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Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Published Article

nytimes.com

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Re: Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Published Article

#131

Post by consp »

djsumdog wrote: post #49

There is a lot of crossover here and the Right to be Forgotten. The EFF opposed EU right to be forgotten laws because they could often be used in censorship (like in this very matter). In the US, there are fewer people who expunge criminal records because there are companies that will produced expunged records in background checks so long as they were public at any time. Banning this gets into 1st amendment grounds.…

Just as an example:

We have that here (Netherlands). You are under no circumstances allowed to not hire someone because of past failures if the statue if limitation has expired or the sentence has been served. There might be restrictions on what you can do after you have served, but it is not up to the company to judge on this. This is one of the reasons the "right to be forgotten" exists.

You can however request a "VOG" (translation something like: "Confirmation of good behavior") in which a company (or volunteer organisation for instance) asks for very specific cases like "Allowed to work with children" or "Can have access to privileged data like personal data or medical". The request is handled by the government. You get a response like "No comment" if there is no problem or "Not granted" if you fail. This avoids the problem of having people judge your exact misdemeanors/behavior in the past and leaves it out of a private companies hands and allows the right to be forgotten to exist.

You can also request it and let the person reject the request on legal grounds, but this usually gets you into more problems than you would like.

There is one "but". For higher security clearances (like for working for the state department equivalent) they are allowed to look further back and are allowed to view data from further back and do proper background checks forcing specific issues to come to the light of day. But that check is way more complex than a simple "VOG".

Re: Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Published Article

#132

Post by grasshopperpurp »

Nasrudith wrote: post #22
latch wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this isn't related to hate speech, it was done to protect someone's family, but in much of the world, various forms of speech are regulated (by judges or elected officials). To me, anyways, there's overwhelming anecdotal proof that having some limits on speech correlates (and more than likely contributes) to a safer and more just society without any virulent side effect. This is not a slippery slope. I think i…

Personally I am highly suspicious of the 'for the subject's family' motivation as it seems very selectively applied and often comes up only when 'their people' are at risk from their own wrongdoing. I'm of the view that it should be for everybody or nobody and not to discretion because their discretion always leads to selfish behavior that holds the people who most need to be held accountable to be the least so.

Especially when the DoJ says that fleeing domestic and gang violence are not grounds for asylum, it's ridiculous to consider the lives of a corrupt cop and his family above society, which this decision does.

Re: Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Published Article

#133

Post by mnw21cam »

maxpupmax wrote: post #40
pietroglyph wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Removal from office is the last thing that should happen in this situation. The judge made a questionable decision, which will be appealed, but the judge should not be fired (that is an action reserved for actual misconduct). If we do the latter to judges with whom we do not agree, we jeopardize the independence of our judiciary.

Disagree with the overall sentiment. If judges make decisions which don't represent the mandate of their constituents, they can/should be removed. See the Brock Turner judge in the SF bay area. Glad he's gone! That said, you may be right about this particular situation.

A judge is there to interpret the law, even if the outcome isn't what the majority of people would like. Politicians are there to sway with what the majority of people want.

Often, a lower court will be bound to make a particular judgment, because of precedent. It isn't unheard of for a judgment to say "We have to decide this way, but it would be really nice if this was appealed up to someone with the authority to decide the other way".

Re: Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Published Article

#135

Post by sangnoir »

billpg wrote: post #96

I look forward to hearing how blockchain technology could have prevented this.

Due to high transaction volumes (50 articles/day), the offending article would still be waiting to be published / mined. Thus obviating the need to be redacted.

Re: Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Published Article

#136

Post by logfromblammo »

garmaine wrote: post #43
jessaustin wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

John Saro Balian, 45, pleaded guilty to one count each of soliciting a bribe, obstruction of justice and making false statements to federal investigators as part of a plea agreement he reached with prosecutors. The document was ordered to be filed under seal but appeared on PACER, a public online database for court documents. I'd say that last part is the part that got LAT in trouble... I rarely support the whole "un…

> especially when it's in order to protect a corrupt dirtbag cop It was an order to protect his family from retribution from violent psychopaths that have in the past murdered not just informants / plea deal recipients, but their entire family in the most bloody way imaginable. I would not be surprised if the headline in a few days is about his wife and children dying in ways unfit to print. And it would be irrespons…

Wow. Your circle of acquaintances must be strongly against freedom of speech, then.

You cannot create the Memory Hole by court order. LA Times has a constitutional right to print anything they obtain legally. They are not directly placing anyone's lives at risk by publishing.

If anything, they could publish another article about how slipshod security practices in the court system leak sensitive information to the public, and the court system tries to censor journalists rather than investigating and fixing their own problems.

The easiest way to protect the corrupt cop's family would have been to crack down on police corruption, so that no cop could get so deeply involved with a violent criminal organization that their family would ever be at risk. If the gangs couldn't get corrupt cops to cover for them, they would find it much more difficult to murder families for retaliation and intimidation.

Judging by Mexico's example, publishing may also put the journalists and their families at risk.

This is definitely shooting the messenger. In a system where doing that is illegal.

The judge is wrong, and should be reversed. Yesterday.

Re: Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Published Article

#137

Post by ekiru »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #77
jkaplowitz wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are middle grounds that also work well, like what Canada has. It's got entrenched constitutional protections for freedom of expression which courts are willing to use to invalidate laws, but the same constitution explicitly allows certain limits on that freedom. The balance isn't perfect, especially not as applied to most Canadian defamation laws (Quebec is a bit friendlier to defendants here). But it's pretty…

Canada is a terrible example, they have compelled speech in their laws. Referring to somebody by the wrong pronoun is a criminal offence in Canada. The right to free speech is intrinsically the right to be offensive, for the very simple reason that any statement at all could be taken as offensive by somebody. As soon as you criminalise being offensive, any speech becomes fair game for government censorship. It is the…

> Referring to somebody by the wrong pronoun is a criminal offence in Canada.

Please cite the text of a law which actually says this or any case where someone has been convicted for this under a law which does not explicitly say it.

Re: Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Published Article

#138

Post by jessaustin »

logfromblammo wrote: post #136
garmaine wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> especially when it's in order to protect a corrupt dirtbag cop It was an order to protect his family from retribution from violent psychopaths that have in the past murdered not just informants / plea deal recipients, but their entire family in the most bloody way imaginable. I would not be surprised if the headline in a few days is about his wife and children dying in ways unfit to print. And it would be irrespons…

Wow. Your circle of acquaintances must be strongly against freedom of speech, then. You cannot create the Memory Hole by court order. LA Times has a constitutional right to print anything they obtain legally. They are not directly placing anyone's lives at risk by publishing. If anything, they could publish another article about how slipshod security practices in the court system leak sensitive information to the pub…

The "easy" way for cops, cop families, and normal people to be protected is to end the disastrous Drug War. It wouldn't matter if all police were paragons of virtue, applying enforcement rather than treatment to a drug problem is a sure way to end up with multiplied problems.

Re: Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Published Article

#139

Post by tomjen3 »

consp wrote: post #131
djsumdog wrote: post #49

There is a lot of crossover here and the Right to be Forgotten. The EFF opposed EU right to be forgotten laws because they could often be used in censorship (like in this very matter). In the US, there are fewer people who expunge criminal records because there are companies that will produced expunged records in background checks so long as they were public at any time. Banning this gets into 1st amendment grounds.…

Just as an example: We have that here (Netherlands). You are under no circumstances allowed to not hire someone because of past failures if the statue if limitation has expired or the sentence has been served. There might be restrictions on what you can do after you have served, but it is not up to the company to judge on this. This is one of the reasons the "right to be forgotten" exists. You can however request a "…

What is to stop me from not hiring someone based on his criminal background and just come up with a bogus excuse?

Because frankly I wouldn't ever want to work with somebody who had raped a child.

Re: Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Published Article

#140

Post by Kranar »

tony101 wrote: post #124
kryogen1c wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People who say controversial things, write controversial articles, or make controversial films tend to get detained and questioned at the border a lot, get harassed, and get their devices confiscated. Since when? How would that even work? The president orders the NSA to generate a list of disagreeable film makers and journalists and passes it to the TSA and customs? Do you have any evidence for that claim at all? >…

> "Since when? How would that even work? The president orders the NSA to generate a list of disagreeable film makers and journalists and passes it to the TSA and customs? Do you have any evidence for that claim at all?" "We’ve learned about this fishing expedition through documents we obtained in a Freedom of Information (FOIA) lawsuit filed on Poitras’s behalf to find out why she was constantly being stopped by fede…

I just read that article in full, and it doesn't claim the same things you claim it does.

Whatever your opinion of the government abusing surveillance power, Poitras wasn't detained because the government didn't like what she was saying, she was detained because the government suspected that she had foreknowledge of an attack that took place in Iraq where a U.S. soldier was killed and kept silent about the attack so that she could film it.

Now that belief was unjustified, ended up being wrong and in my opinion an absolute abuse of power by the government, but it is not a matter related to freedom of speech or censorship.

You are taking that situation and exploiting it to push an unrelated narrative, and I think that's disingenuous.

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