not be
applied. However, the Countries where these websites are based are
also U.N. Charter Members, meaning that they also have an obligation
to enforce the Laws that they have signed on to voluntarily, or they
can stop pretending that Humans have any Rights at all.
The U.N. Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, ratified to become International Law in 1976 states in
article 12 that:
“No one shall
be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home
or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation.
Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such
interference or attacks”.
No exception
for Mugshots, the Accused, or convicted Criminals, is noted. That
means that the listing of mugshots, with name, charges and home
address is illegal, period.
Bias against
the Innocent:
If we allow the
continued posting of mugshots, without also listing the findings of
the Court, then the arresting Police Officer has the final say in
something that is clearly the responsibility of the Courts. It also
renders the Court’s verdicts useless in the eyes of the Public in
only the cases where Charges were dismissed, or proven not guilty.
These Folks now have to publicly prove their innocence with Court
documents.
This shows
significant Bias against People that were never convicted of any
crime, and in my opinion forms the grounds to stop the practice of
defaming people simply because they were arrested.
MY PERSONAL
STANCE ON MUGSHOT WEBSITES:
The second
reason to stop posting mugshots is that it further undermines the corrective intent and authority of the Courts, no one was ever given
a life sentence for unpaid parking tickets, but through the posting
of mugshots an effective life sentence is handed out. Nowadays employment and rental agencies use a Search Engine query, instead of a proper background check and will find the mugshot websites and discriminate according to what they find there. Not being able
to rent housing or get employment will force/motivate at least some people to
commit new crimes to make ends meet. This has the opposite of the
intended effect and will continue to fill privately owned and operated
Prisons at enormous cost to Society.
$earch
engine$
I want to
remind the operators of Search Engines that while they are protected
under new U.S. Law, they too can be held liable outside the U.S. The
search query results are subject to 2 sets of laws: the place of
Origin, and the place of Destination. Their Listings are downright
illegal in some Jurisdictions. The longer the Search Engines refuse
to cooperate, the larger the potential damage award, the more likely
that some Lawyers start to see the Money earning potential of taking
Cases pro-bona. It’s just a matter of time,... duhh... money.
Demand the
enactment and enforcement of just laws, or continue to enjoy life in
a Gangsters Paradise.
Update:
Just a few days after I published this article the New York Times published the following article on the subject.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/business/mugged-by-a-mug-shot-online.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&
For all appearances it looks like the Search Engines, like Google and on-line payment services like Paypal and some of the major Credit Card Companies are working to tackle this issue.
More
information on this issue can be found in the following Blogs:
P.S. Note that
I post under my real name. I may
some day publish my side of the story, which has never been told.
