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Cleveland.com’s ‘right to be forgotten’ removes names from some crime stories

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Re: Cleveland.com’s ‘right to be forgotten’ removes names from some crime stories

#11

Post by qntty »

hirundo wrote: post #10

The ‘right to be forgotten’ is backwards. Much better would be a 'right to remember'. The right to be forgotten is a positive right, in that it requires other people to take action (e.g. delist a story from Google) to fulfill it. A right to remember would be a negative right. Like a freedom of the press doesn't require the government to subsidize a printing press or equivalent, a right to remember would just mean tha…

How would that accomplish the same thing? That's like saying that you don't like that a "right to an education" is a positive right so it should instead be the "right to be ignorant". Either you think that people should be able to move on and be forgotten or you don't. Deciding between positive and negative rights is just a matter of strategy.

Re: Cleveland.com’s ‘right to be forgotten’ removes names from some crime stories

#13

Post by cronix »

> the site would remove names from older stories if their records were expunged.

That seems reasonable. If the record is "expunged", you can legally say that you have not been convicted of that crime. So it can't legally be used against you (like on a job application)... so references to that crime should be removed from public view.

Re: Cleveland.com’s ‘right to be forgotten’ removes names from some crime stories

#14

Post by thefreeman »

Forbo wrote: post #9
comyesa wrote: post #6

Rehabilitation doesn't always work. I doubt a sexual degenerate can be "cured". It's okay if they stay in prison just to be punished and are taken apart from society. It's okay if they can never be around children.

"The evidence suggests otherwise. Sex crimes researchers R. Karl Hanson and Kelly E. Morton-Bourgon of Public Safety Canada conducted a large-scale meta-analysis (quantitative review) of recidivism rates among adult sex offenders. They found a rate of 14 percent over a period averaging five to six years. Recidivism rates increased over time, reaching 24 percent by 15 years. The figures are clearly out of alignment wi…

Sorry but 25% of offenders committing another sex crime in the next 15 years more then enough for me to agree with the fact that they need to be identified and tracked.

Re: Cleveland.com’s ‘right to be forgotten’ removes names from some crime stories

#15

Post by drawnwren »

hirundo wrote: post #10

The ‘right to be forgotten’ is backwards. Much better would be a 'right to remember'. The right to be forgotten is a positive right, in that it requires other people to take action (e.g. delist a story from Google) to fulfill it. A right to remember would be a negative right. Like a freedom of the press doesn't require the government to subsidize a printing press or equivalent, a right to remember would just mean tha…

At first glance, this seems like a solid argument. However, there are plenty of positive rights that we agree on. The right to an education is a positive right (while we disagree over this after high school, I don't think anyone is saying children don't deserve this). How about the right to personal safety? Sometimes it's negative, but it can be positive when dealing with negligence.

Overall, I agree on the surface with your positive/negative distinction but I'm not sure the world works this way in practice.

Re: Cleveland.com’s ‘right to be forgotten’ removes names from some crime stories

#16

Post by specialist »

mc32 wrote: post #7

I’d like to see a codified system where elsctronic docs and records must have timestamps and certain kinds of content must get “forgotten” de-indexed, over time. Midemeanor mentions get de-indexed afer x-years, felonies y-years, murders and the sort, never. Obviously this would require refinement. That said, someone could resurrect one of these records and reset the clock, but being derivative, the click would have t…

Huh. Good suggestion.

Having worked with both voter privacy and medical records, my observation is that most proposals are more aspirational than practical. If you have any notions how to implement right to be forgotten, I'm all ears.

From the hip, I'd start with Translucent Database strategies, where individual records and fields are hashed & encrypted in place. Like a proper password vault. Throw away the encryption key and the data becomes inaccessible.

In contrast, I've advocated temporal privacy in the opposite direction. Enforced secrecy for a time period. Like with voting records and health metrics. Based on the notions that crypto has a shelf-life and after the fact auditability (transparency) is a public benefit. It'd be interesting if these two notions could be generalized.

Re: Cleveland.com’s ‘right to be forgotten’ removes names from some crime stories

#17

Post by matt4077 »

hirundo wrote: post #10

The ‘right to be forgotten’ is backwards. Much better would be a 'right to remember'. The right to be forgotten is a positive right, in that it requires other people to take action (e.g. delist a story from Google) to fulfill it. A right to remember would be a negative right. Like a freedom of the press doesn't require the government to subsidize a printing press or equivalent, a right to remember would just mean tha…

Apart from the SVM-like attempt to find some strange characteristics that separate the rights you happen to like from those you don't, I fail to see how this little tale relates to a private publisher setting its own policy.

Re: Cleveland.com’s ‘right to be forgotten’ removes names from some crime stories

#18

Post by abtinf »

Forbo wrote: post #9
comyesa wrote: post #6

Rehabilitation doesn't always work. I doubt a sexual degenerate can be "cured". It's okay if they stay in prison just to be punished and are taken apart from society. It's okay if they can never be around children.

"The evidence suggests otherwise. Sex crimes researchers R. Karl Hanson and Kelly E. Morton-Bourgon of Public Safety Canada conducted a large-scale meta-analysis (quantitative review) of recidivism rates among adult sex offenders. They found a rate of 14 percent over a period averaging five to six years. Recidivism rates increased over time, reaching 24 percent by 15 years. The figures are clearly out of alignment wi…

> They found a [recidivism] rate of 14 percent over a period averaging five to six years. Recidivism rates increased over time, reaching 24 percent by 15 years

That paragraph supports its own opposite conclusion, and actually makes me reconsider my opposition to sex offender registries.

You are telling me that the subset of the population that has been convicted of a sex crime once has a 1 in 7 chance of doing it again within just a few years, and a 1 in 4 chance within 15 years. And these are probably very conservative numbers - they are the rates for those who are actually caught and convicted again, which is a fraction of those who hurt others again (considered the oft-reported statistics that the vast majority most sex crimes go unreported).

What is the probability of committing a sex crime for adults who have never been convicted of any crime? I suspect it is hundreds of times lower than the rate for adult sex offenders.

EDIT: Wow, way to cherry pick you numbers. The very next paragraph is this:

> ...sex offenders had a total recidivism rate (for both sex crimes and nonsexual violent crimes) of approximately 36 percent over a period of five to six years...The 15-year recidivism rate is 13 percent for incest perpetrators, 24 percent for rapists, and 35 percent for child molesters of boy victims.

And further down:

> When recidivism rates for sex and nonsexual violent crimes were combined, 51 percent of untreated and 32 percent of treated subjects reoffended.

You are extremely dishonest for failing to include this additional data in your post.

Re: Cleveland.com’s ‘right to be forgotten’ removes names from some crime stories

#19

Post by Forbo »

thefreeman wrote: post #14
Forbo wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The evidence suggests otherwise. Sex crimes researchers R. Karl Hanson and Kelly E. Morton-Bourgon of Public Safety Canada conducted a large-scale meta-analysis (quantitative review) of recidivism rates among adult sex offenders. They found a rate of 14 percent over a period averaging five to six years. Recidivism rates increased over time, reaching 24 percent by 15 years. The figures are clearly out of alignment wi…

Sorry but 25% of offenders committing another sex crime in the next 15 years more then enough for me to agree with the fact that they need to be identified and tracked.

And 75% of them learning their lesson should be treated the same as those that don't? Identification and tracking of them is doing nothing to prevent them from re-offending.

Re: Cleveland.com’s ‘right to be forgotten’ removes names from some crime stories

#20

Post by cronix »

nostromo wrote: post #12

An additional solution would be to stop publishing names for suspects entirely. Wait until the person is convicted to release the name.

They have already been prosecuted and convicted. You can't "expunge" a crime off your criminal record unless you've been convicted of it. It's ok to publish people who have been convicted of a crime. That's public info. It's NOT ok, to still have it published when it's expunged from your record. The article is specifically discussing expunged crimes.
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