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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?
They KILLED someone.
I think I would like to know the a potential employee is a murderer, that isn't something you want to come to light later on when said person goes on an office rampage.
Why should anyone treat someone differently just because they have a record of killing someone who argued with them?
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Someone that has murdered someone should not be thought of "in the same way" as someone who has not.
Yeah? Well I think you're overrated too.
In theory right, but in this case you have to weigh the interests. These people committed a crime, did their time and now they are free again. They should be given a chance to reintegrate into society. At least in Germany the idea behind prison is to "better" the person, not just revenge and punishment. And this can be severely hindered if the first thing you find when you look for his name is that he's shot someone. Wikipedia has a tendency to come up as the first hit for any given keyword you might be looking for.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Are you trolling or just brainwashed? This is why the Internet (which is not under US control at the moment) should not be under any single country's control. If it were under US control, you could watch the gambling sites and anything else politically expedient disappear.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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
Yes. That's why they're called facts. If you want a normal life, it's your job to spend the rest of it convincing everyone that you aren't the person you were. Redemption, not revision.
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").
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.
That's a seriously wrong understanding of a "normal life". After they come out of jail, the government has an obligation to treat these people no differently than anybody else. Everybody else (employers, private citizens), however, are under no obligation to forgive and forget.
There is something seriously wrong with you if you think that it is the government's job to revise historical facts for the purpose of tricking me into associating with people I would otherwise not want anything to do with.
This is the premise of our entire justice system.
If rewriting historical facts is a recognized function of the German justice system, then Germany is already careening out of control towards fascism again.
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?
Of course not. They are murderers. They have to live with the consequences of their past actions, just like everybody else.
Your name, address, social security number, bank account balance, credit card transactions, passwords, medical history, and so on are simple facts. Should those who have access to that information be allowed to state those simple facts? In public, on the internet, where anyone and everyone can see it?
This is an issue about freedom of speech versus the right to privacy. The murder is a simple fact, but it's something that happened almost 20 years ago. They have done their time, and are being released back into the world, where they need to try and put together a life again. 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?
This is a tough question. On the one hand, it is a plain and simple fact, that has been widely publicized, so it's fairly hard to put the cat back in the bag. On the other hand, someone who's been in prison for years, and is getting out and trying to re-integrate with society, doesn't need the added burden of everyone who interacts with them treating them with fear and suspicion because of something that happened long ago. Some judicial systems (such as that in the US), focus most on punishment and the deterrent value that supposedly has; others focus on rehabilitation and turning someone back into a productive member of society.
Now, I do favor protecting freedom of speech in this case; you can't suppress the information entirely, so any attempt to is just going to be more harmful than helpful. But I just wanted to point out that just because something is a simple fact, does not mean that it's OK to publish it on the public Internet.
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!
You have a duty to not assume they're still bad people,
Like hell I do. I can assume whatever I care to, with or without your approval.
who are you to judge?
I'm a person with the right to form my opinions according to my own standards. Who are you to order me not to?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The idea, the concept behind crime&punishment, is that you paid your dues after you are released from prison. Especially in the case of murder these people are examined to determine if they're still a threat for humanity. If they are, they don't go free.
If you don't want to give these people a chance to reintegrate into society, why bother releasing them at all?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The American lawyer dealing with this is named Godwin. Surely you get the irony in that, if nothing else.
The American lawyer dealing with this is, in fact, the same Mike Godwin who created Godwin's law.
rage, rage against the dying of the light
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.
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!
I think every single member of society has a right to know the past criminal history of someone they're in any kind of relationship with. This is completely different from saying someone shouldn't be allowed to re-enter society, but the fact that may people have a hard time getting better than a minimum wage job after committing murder isn't something I feel bad about.
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In theory right, but in this case you have to weigh the interests. These people committed a crime, did their time and now they are free again. They should be given a chance to reintegrate into society. At least in Germany the idea behind prison is to "better" the person, not just revenge and punishment. And this can be severely hindered if the first thing you find when you look for his name is that he's shot someone. Wikipedia has a tendency to come up as the first hit for any given keyword you might be looking for.
Most Americans have been socialized in a culture of punishment, not rehabilitation. It is difficult to try to get us to avoid the knee-jerk reaction of "BUT HE NEEDS TO BE PUNISHED!" It's precisely why we imprison so much of our society.
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
Or someone close to you that was killed by someone who was placed in an untenable situation. If you let someone out of prison and then make sure that they can't feed themselves or have anything resembling a life you shouldn't be surprised when they return to the only option left open to them, crime.
This is a cultural difference. In America you value freedom of speech above many other rights, including privacy. In Germany, it is the other way around - Germans value privacy greatly, but do not necessarily think everyone should always be allowed to speak their mind. For example, you can go to jail for denying the holocaust happened... but on the other hand Privacy International acknowledges german privacy safeguards while naming the united states an endemic surveillance society. (source. It seems even Germany is slipping on PI's scales these days...)
They are private facts. The people who hold that information have always been, and will always be, contractually and legally obliged to keep those facts private.
The identity of the murderers isn't just a fact, it's a public fact, part of the public record, established in a public trial.
The main facts remain the same, only the names will be expunged from public access. I would say this is because, once freed, criminals regain a lot of their rights to privacy.
The question is whether government has the right to retroactively rewrite public databases, public records, and public facts. The only possible answer is a resounding "no". Fascist states, dictatorships, and communist states rewrite history; democracies do not.
Oh, you can't just denounce everyone who doesn't share to the your particular viewpoint of an ideal democracy as fascist! Different cultures have different needs. Both viewpoints are trying to achieve an ideal but falling short as realistic governments are bound to.
Anyway, it's not altering history, it's expunging names from the public record to protect people. It's not like they're writing someone else's name into the history books.
This is a tough question.
No, it really isn't
It's just that your particular value system only permits one possible answer, but not everyone shares that system precisely. Disagree if you must, but at the very least you have to agree that in Germany, the german people should be allowed to make their laws as they see fit. Now, American law disagrees with German law. How then do you approach such an international thing as wikipedia? You don't think this is a tough question? The obvious answers all leave a lot to be desired.