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Japanese Court Demands 'Right To Be Forgotten' For Sex Offender (thestack.com)
An anonymous reader writes: A Tokyo court has ordered that Google remove any results linked to the arrest of a sex offender, after a judge ruled that he deserves to rebuild his life 'unhindered' by online records of his criminal history. Citing the right to be forgotten, the Saitma district court demanded the removal of all personal information online related to the conviction. Judge Hisaki Kobayashi argued that, dependent on the nature of the crime, an individual should be able to go through a fair rehabilitation process, which would include a clean sheet on their online records after a certain amount of time has passed. In this case, the unnamed man had requested that information from more than three years ago, related to his child prostitution and pornography crimes, be removed from Google's results.
Do the crime, do the time, that should be the end of it.
The West's obsession with adding people to lists, especially "sex offender registries" which make it nearly impossible to live in any city environment, really amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. If you're still supposedly a threat to society then you should still be in jail. If you're OK to be released from jail then you've paid your dues to society and you should regain all of your rights.
I didn't miss it at all. I fully appreciate that people who have been exposed to public attention, right or wrong, desire and even should expect a right to rebuild their life. Barbara Streisand similarly should expect privacy and not have her address (home) posted for all the world to see. However, what her predicament showed us is that suing to keep something private backfires. It's exactly analogous to this alleged sex offender's plight.
It is always depends on which point of view you look at this (not even touching the point of contention of free speech). You can see prison as mostly punishment or as rehabilitation. If you see it as rehabilitation, then having the punishment become a matter of public record, hinder the rehabilitation, make the people become paria, unemployable (even for job without children) social outcast - such I am not defending the crime , only the right to rehabilitation once the crime was paid especially socially.
I am for the right to be forgotten anyway : we enjoyed that right until google came up. before that, everybody could simply be forgotten by moving to the next village (exaggerating a bit but without a way to search for news archive this came down to this)...
But i can imagine that some people buying into "information wants to be free" and never lived in the time period pre-google where forgetting was the norm... Can't grasp at the issue. Or don't care.
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visit randi.org
I had no idea who this guy was. Now I do. May I introduce you to the Streisand Effect?
Do you really?
Or did you, in your rush to smugly "introduce" the Streisand Effect (which hardly needs an introudction, as it is practically a meme here), fail to realize that you actually don't know who this guy is.
His name's not mentioned in the summary.
Its not mentioned in the article.
Its not mentioned in the article the article is linked to.
I mean sure, I expect if you put on your detective's hat and went looking for it specifically you would find it, but if you have to use google-fu just to find out that's not really the Streisand effect at all.
If the punishment is not adequate, then increase the punishment. When the punishment is fulfilled, the criminal has paid his dues in full. That's the way justice works. You don't get to pick and choose where and when to apply justice. Either you apply justice consistently or you admit that you believe in inequality.
A quick perusal above shows where people's heads are at on the 'right to be forgotten':
"We enjoyed that right until google came up. before that, everybody could simply be forgotten by moving to the next village"
"Before that, if you wanted to be forgotten, you simply moved and adopted a new name."
No, it was not a 'right' then, as there was nothing in the law to provide it, nor was it considered an unstated right assumed by society.
No, you were not forgotten, rather, new individuals were ignorant.
No, name changes were public record and so too were most criminal complaints – simply not having a trivial way to search them does not equate being inaccessible, and certainly not to being ‘Forgotten’.
Why target google searches alone? Shouldn’t someone need to go through the police records, newspaper archives (and any microfiche for places still using that at the time of the offense), magazines, comedians routines, and song lyrics (if the crime was public enough) - and any recordings thereof – to eliminate the references? As per 1984, you’re going to need a whole department working 24/7 to censor or rewrite all the data there ever was if you’re really pushing for ‘forgotten’ status.
Really though, this isn’t about a right. It’s about restriction of rights. What advocates of this restriction are really trying to do is eliminate access by society at large to public records. Since the very nature of public records is that they are publically accessible, they’re instead attacking the ability to search the records, in an attempt to make the data useless. Basically, it’s the same sort of political machinations you see in attempts to do end-runs around laws in US politics today: so called sanctuary cities deciding not to check the residency status of illegal aliens, or requiring state ID to vote to drive away minorities. It’s folks deliberately doing an end-run around the law.
What it really comes down to is this: If we’re not supposed to do something, be it identify someone as an ex-convict or other, then why can we do it through every other channel allowed except for a single one singled out simply because of it’s current popularity and ease of use?
The problem with expunging a particular web page from search is that this web page probably contains other information.
So suppose the document contains the name of the arresting officer - or of the judge who tried the offender - or of the town in which it occurred.
If I want to know whether some particular police officer made a career out of arresting sex offenders - or whether one judge is harsher on sex offenders than others, If I I can't find all of these kinds of records because they are hidden for other reasons then it causes an immense problem for freedom of information.
I might spend a lot of my time and effort in writing something that mentions this person in passing - and because of that, nobody will find my work. That's a clear invasion of my right to free speech.
And as for the victim - it doesn't really lock away the information because other web sites can make registries of past offenders and link to their arrest documents...and finding those registries with Google is still allowed...and should be protected under free speech laws.
So this measure is both oppressive to people unrelated to the case - and ineffective at preventing anyone who is even mildly determined from finding the documents.
-- Steve
www.sjbaker.org
It's no a question of punishment. It's a question of whether potential new victims have the right to be forewarned about people that have demonstrated harmful behavior in the past which they are likely to repeat in the future. The only part open to debate is how likely they are to reoffend, but as long as the probability is non-zero, I believe potential future victims have a right to know. The problem is actually one of classification; everyone from baby rapers to people who had sex with their girlfriend a day before her 18th birthday go on the same list, if if the later guy later married his girlfriend, he is still considered a "sex offender"! We need much more subtle classifications, and people who no longer pose any danger to society should not have to register.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
You're right, as a parent you should also be able to walk in to any home of any neighbor at any time of day and watch them surf the internet as well as check their browsing history. You also should be able to check their bank statements, any other criminal history, as well as have any potential weapons in anyone's home in the nearest square mile registered and available for you to see at any time you feel like it...after all you never know who may be around you...and "as a parent... [your] right to know and to make an informed objection trumps [my] right to anonymity"
Just an extreme example for argument's sake. If the crime is so heinous. either put the offender to death or keep him in jail for life. Don't release him and expect him to be unemployable and not allowed to live anywhere (or to even exist).
The answer to that is that Jorge should not be released.
However "sex offender" registries are not lists of pedophiles or predators, though they do have pedophiles or predators in them. It is a list of people convicted of "sex crimes" which might, or might not, involve children. It also includes kids who are sexting each other, parents who take photos of their kids in the bathtub or some state of undress (this used to be a common thing back in the day) and even people that had to take a piss so bad someplace where there wasn't a bathroom, so they went in the bushes and got caught.
The problem with sex offender registries is that Morons, such as yourself, assume everyone on it is Jorge
A few points.
1. There is such a thing as 'non-exclusive' pedophiles who will in fact 'pop a stiffy' with a suitably attractive 21 year old. In fact, there are quite a few of them. By putting them on the registry, you're drastically reducing the chances that they will find a woman they can be satisfied with and thereby (hopefully) avoid recidivism. Is this a huge concern? Probably not, since there's always the possibility they'd re-offend if they end up having kids of their own. However...
2. Most kids are diddled by people in their immediate family or close friends anyway. Stranger Danger is practically a fabrication, and these lists don't keep the majority of children safe because most children are victimized by people the family already knows - if not it's own members.
3. With 2 in mind, 'If only I had known' is actually part of the problem. The fact is, most children are victimized by relatives or very close friends of the family. Registries not only fail to protect against this threat most of the time, they create a false sense of security for parents and other caretakers. "He's not on the registry, so he must be safe." This effect almost certainly dwarfs the paltry protective effect the registry might otherwise have, given the structural problems with the problem of child molestation itself.
"The only part open to debate is how likely they are to reoffend, but as long as the probability is non-zero, I believe potential future victims have a right to know."
We reject acting on any value of probability of a first offense out of hand on the grounds that it is unknowable within a reasonable doubt. Why do we then accept probability of a second offence?
Can the victims life be rebuilt without the crime?
I have no problem with accountability, and sex offenders should have to live with it for as long as someone wants the pages on the internet.