Slashdot Mirror
German Killers Sue Wikipedia To Remove Their Names
Jason Levine writes "Wolfgang Werlé and Manfred Lauber killed a German actor in 1990. Now that they are out of prison, German law states that they can't be referred to by name in relation to the killings. Therefore, they have sued to get Wikipedia to remove their names from the Wikipedia article about the killings. The German edition of Wikipedia has already complied, but the English edition is citing US freedom of speech and a lack of presence in Germany as reasons why they don't need to remove the name. In a bit of irony, their lawyer e-mailed the NY Times: 'In the spirit of this discussion, I trust that you will not mention my clients' names in your article.'"
You just referenced their names in relation to the killings.
So if this is the future...where's my jet pack?
That they should sue Slashdot now, too!
How many times must slashdotters tell these people how the World works ?
--
That these guys killed someone and were convicted of it is a recorded, historical fact. No allegations, simple fact.
Are we not allowed to state simple facts now?
There is nothing ironic about that whatsover. What would be ironic is if the NY Times didn't mention their names.
Why do people keep calling things ironic when it is not? People who do this just sound stupid.
Here's a clue: look up the word irony or don't use the word.
It's the same story all over again. Once the information is out, there's no way to lock it down again, at least, not without severely affecting our modern means of conveying information, and even that seems unthinkable. Essentially, it's impossible, no matter how many laws you make. Iranian dissenters can find proxies over the internet, samizdat dissemination in Soviet Russia; it's everywhere. The technology for instant everpresent information can't be unlearned. We've spent many centuries perfecting it since Gutenberg's printing press.
Our society would do well to simply accept the present state of instant and everpresent information instead of trying to suppress it.
And THIS is why the Internet needs to remain under United States control. Out imperfections notwithstanding, the United States is one of the only countries that can be trusted to understand what Freedom of Speech means. (Not that there aren't certain elements that try and water it down, but at least it's codified at the strongest level of law).
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Just so that we don't forget the names of Wolfgang Werlé & Manfred Lauber, convicted killers. I would like to mention that the names of the killers are Wolfgang Werlé & Manfred Lauber. If they, Wolfgang Werlé & Manfred Lauber, don't like it they (Wolfgang Werlé & Manfred Lauber ) can sue me.
Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
Shouldn't you respect a countries laws weather you agree with them or not, LOL yeah right when's the last time 23 Italian agents were convicted in the US and not handed over.
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
Less Hasselhoff, more Streisand.
1. make an article about each of them.
-do not mention the murders
-mention everything else about their life
-like the fact that they sued wikipedia
-mention the fact that you cant talk about what they did thanks to german law
-link to the german law involved
2. make an article about the murders.
-mention that the killers got out of prison
-mention what year they got out
-mention everything about them except their names
-you could even make up fake names, like 'Famous Actor Case Convict X' and 'Famous Actor Case Convict Y',
in other words.... you push that law right up to the point where it is about to break. but you dont beak it. smart readers can fill in the blanks, and most readers ae smart
Yes the killers are also Wiki admins.
Wolfgang Werlé and Manfred Lauber are killers. Nothing can whitewash that.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
They did get out of prison, but both where sentenced to life, so lets wait until they have completed there sentence, and then remove there names from Wikipedia. (but only if they ask nicely).
I'm sure a lot of people are going to come out against the position of Germany's culture on this, citing freedom of speech. Freedom of speech, in the United States at least, is not given to citizens so that they can harm other people's reputations or hold them accountable for their actions. It is there so that actions by the government can be openly criticized and constructive dialog be established between (and amongst) citizens and the government, without fear of reprisal. It is there for the betterment of everyone. If there is no benefit to society, no protection is granted.
These people have served their sentences. They have been punished according to the law of their land, and then released. In this country, a person's criminal record haunts them for life -- denying them jobs, restricting their freedoms, and in some cases leading to a greatly diminished quality of life such that they are forced into criminal enterprise in order to meet basic needs. But in Germany, these laws are crafted so that people can have a chance at a normal life again--A chance at redemption. It is recognized that people make mistakes, but these mistakes shouldn't haunt them for the rest of their lives. The government has stepped in to ensure that any adult citizen that has their freedom also has the same chances as the next.
As far as the internet -- do we really want it to be a tool that enables a person's past mistakes to haunt them forever? That any personal information, once released into it, somehow becomes public property? Those naked photos your boyfriend took of you when you thought you'd be with him forever -- are those public property once he breaks up with you and posts them online? How about the records of your divorce, or the reasons why you were fired? What about that one night when your best friend tried to walk out of the bar drunk, and you stole the car keys and the two of you got into a big fight and the police were called? You want the whole world to know about these things? Or--was it just a mistake and once amends have been made then that's the end of it?
Just because the information is out there doesn't mean it should be. Information doesn't have rights -- people do.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
It states:
The question of excising names from archives has not yet been resolved by the German courts, he said.
There is no such concept as precedence in the German law. Every judge and every court is free to decide based solely on the current law and the merits of the case. There is something called prevailing opinion, but this is not obligatory, it is rather used as a shortcut by judges to reach a decision.
Only decisions by the highest courts (BVG = Federal Constitutional Court and BGH = Federal Court of Justice) are binding.
Do you really believe that? It's easy for the United States to be all indignant when it comes to German killers. But what do you think will happen when, say, the RIAA/MPAA lobbies to have domain names such as thepiratebay.org preemptively revoked?
Germany need to have a say in how DNS is run, as does the United States, England, France, Russia, China, and all the other nations of the world. Does Germany want x blocked or removed? Too damn bad, Swaziland vetoed them. Does the U.S. want that pesky torrent tracker site blown away? Too damn bad, Antigua says it stays. Everybody wins.
Having one nation in control of who gets to have a voice sucks, no matter which nation it is or how much they profess to love freedom of speech (while simultaneously making it harder and harder to enjoy that "freedom").
At first I assumed it was a unwitting Straisand effect case, but after RTFA I now believe they just want money from the Wikimedia Foundation, and aren't really concerned with the publicity
No, Slashdot references that "James Levine" references that those people killed a German actor.....
In the spirit of this discussion, I trust that you will not mention my clients' names in your article.
maybe time to register:
wolfgangwerleandmanfredlaubermurderedayoungactorin1990.com
Curious if you could register the .de counterpart.
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
... and what are you going to do if I don't??? Oh wait ... never mind.
Don't mention the war!
Those who fail to reckon with the Streisand effect are doomed to invoke it.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
I found the line:
In the spirit of this discussion, I trust that you will not mention my clients' names in your article
reminiscent of the "of course, you'll have the decency not to mention this to anyone..." line in Blazing Saddles. Which, of course, had Germans as well. And Lilli von Schtup; which is what just happened to his clients.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
If they had received what they deserved for their crime then this whole argument would be irrelevant.
I propose we rename the Streisand effect after them.
if these two gents just changed their names?
Preferably not to 'Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart' and 'Manfred Mann', though.
Your post is a good example of why that German law was passed in the first place.
It's in the title, and it will now likely be in the title of every reply. I think it's interesting that a nation with Germany's history would still think it's a good idea to control its citizens in such a way.
Women are like electronics: you don't know how damaged they are until you try to turn them on.
So basically in Germany, if I really really dislike someone, I can say "hmmm for a mere 20 years of my life I can take X amount of years of theirs, after giving them a gruesome and painful death". Seems like stupid logic to people who have a lot to live for, but for people that don't... I'm sure these two are giving each other high fives and declaring themselves the winner.
And this isn't the difference between "murder" and "accidental killing" here, they murdered this guy, and it was a hate crime. The victim was a gay actor. They then mutilated his body.
You know, I admit I am biased. I don't like murderers like Wolfgang Werlé and Manfred Lauber, because their victims have no recourse, ever again. And while I do believe that some of them can change and not be a threat to other people again, that doesn't mean that the past didn't happen. Forgiveness yes, whitewash the past, fuck no!
Murderers should very well learn to live with the consequences of their actions, because their actions have consequences that can never be rectified.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
I find it ridiculous that the crowd who always shouts "information wants to be free" when a musician or writer is trying to make a buck off of his work suddenly goes overboard in defending 2 guys who murdered an actor for being gay.
Maybe nobody feels "sorry" for child molesters, but I've thought for years it was at least stupid for the U.S. to make their current addresses public be decree. Newspapers have reported on many who fail to maintain addresses on record because nobody will rent to them and they end up wandering homeless from town to town and state to state. Sort of defeats the purpose. But Germany prohibiting the media from besmirching the good name of out-of-prison murderers? Can't we find a happy middle ground here?
American law has always displayed cowardice in declaring where jurisdiction exists. Sometimes it is which agency is in control. Sometimes it is in whether city,county,state or federal laws should be in play. And now with all kinds of treaties and formal arrangements with other nations it is almost overwhelming in nature.
A year or so back it was France suing Ebay over the sale of Nazi relics. Now we have Germany fussing about revealing the names of murderers.
And you don't even want to start about porn laws and what one may have on computer in different states within the US.
It's about time for the public to get involved. No nation should have the slightest control over anything published in America and no town, city or state should ever be allowed to declare any publication illegal if it is legal anywhere in the industrialized world.
"German Killers Sue Wikipedia To Remove Their Names, Or Else..."
The _murderer's_ rights aren't violated by people knowing what they did. They should have been executed anyways. But irrelevant of that, non-aggressive people also have the right of freedom of association. I for one choose not to associate with people I consider dangerous.
In a free society, criminals would owe restitution to their victims, and victims would be also entitled to request retribution against the criminal. Then people at large could make their own associative or dis-associative decisions regarding the criminal.
One thing is clear, however. It doesn't violate anyone's rights for other people to know information about them that they've made publicly available through their actions.
Note that I'm not saying I have, per se, the right to know information about other people. That would imply positive obligations on the part of other people. However, no-one has the right to stop the various people at Wikipedia from recording and maintaining an account of history. That is their private property right.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
The victim was Walter Sedlmayr, born in 1926. Where did you get the "young"?
A young man is walking through a small village one day and decides to stop by a bar and have a beer. He walks into a bar, and sees a grizzled old man, crying into his beer. Curious, the young man sits down and says, "Hey old timer, why the long face?"
The old man looks at him and points out the window, "See that dock out there? I built that dock with my own two hands, plank by plank, nail by nail, but do they call me McGregor the dockbuilder? No, no."
The old man continued, "And see that ship out there? I've been fishing these waters for my village for 35 years! But do they call me McGregor the fisherman? No, no."
The old man continued, "And see all the crops in the farms out there? I planted and have been farming those crops for my village for nearly 45 years! But do they call me McGregor the farmer? No, no."
The old man starts to cry again, "But you fuck one goat..."
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The slashdot article says, "German law states that they can't be referred to by name in relation to the killings."
The New York Times article says, "German courts allow the suppression of a criminal’s name in news accounts once he has paid his debt to society, noted Alexander H. Stopp, the lawyer for the two men, who are now out of prison." Note: it says "in news accounts"!
Publishing the names "in news accounts" is different from publishing the names in history articles or other.
But I don't know the laws involved.
Stephan
http://stephan.sugarmotor.org
You screwed your wife. Simple fact. Does everybody have to know about it?
These guys committed a crime. They paid for it. Now they should be able to move on with their lives. Some criminals in the US pay for crimes in a way that they never can get a decent job again. This is not the idea in Germany. Also it is very very difficult in Germany to change your name, unlike in the US.
Yes, I think they either have a right to not have mentioned their full name or
at least get a new name to start over. Such an application for a name change would likely be rejected.
Jimbo Wales is a hypocrite. You cannot, on the one hand, fight against free speech (as he did with the kidnapping of the journalist) but then on the other hand fight for free speech (as he is doing with this German incident.) Speech is either free or it isn't; to cherry-pick moral issues when it suits your interests is the height of hypocrisy.
I smell a logical contradiction here.
Wolfgang Werlé and Manfred Lauber killed a German actor in 1990
My turn: Why not mention their names but not the crime?
These gentlemen were declared perpetrators of a crime a few years ago, hence their sentence for a crime which shall be unspecified, yet the crime DID decrease the population by one, if that detail interests you.
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
Oh great, now they'll sue Slashdot also, and then Slashdot will have no money to fix the damned CSS problems and prevent dupes.
Table-ized A.I.
There could be one serious advantage of everyone's personal dirt being available at all times. Eventually people would have to stop pretending to be so perfect. People make mistakes, and currently as that isn't currently ok with society, everyone spends most of their lives trying to hide those mistakes from everyone else.
I think that's a larger detriment to us personally and to society as a whole than not being able to hide those things. If all of our dirt was public knowledge, we probably would be a bit more understanding.
The television will not be revolutionized.
Enough with the goddamn excuse culture. You want respect, you earn respect. You want a second chance, then PROVE you deserve it first.
These guys killed someone and now they want the world to pretend it has never happened. Does NOT happen.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
If a person committed a crime, was judge for it and completed his sentence then it should be clean, and has the right to have its name not be associated with that crime a public site like Wikipedia
Yes, I know the genie is out of the bottle, no one can control information in internet once it is out, etc, etc.
if a person is guilty forever, no matter if he has completed his sentence, then that means that there is no redemption whatsoever. We can keep people forever in prison.
And if there is no redemption what incentive there is to stop crimes
This is fascinating -- when the United States [frequently] seeks to have its laws apply beyond its borders [extraterritoriality], everyone particularly the EU objects reflexively: "How dare they? We're a separate society."
Now some in the EU think its laws should apply to the US. And not just about this, also other issues. Why should anyone in the US, and particularly elements of the [deservedly] much-abused US government give a rats @$$ for such blatant hypocrisy? Surely no-one denies the US is a distinct society!
Between 1939 and 1945, the nation of G. (*) was responsible for the systematic extermination of an estimated 11-17 million Jews and other minorities.
(*) Name withheld by request of G. to make re-integration of G. into the global community of nations easier.
No I think the idea here is that if you have done the time in jail then you should have the right to a normal life. This is the premise of our entire justice system. I can completely understand that.
I can understand that they want a relatively normal life. Serving time in prison perhaps covers part of their "debt to society" (or punishment or rehabilitation or whatever you choose to call it). Making their victim whole again is the other part. In a property-related crime, some financial restitution is possible, but not entirely in cases of nonlethal injury caused by deliberate violent assault. Adequate restitution to the victim is not at all possible in cases of murder.
So, do they deserve their crime to be swept away and forgotten, granting them a normal life? Answer this instead: is their victim alive again? Both questions get the same answer, in my opinion.
Ask yourself if you were introduced to a person and you found out that they were murderers would you think of them the same way? Probably not and that is the problem and why the German law exists.
It is not a problem at all. The German law is sensible for many classes of crime (larceny, drunk driving, fraud, bigamy, and so forth). It would arguably make sense for cases of accidental manslaughter in which the perpetrator's intent was not violent. It is utterly repugnant when applied to a crime of deliberate violence which resulted in death, mutilation, or permanent disabling of a victim.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Walter Sedlmayr was 64 years old when he was killed.
I think you mean wolfgangwerleandmanfredlaubermurderedanoldactorin1990.com
It's a play on a meme concerning Glenn Beck. Here is some back story to it if you're really interested. The most recent episode of South Park (Which you can legally stream online here if you're interested.) does a spoof of is as well.
that isn't something you want to come to light later on when said person goes on an office rampage.
That is exactly WHY German law prevents the public availability of the fact that they murdered someone. What you are proposing is punishing them for their entire lives, even if they are better people now and wouldn't do the crime again.
Having served their sentence, they should be given a second chance to prove their integrity, and their value to society, by holding a decent job and earning a decent living. If they are ready to turn over a new leaf, attitudes like yours will prevent them from ever doing so.
What I am really saying is...you will FORCE them back into a life of crime by DEPRIVING them of the chance to earn a living legally, and you will do this out of fear of who they used to be (rather than who they have become). German law is trying to protect them from people like you.
Yes, I know they killed someone. But they also served their sentence and now they should be given a second chance, whether YOU want to give them one or not.
People need to think deeper than just the inherited customs and traditions they were born into. Otherwise, we do not have much hope of progressing as a species. (No, I don't have a positive outlook on our future... and NO, we have not progressed in tens of thousands of years-- take a modern baby and raise them in a "primitive" time and they'd come out no different; no less violent, no less potentially intelligent.)
Prison is a matter of necessity in SOME cases-- its purpose is to prevent the anti-social members of society from breaking the rules of society. Even primitive pack animals will expel (or kill) a member who is too damaging to the group structure.
Prison as a punishment is NOT necessary. Unfortunately, social science has not gotten far enough to undo popular cultural BELIEFS... yet. Christian based religions are culturally biased against their own teachings. So one can't expect much change anytime soon.
Wiping history of the names of criminals is quite foolish for academic and government needs; however, it does make sense to do so for the general populace. People are unfair, judgmental, and quite quite irrational so for a "cured" criminal or "payed up" criminal the knowledge continues to plague them for probably the rest of their lives. A good argument can be made for keeping the general public unaware and having some compassion for the criminal (something americans do not understand; I've likely lost most of them already.)
Sure, one could say that a pervert needs to be known... but if they are treated as the mental cases that they are; they will NOT get out of the system until they are actually treated - not some meaningless time period in a cage! Its SICK how we use terms like corrections and reformed in a culture that doesn't believe in it. We make it economic-- you PAY your debt to society with time and/or money; like it was a trade. It is not.
Errors always happen; its human run. If you want to start harming former criminals simply for the sake of potential future crimes you are entering a line of reasoning that easily can be extended into lots of unpleasant areas (and already is.) The reason we have free speech that is near absolute is because splitting hairs always ends up being abused. Therefore, the right to be reformed (ignoring that the public doesn't believe in reform - "can't teach an old dog new tricks") comes into conflict with the right to free speech. Something for some judges to weigh in on time to time...
I have no direct experience with the system, I know people who have: Childish behavior labeled as adult; mental cases labeled as criminal; untreated pedophiles let free or not even convicted...to repeat it! (as an illness, its much easier to be diagnosed than it is to be convicted. false positives are also not as harmful...)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
I was thinking along the same lines. Not that I'm trying to evoke Godwin's Law, but would it be illegal to refer to Hitler by name in relation to the murder of millions of people? How about Himmler, Goebbels, or the rest of that lot?
Seems to me that it would be much easier and cheaper for the courts to grant them a new name and new identity at the time of their release.
This would prevent the need for altering historical facts while simultaneously allowing the courts to control the connection between their former criminal past and their new reformed future.
Not at all. The law being discussed exists to protect the identity of Germany's many ex-Nazis. The Holocaust denial law seeks to prevent a repeat of their mistakes.
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Mussolini
They sound like a law firm.
Do this.
I'm sure a lot of people will agree with what you say, but that doesn't necessarily make it right. If we knew the solution for crime, crime wouldn't exist. What you are presenting are philosophical arguments mostly, without any objective studies showing they are effective.
Many people would say that a murder is never "paid up", so the criminal should never be forgotten. After all, if he did commit a murder once, what is to guarantee he will never do so again? Who can say the criminal is ever "cured"?
There's nothing irrational or unfair about people wanting protection from criminals. As long as no one can be sure that the criminal will not commit other crimes, and as long as recidivism among "cured" criminals is so high, we, the honest people, have the right to know who are the people most likely to commit crimes against us.
I don't see it that way, I don't worry about retribution, I don't think crimes like murders can ever be "paid", no matter what is done to the criminal. It's preventing further crimes I'm worried about.
Sure, jail isn't perfect, but it's an effective way to keep criminals isolated until they learn how stupid it is to be a criminal. You can argue that it's inhuman, but if someone must suffer, let the criminals suffer, not the innocent who are outside.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/US_incarceration_timeline-clean.svg
Sometimes - even if you kill someone - society must eventually forgive you to some degree. Or you get the linked graph. I understand why someone related to the victim might not want to forgive a criminal, but US society as a whole needs to do a better job. Some of the replies in this thread are just disturbing. If you think you're justified in simply hating everyone who has served time, you're wrong. Just wrong.
If Wolfgang Werlé and Manfred Lauber killed a German actor in 1990, and the court system involves sees fit to let them out of prison now, I can accept that. I think serving less than twenty years for a planned murder is too little, but I am not German. But because I am not German, I can also mention that Wolfgang Werlé and Manfred Lauber killed a German actor in 1990, all I want. Wolfgang Werlé and Manfred Lauber killed a German actor in 1990. At least we are free to state solid facts in the US, like that Wolfgang Werlé and Manfred Lauber killed a German actor in 1990. Laws that prevent Germans from saying that Wolfgang Werlé and Manfred Lauber killed a German actor in 1990, and those that prevent many images related to the Holocaust and Nazism, make me wonder if Germany is turning a blind eye to history and may be condemned to repeat it.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
No, blatantly misrepresenting the concept of freedom of speech in the US, arguing for censorship of the information in the US on the basis of German laws, and making an extremely dishonest comparison between the release of private information like pictures of yourself naked and public information like that you fucking murdered someone is flamebait. The only thing sad here is that you think you actually have a proper argument.
That story/joke sums it up quite well: When you do things right, no one remembers... do things wrong, no one forgets.
Most people are not enlightened enough to make the distinction between "did a bad thing" and "is a bad person", and give em a chance to get on with their lives. Sturgeon's Law applies to the human race, also.
"I am the law."
Why is common sense called that if it's not common?
Wolfgang Werlé and Manfred Lauber killed an actor
Wolfgang Werlé and Manfred Lauber killed an actor
Wolfgang Werlé and Manfred Lauber killed an actor
Wolfgang Werlé and Manfred Lauber killed an actor
Wolfgang Werlé and Manfred Lauber killed an actor
Wolfgang Werlé and Manfred Lauber killed an actor
Wolfgang Werlé and Manfred Lauber killed an actor
Sue away gurmans! Sue away!
You do understand the difference between the actions of a few nutcases and the actions of a government, right?
Of course Germany's law don't apply in the USA but there are many agreements between developed countries. Eg WTO agreements
http://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/final_e.htm
The IP one:
http://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/27-trips.pdf
I wonder if some of these agreements oblige the USA to cooperate with Germany's laws. Having the entry on the English Wikipedia site is of course visible in Germany.
I think we know how this one's going to turn out for our convicted murderers, [redacted] and [redacted].
It's _because_ of Germany's history. In their desire to "move past" the horrors of the past, they're willing to let some people who committed truly horrific crimes go back to a private life after their jail terms, rather than continue reminding people of the events. This actually makes more sense considering the more recent history of East Germany and the Stasi than of World War I and World War II: there are a lot of people who were under incredible social and political and even economic pressure in East Germany who committed vile acts, and Germany as a whole wants to "get over it".
I personally think this is foolish: forgetting what cruelties ordinary people can do helps permit them to occur again. (Witness the American prison camps of the Japanese-Americans, and Guantanamo Bay's imprisonment of people without trial or notice to the world of their alleged crimes, and the continuing use of torture by the USA against "terrorists".)
That's because we don't think letting everyone do everything is the solution to all problems.
You know, we've become fairly peaceful after the war - I still remember the debates when we were pressured into joining the UN forces in the Kosovo and many people considered the idea of deploying German soldiers in foreign countries at least highly controversial. I think that might in part be due to the basic right to human dignity being the very first article in our Basic Law and the foundation on which this country was built.
And that's the very point here: Even though these people murdered someone they have an inviolable right to dignity. Naming them would violate their dignity in a fairly obvious manner. Thus they are not to be named.
You're free to disagree but that's what this country was built upon. We're past "an eye for an eye".
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Suck it, Germany!
Their victims ARE dead, not were dead or have been dead.
********************
I object to Intellect without Discipline.
Which is why I (a German, for the record) don't expect the lawsuit over the English article to go anywhere. Yes, they're overstepping their bounds by doing anything but asking. I do endorse their removal from the German Wikipedia but the English one is out of their reach.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
How something like about this:
#!/usr/bin/perl
($murderer1, $murderer2) = ('Wolfgang Werlé' , 'Manfred Lauber');
($guy1, $guy2) = (\$murderer1, \$murderer2);
print WIKIPEDIA "$guy1 and $guy2 killed a German actor in 1990";
As has been said to me before, "You do good, and nobody remembers. You do bad, and nobody forgets." It all comes down to the face that we are expected by civilized society to act... Well... civil. Being a good citizen and a decent person is to be expected, but anything outside of that norm puts a stamp on you for all eternity.
"Would you like to know more?..."
You're not paranoid if they really ARE out to get you...
The American defenition of justice seems very much focussed on the victims, and the facilitation of revenge. The decision to try the September 11 suspects in New York as as good an illustration of this as any. How will those men get a fair trial? Frankly, I don't think anyone cares about being fair to these men - it's all about retribution. Why else would you push hard for the death penalty?
In other countries, we have respect for EVERY life, not just the lives of those that we consider to be somehow pure, because they've not broken one law or another. The ending of a human life by another human is always wrong. It doesn't matter whether the person being killed has themselves murdered throusands of others. No human has the right to end the life of another. Life is valuable - even the life of a convicted murderer.
The German justice system sentenced these men, and when it was ready it released them. They have served their time, and are now free men. If justice is really to be served, these men cannot continued to be punished once their legal system has determined that they should go free. That would amount to indefinite punishment, and the effective ending of these mens' lives.
I don't agree with this law, but I understand why it exists, and I respect these mens' right to pursue protection under it. If the German people disagree with this law, it will be changed by their parliament - until then, we must respect it. By making the names of these men publicly available to people in Germany, you are breaking German law. If someone breaks a US law while outside the US, you'll damn sure pursue extradition so that they can be tried under your justice system. This co-operation cannot be one-way.
It doesn't matter if they served enough time in prison. The truly important problem here is Germany's ridiculous attempt to limit the distribution of factual information with the law.
Germany has a long history of censorship. You can't disparage the president or state, sell pornographic writings, be a nazi, show a nazi symbol, insult someone if it steps over the magical line of insulting human dignity, etc. The very state of Germany's overreaching laws regarding speech insults human dignity.
Putting loopholes and narrowly-targeted restrictions in the constitution (find a translation of: Grundgesetz für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland) from the start is a sure-fire way to end up with this completely ridiculous legal result.
If stabbing somebody's kidneys and throat, then smashing the head with a hammer doesn't make you a bad person, then what does?
Fucking murderers, goddamn bullies!!I I hope they get mentioned all the time so as to experience hell on earth and not be able to live a normal life and everyone will know their crimes and they will eventually commit suicide so as to truly pay for their crimes. May all the bullies and the murderers that they become be condemned to be outcast and so die by their own hand from complete and utter shame. A remorseless and utterly deserved disconnection from society with their timely and unremembered deaths as a complete solution to their irresponsibility.
You really think two individuals and their lawyer are acting on behalf of the German Government?
Or you can't see the difference between a government entity seeking to have its domestic laws applied to a foreign jurisdiction, and some random non-government representatives trying the same?
He is always young, never gets old :P
Yes, you could.
Oh, oh...
Someone please send an email to Reporters Without Borders. They made a mistake... Because US respects freedom of speech and press. They ranked US at the 20th position of 2009 and Germany at 18th...
Hahahaha... Yea baby Freedom of Speech ... not in the US though!
This has been modded insightful?
Not only did I piss myself laughing, I am now wondering just how many goat fuckers there really are out there!
Seriously though, this classic joke makes an eloquent point here that so many miss - passing judgement is how you expect others to judge you, if one does not know the full story, one cannot reasonably expect justice for themselves, as others cannot know your full story either. In a lifetime of many decisions, at different times the decisions may appear polarised, if you haven't been in this situation, you are either a saint or have haven't really learned much in the time you have had so far..
*Sarcastic clap*
*clap*
*clap*
Fag.
Actually, no. They story shows the finality of the action. If you murder, you will always be a murderer because there is no way to undo it. If you build a dock, it does not necessarily mean you are a dockbuilder. I've done some plumbing and in no way am I a plumber, and I was nowhere near that goat.
That McGregor! Why didn't ye say so? What's with all the "dockbuilding, fisherman, farmer" talk? How is that old goat fucker?
It would only be fair if the person that they murdered gets to pretend that it never happened too.
the distinction between "did a bad thing" and "is a bad person"
There is no distinction. By definition bad people do bad things, and bad things are done by bad people. You cannot separate the two concepts, because they are one.
Good people can not do bad things, because doing so would make them bad, and thus no longer good. Bad people can do good things, but that doesn't absolve them of past bad deeds. History is immutable.
If you happen to commit one murder, and the penalty is the same as for 100 murders, you would be correct in finding it logically desirable to kill every potential witness and their family for good measure, instead of stopping at one victim.
for a longtime. They have obviously never heard of the Streisand Effect.
(Does it really need a link here? Oh alright then. knock yourself out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect )
I live here and they have managed to reach out to me over the intraweb. I would never have thought of clicking the "english" button on that German wikipedia page either.
I know nothing-NOTHING!
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogan's_heroes
Posts, MyBio or Sig, may contain satire, sarcasm, bolded nouns be sardonic or even witty & be Church of SD
And here in the good old US of A if you are an 18 year old that gets caught having sex with his 16 year old girlfriend, not only will you do some prison time, but your name will appear on the publicly available sex offender website for the rest of your life.
"A witty saying proves nothing." -- Voltaire
Not to mention your quote is only tangentially relevant to the slightest bit of my post; you've basically ignored everything. Are you openly trolling now, or are you just incapable of forming a logical argument and thus have fallen back on throwing random quotes and hoping nobody notices you're not really making any sense?
We have a saying in the Jewish community specifically about German crimes committed in the past: "Never Forget."
Wouldn't changing their names be more effective? I guess it's more fun to sue someone.
The facts are, that two guys murdered someone, they went to jail, they got their punishment. Now after jail they are free men again. And therefor they should be treated as such. People do not want to have pictures of themselves with pants down on the Internet. For good reasons. And for the same reasons the information that you killed someone should not be posted on the net. This would opens a door to discrimination. That they did it, is part of their privacy. And in certain contexts (e.g. working for the state) they have to provide a "certificate of conduct".
Careful, they might just kill you, since they're killers and all. They being Wolfgang Werlé & Manfred Lauber.
I am lost with this debate - Since I am not writing this in Germany, I break no law by mentioning their name as murderers.
If you are in Germany, only write their names if you are willing to break the law, and potentially pay the consequences.
What is so hard to understand?
Get your nose examined. Really there is a big difference between these two things. Why do you want to put them on the pillory for a crime their already got their punishment. And we as a society should not try to indulge us in vengeance.
you can't sympathize with hitler or you go to jail. can we not have freedom of expression now?
the distinction between "did a bad thing" and "is a bad person"
There is no distinction. By definition bad people do bad things, and bad things are done by bad people. You cannot separate the two concepts, because they are one.
Good people can not do bad things, because doing so would make them bad, and thus no longer good. Bad people can do good things, but that doesn't absolve them of past bad deeds. History is immutable.
If this is true, then the concepts of "good" and "bad" people are meaningless, since there are no good people.
The nation to which you refer is either the U.K. or Great Britain. England is not a nation. Call certain people from Northern Ireland, Wales or Scotland "English" in person and you'll be nursing a bloody nose.
In the US convicted child molesters (among other "sex offenders") are put on a list of names available to anyone so that parents can be warned that sex offenders live in the neighborhood. Given that precedent there is no chance they can prevail in US courts about a murder conviction. No lawyer should have even taken the case.
No he does not. And obviously he does also not understand that there is a difference between, applying US copyright and patent law to the rest of the world and the right to be not discriminated for past crimes. They have been punished, they are free men again. To put them in the pillory for the rest of their lives is not right.
Adolf Hitler killed 6 million Jews.
If they, Wolfgang Werlé & Manfred Lauber, don't like it they (Wolfgang Werlé & Manfred Lauber ) can sue me.
... or kill you.
Incidentally, do you also know the name of their victim?
What difference? The govt ususually are wor _wort_ nutcases!
If you consider a government somehow "greater" [justified, moral] than individuals, you have therby circumstribed and limited freedom to some "allowed" territory.
And that's the very point here: Even though these people murdered someone they have an inviolable right to dignity. Naming them would violate their dignity in a fairly obvious manner. Thus they are not to be named.
Germany, where you don't have an inviolable right to your own life, but your killers have an inviolable right to their dignity.
Leave it to a German to want to re-write history. You can't ignore what happened by simply not mentioning it. The murder is a fact.
They really got off pretty light with such a short sentence. Does that mean one of the victim's relatives could murder one of these clowns and get the same sentence? If so, go for it!
once sentence done, change identity to avoid wikipedia article
this only makes them more vulnerable, and they are now stigmatized as mean suckers even after their sentence
Net result:
Lawyer (true ass) has screwed their life even more. Poor chaps!
Then your an idiot because that has nothing to do with the point.
There is a difference between a German citizen trying to get something removed from a US based internet site and the German Government doing so.
It's got nothing to do with "for the people and by the people". It's got to do with the fact that free people are allowed to things that their government's disagree with. So holding a government accountable for such actions is retarded.
You have it completely backwards.
If a government does something, then yes you can hold the people (let's ignore dictatorships and so on) accountable - since they elected them.
But if an individual person does something, you can't hold the government accountable - you are allowed to dissent in a free country after all.
Or are you arguing for a system in which the people can only do and say things pre-approved by the government?
Wolfgang Werlé and Manfred Lauber killed a German actor in 1990. Wolfgang Werlé and Manfred Lauber killed a German actor. Wolfgang Werlé and Manfred Lauber
maybe time to register:
wolfgangwerleandmanfredlaubermurderedayoungactorin1990.com
Curious if you could register the .de counterpart.
Can you imagine how long that would be in German?
INCONCEIVABLE! (Yes, that word does mean what I think it means.)
Ahh - My eye!
The doctor said I'm not supposed to get Slashdot in it!
I am not a german lawyer (IANAGL). But essentially the law is saying you can't make new publications refering to the names of the released prisoners after they are released. But it was OK to publish this when they were in jail or being prosecuted.
Therefore every publication published before they were released were legally able to publish their names and assuming that there is no requirement to destroy said publication, which would be very Orwellian, then all the information can stay out there in libraries etc.
Obviously everything outside of germany doesn't have to comply, but the german wikipedia can just show a static locked version of the offending page from before the two murderers were released, as it is then not a new publication.
I suspect there is a great deal of private German support (or even clandestinely within their govt) for the suit. Such as do are responsible.
It may be in your own best interest to care. The inability to get a steady job is one of the single biggest causes of criminal recidivism in the U.S. If the case could be made to you that you significantly reduce crime by not knowing about criminal records, would you be in favor of that societal change?
Does this mean that the names of all those found guilty at Nuremberg have to be removed from wikipedia? Or does it only apply after a certain date - and not if they were hanged. What a stupid law - an pure example of lets protect the murderer (whether or not they have "served their time" they are still murderers).
dnuof eruc rof aixelsid
So you are declaring europeans hypocritical because 3 individuals did something that other europeans have complained about others doing in the past?
Because you have some suspicions about the thoughts of others?
OK then.
So, without something like Wikipedia, do you have to go out and burn old newspapers - or perhaps excise the names from old copies of the papers?
It seems insane to think that one would have to go backwards and remove past references to the crimes, the trial, the conviction, the sentence etc to comply with the law. Consequently if the Wikipedia reference was created prior to their release, it likewise should not have to be edited unless old newspapers, television broadcasts and the like should have to be destroyed or edited.
It seems crazy to be unable to refer to the fact that someone was convicted of the crime, to me personally. It is a fact. Recorded in newspapers, TV etc. While I disagree with the German law, it is their own right to be stupid in their own country. Applying that elsewhere though would be more insane.
they should be killed on the spot by anyone who meets them. only right thing to do with murderers
They served 15 years, and now they are back on the streets?
/weebit grins
Google Results 1 - 10 of about 21,300 for Wolfgang Werle and Manfred Lauber... and climbing!
Keep up the good work!
Does it require that we go around the world with a black marker redacting their names from all those printed newspapers from before they serve their time? How would you like to make everyone just "forget" as well?
I suppose I understand Germany's position: they did their time, you aren't allowed to punish them more, but just *change their actual names*. It would be *much* easier than trying to put the genie back in the bottle.
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"Murderers should very well learn to live with the consequences of their actions"
And I thought that's what 20 years in prison was for. If you don't intend to let them rehabilitate and reintegrate what is the point of them learning from their mistakes. You might as well just kill them, save them the trouble.
Instant and total #1
They may have served their time, but that doesnt change the fact that they killed someone.
"Now, the question is, should anyone (such as potential employers) be able to Google their names and get a Wikipedia article naming them as murderers as the first hit?"
Yes, actually, welcome to America.
You probably won't enjoy the Freedom of Speech we have here, but we do.
When you let murderers go free, and you protect them, essentially, that is still state sponsored execution of the murder victim. There's no "I didn't kill anyone choice". If you let the murderer walk, and you protect that murderers life, you essentially legalize murder.
This is my sig.
Most Americans have been socialized in a culture of punishment, not rehabilitation
Rehabilitation doesn't work. It's been tried, but, it doesn't work. Once you do some things, walk through certain doors, there's no closing them again.
This is my sig.
Because people like you are stupid?
You kill once, you're a killer. It's patently fucking ridiculous to argue about tenses.
I get that German law considers prison as primarily reformative, and has an affirmative respect for human dignity in its basic law, but I still think this law gets the balancing wrong.
From what I understand the concept of dignity applies as much to the deceased as it does to the living --Klaus Mann in the Mephisto case (http://books.google.com/books?id=sHZfkgxtoZQC&pg=PA301&lpg=PA301&dq=mephisto+case&source=bl&ots=BmWa0DHtk4&sig=n-E3ZqS_0NJ-mTOFr9Etr2L2JTM&hl=en&ei=qZf_SsSQJJHJlAejz4SMCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBQQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=mephisto%20case&f=false)
To command that all references to a victim's killers be scrubbed seems to interfere with the deceased's right to dignity. Denying the holocaust is a crime in Germany because it disrespects the suffering of the victims; this law allows these murderers to deny their own crime.
If Germany wishes to protect their rights to move on, gain employment, and be free from harassment, they can do so by less restrictive means than by commanding that others never mention the past, in public, in too specific a level of detail.
Luckily, you're not smart enough for people to care what you think.
But he meant whole life tariff.
Which the EU absolutely does do.
But you ASSUMED he meant the death penalty, which says a lot about your own ethnocentrism and egotism.
You will, of course, never admit you erred.
This will require that I know who these two crazy fucks are.
I'm completely amazed at how many of you think these murders shouldn't have spent the rest of their lives in jail.
Looks like they got a lot more people to sue now than just Wikipedia. Hope they get good rates from those lawyers.
It's a German court decision, not an international decision. The particulars of the case were obviously looked at and closely examined, and they determined that these guys should be able to live in society again, although they are probably carefully watched by the police, which is fairly typical of anyone that's been released from prison. Blanket, blind decisions simply don't work, they never have. They always lead to corruption and cause more problems than they solve.
The Grauniad in the UK amused me; they didn't mention their names or publish a link to the article, because it's also published in Germany. They did carefully give you all the information you needed to go and look it up on Wikipedia yourself (specifically they gave you the name of the victim).
Yeah, I had a sig once; I got bored of it.
I kill you!
And I thought that's what 20 years in prison was for. If you don't intend to let them rehabilitate and reintegrate what is the point of them learning from their mistakes. You might as well just kill them, save them the trouble.And I thought that's what 20 years in prison was for. If you don't intend to let them rehabilitate and reintegrate what is the point of them learning from their mistakes. You might as well just kill them, save them the trouble.
Wait; so in your opinion, not forgetting one's murderous past is the same as executing them? Your brain must be composed of a single neuron, if you can only think in terms of 0 or 1. Everything or nothing. Basically, you have the intellectual capacity of an amoeba.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Hey! Amoeba can have up to 700billion base pairs in their genetic code while humans only have 3billion. How dare you insinuate they are simple.
But yeah I was being a bit emotionally charged, my bad.
"It's extremely important to preserve freedom of speech, and not to grant the state the right to determine what is or isn't said. A sometimes conflicting right is privacy and protection against verbal or other forms of violence. Once the state is granted the right to prevent speech (writing, songs, etc.) that it claims might precipitate harm, we're on a very dangerous slope. That's why the Supreme Court, in 1969, finally reached the standard of protection of speech that was proposed during the Enlightenment (and I believe may be unique to the US): speech is protected until the point where it is part of imminent criminal acts. So if you and I go into a store to rob it, you have a gun, and I say "shoot," that's not protected speech. How far should it go? Very delicate questions, and my personal feeling is that one should err on the side of restricting state power, as a general rule."
It's a sheep not a goat. Didn't you notice the 'Mc' prefix on the last name?
All these people who think people who have served their time in prison haven't sufferered enough or something, are afraid they are going to commit more crimes, and refuse to treat them as normal people or have anything to do with them, consider this. The most efficient way to make sure these people WILL commit more crimes and become more dangerous to the society and to all of you than they already are, is by denying them the normal life after they have served their sentances. No, by making them lawful citizens again won't bring back the victim(s), but neither will eternal revenge and hatred. What's done is done, punishments have been addressed and served. What more do you want?
Now the ONLY rational thing to do is to try and make sure more won't come along. The best way to make this happen is to make these former criminals be a part of the society again, working, paying taxes and so on. You can't keep them in prison forever, it would be more out of your pocket than releasing them. Make THEM work again, make the contribute. And by giving them work and a normal life in atleast some sense, you give them purpouse, to continue to be productive, maybe even happy, and essentially: OUT of crime. This is the key. If you openly hate them, discriminate them, show in every way that you would rather have them dead than anywhere near you, what's there really to stop them from going back to what they were, what in some way DID give them some purpouse and meaning to life when everything else failed?
You want to make your society more safe and more productive, you make sure these former criminals don't have a reason to do the things they did, again. By denying them any right to have their lives back and treating them like garbage, you make SURE they won't be doing it, and as a side effect, they might take another life for that. It's your choice too. They did their time. No number or your bitterness will bring anybody back from the dead. It'll just cost you.
The accused were sentenced to life in prison and were later released on parole. Glad to see the US and Germany have something in common.
I know this is off-topic, but this page on Slashdot is loading very slowly using either Firefox 3.5 or IE8. It appears to have something to do with JavaScript. Firefox indicated this as it kept asking me to continue loading scripts. And IE8 switched me into compatibility mode -- something I've never seen occur on any other site I visit (and I visit many, many sites).
What's going on?
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
but redemption should be considered on an individual basis, not a societal basis
in other words, i'm will to give these guys a chance to be considered redeemed, but i'd like to be the one giving that redemption on my own terms, not on society's terms, if i ever interact with these guys
therefore, i'd like to know their past. having that knowledge does not mean i will automatically condemn them forever. i know it was a long time ago, and i am willing to give them fresh consideration. but i'd like to be the one doing that
so why does the german law assume german citizens are eternally condemning? why doesn't the german law assume that german citizens are open-minded and fair-minded and able to consider redemption on their own basis?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Wait; so in your opinion, not forgetting one's murderous past is the same as executing them?
In my opinion, a life sentence and a death sentence are the same, the question is just how long they are behind bars before they die. And anything that follows them around the rest of their life is a life sentence. You don't give them a chance to reintegrate, so why bother releasing them? Either keep them behind bars until dead, or let them out and give them a fighting chance. Letting them out and having them restricted from actually re-entering society is worse for society than keeping them locked up. As for what they'd prefer, if you cared, you would have given them a clean slate to start from, so we know that part doesn't matter.
Learn to love Alaska
"WERE killers"
I'm not sure they were in wolf form at the time, though.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
Wikipedia has blocked editing of a sex offender because he was given name suppression in New Zealand.
This was removed from the page:
Career Controversy
In March 2009, Peter Wadams was involved in a late night incident following a concert in Wellington. Two young women asked to kiss his cheek and Wadams led them up an alleyway, pulled out his penis, and told them to "kiss my balls". The court heard that Wadams grabbed the victim's head and forced it down to his crotch. The victim felt Wadams' penis on her cheek and moved her head to stop it entering her mouth.
You went to school twenty years ago? Then you're still a pupil, appearantly.
Wow, I didn't expect this. You're proving to be a person with quite a bit of self-confidence. Good for you! I take back what I said about you (and the amoeba).
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
+5, Insightful.
Cory Doctorow talking about cloud computing makes as much sense as George W Bush talking about electrical engineering.
wow, you're too stupid to exist. please kill yourself.
Erm, by that legal logic, Hitler shouldn't be mentioned by name when talking about the holocaust either, considering he endured his punishment (DEATH). What kind of retarded law is that!
> Now that they are out of prison, German law states that they
> can't be referred to by name in relation to the killings.
Great. I find new reasons to be worried about Germany every year.
We are talking about historical facts here, and the censorship thereof. That's *scary*.
On a related note, Germany also still restricts political speech. Apparently in the last hundred years of history they have learned... nothing. Germany tops my list of "most likely countries to cause World War III", not because there aren't plenty of other governments this retarded, but because the others are all located in third-world countries. Germany is a major western post-industrial economic powerhouse, and that makes their backwardness on this issue (freedom of political speech) very dangerous.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Nice touch by John Schwartz, the NYT reporter, and his editors. Notice how after being specifically asked not to name the perps he went ahead and made them the lead? Now they are the first lines of a story in a major paper of record and will even appear in the abstract of the article, and every archive search to come!
I'll tell you what the 'effect' is! It's pissing me off!
"The word "buried" must have made me biased. I think you might have a reading comprehension problem."
SO, keeping them in prison until they die of old age won't result in them being buried?
Oh, it will, And that's what a whole life tariff is.
God, you must be so embarrassed being wrong twice AND calling someone out for thier reading comprehension when it was your own lack of intelligence that caused you to say something stupid in the first place.
Your apology is accepted in advance.
I really do enjoy these moments, when an asshole like you gets shut the fuck up after shooting off his dicksucker, it's very satisfying to know not only that I'm right, but that you're completely wrong, and better yet, KNOW YOU ARE WRONG, hence your pathetic attempts to flame me.
I love owning you.
"Says the person without a +1 karma bonus..."
Says the person without intelligent input...
Did nobody think to tell them that attempting to sue Wikipedia to remove their names was likely to plaster their names over the entire interwebs?