Online, mug shots are forever – some states want to change that • Hacker News Board

Re: Online, mug shots are forever – some states want to change that

#141

Post by lancepioch » Sat, May 15, 2021, 4:58 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #82

andrewla wrote: post #39

I like that the proposed bills here are not attempts to force sites to remove mug shots (which seems like a losing battle) but instead just resists posting mug shots at all, which seems like something that police departments have complete control over. Unless it serves a legitimate law enforcement end, either as part of a punishment for being convicted of a crime or to aid the public in the search for a fugitive, it…

> resists posting mug shots at all, which seems like something that police departments have complete control over Note that these laws originated from a civil rights perspective. Requiring the publication of arrests makes it harder for the police to disappear people.

I've heard that thrown around before and... that doesn't make any sense. How would it be harder? If the police were to "disappear somebody", how would it be any more difficult to simply not release information about it? In fact, it seems like it'd be easier to "disappear" certain people, because they could claim they had nothing to do with it because they report others just fine.

Re: Online, mug shots are forever – some states want to change that

#142

Post by WalterBright » Sat, May 15, 2021, 5:07 AM UTC

Sanzig wrote: post #125

delecti wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's just that some solutions are worse than their problems, and it's not always possible to know which are which beforehand.

I think it's one of those things that has changed due to the greatly reduced friction involved in accessing information as a result of the web. Back in the 70s, if you wanted to get a copy of a mugshot from an arrest, you'd have to go drive down to the appropriate government office (county clerk's office, courthouse, etc) and file a request. If you were in a different state, maybe you could file a request by mail, ma…

If you run for political office, you can bet your opponents will mine the internet for anything they can use against you, no matter how long ago.

There was a NASCAR driver who lost his sponsorship over something his father said before he was born.

Re: Online, mug shots are forever – some states want to change that

#143

Post by bmsleight_ » Sat, May 15, 2021, 9:10 AM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #57

whatshisface wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can change the law, but there's no plausible path towards making people less judgemental. It's like saying, "speed limits are misguided, what we really need is a culture of safe driving."

I think the speed limit thing is actually something that traffic engineers think about. You can design roads such that people drive a certain speed. Think about how uncomfortable you'd be driving down a narrow windy road at 60mph, versus the same speed on a multi-lane divided highway. If you want people to drive 20mph, make it hard to navigate at 30mph. There is probably an art to this, and it's not as easy in practi…

There is an art to this traffic engineering. You can design so that the majority of people drive slowly. You have narrow roads, shared spare with pedestrians. So the edge of the highway is not clear. All of this leans to 85 percentile speed dropping with a much better environment.

But (there is always a but), for visually impaired people it does not work that well. For example no kerb edges. For idiots (think stronger word than that), they will drive at the still high speed - at then the accident are worse (severity of outcomes) so it fails.

Speed bumps just are not good - better with a chicane or shuttle working which allows an emergency vehicle to go straight through the obstacle.

>If you want people to drive 20mph, make it hard to navigate at 30mph. There is a wide range of driving skills - design sometime has to account for the worst. Making driving test harder - is a political problem not a technical problem. Driver assist means road get easier to navigate. Driver assist enforcing the speed limit ... is a political problem not a technical problem.

Re: Online, mug shots are forever – some states want to change that

#144

Post by herbst » Sat, May 15, 2021, 9:34 AM UTC

_jal wrote: post #29

moshmosh wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea is that making charges & arrests public keeps the system transparent, and makes it harder for the government to disappear people or otherwise do crazy despotic stuff. In practice I'm not convinced it was net-beneficial before the Internet, and I'm almost certain it's not in an Internet-equipped world.

This is the reason. The US justice system is meant to operate in the open, to serve the interests of the public who finances it. Same reason it is generally very difficult to litigate under seal. Observations about the difference between theory and practice omitted.

I doubt the system really is much more transparent than more usual systems that do not blame every potential 'criminal' publicly.

Or in another world, if that openness does anything good how comes the US has one of the biggest issues with police violence from all the developed world?

Re: Online, mug shots are forever – some states want to change that

#145

Post by herbst » Sat, May 15, 2021, 9:35 AM UTC

ajdlinux wrote: post #132

Are there any other democratic countries apart from the US where posting arrest mugshots is standard police practice?

As far as I know no. But there are also few so little democratic countries running around calling themselves democratic.

Re: Online, mug shots are forever – some states want to change that

#146

Post by herbst » Sat, May 15, 2021, 9:43 AM UTC

dfxm12 wrote: post #4

What are the forces at play here? People don't want to be embarrassed by their mugshot vs people don't want to be discriminated against because of a mugshot vs the transparency of who cops are arresting and why. I don't know if laws should care about someone being embarrassed. I'm kind of surprised about this anti-transparency rhetoric coming someone who started a Libertarian think tank (but maybe I shouldn't be). I…

How comes the rest of the modern world does not have these issues you mention of people disappearing then we do not openly blame all of them with mugshots? Home comes the country with by far the most police brutality in the modern world thinks their system is working?

I honestly do not understand what mugshots have to do with anything at all. All I see is invading of these people's privacy if they want or not.

Re: Online, mug shots are forever – some states want to change that

#147

Post by hadlock » Sat, May 15, 2021, 10:44 AM UTC

stevenicr wrote: post #131

tablespoon wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I like that the proposed bills here are not attempts to force sites to remove mug shots (which seems like a losing battle) but instead just resists posting mug shots at all, which seems like something that police departments have complete control over. I suppose they could also release future mug shots with a license that the images can't be distributed past such-and-such a date.

thinking similar.. mugshots still available to the public - however they must be obtained on an individual request basis, that comes with a license not to republish at all. This way anyone can get a mugshot - but no one can legally republish it - tech can give them tools to embed hidden artifacts to prove a republished pic was shared by person 1032 or whatever. This protects people from being dissipated and can help…

Many public record requests need a notarized request and a $10 fee, in particular marriage licenses. Even getting a copy for your own personal records. $10 dollars in today's money is nothing, but in volume adds up quickly, as do notarizing fees, and the hassle of scheduling a public notary etc.

Any family member can pull your scummy Uncle's marriage certificate(s) from all 50 states, but it's gonna cost you and it's going to take more than 15 minutes, which is a pretty good hurdle to prevent mass collection of records. It's not perfect, but I haven't seen a leaked db of marriage certificates leaked online, yet.

Re: Online, mug shots are forever – some states want to change that

#148

Post by corin_ » Sat, May 15, 2021, 10:44 AM UTC

boomboomsubban wrote: post #138

david-gpu wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Assume police do disappear people. Then it is also easy to imagine that the same police would not take mugshots of the people they want to disappear.

Meaning if you could prove police arrested someone and they could not produce a mugshot, something is wrong. Providing them a way to deny the mugshot without being suspicious gives them more options.

Couldn't the police just take a mugshot, confirm the arrest, and say "this person was later released without charge, none of our business where they are now"?

Re: Online, mug shots are forever – some states want to change that

#149

Post by thrwhizzle » Sat, May 15, 2021, 11:26 AM UTC

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #7

errantspark wrote: post #5

I wonder in the discussions surrounding these sorts of things (Right to be Forgotten, etc) if the issue isn't that there should be a right to be forgotten but rather that culturally we should be far far more tolerant of people fucking up. It feels like the perception of how much the average member of society transgresses its rules is totally out of sync with reality, though this may be by design to create space for e…

A problem with mugshot sites is that they often detail the charges, and sometimes the charges just aren’t something people are going to be tolerant of. For example, I know a young man who traded nude photos on his phone with a girlfriend who was just below the age of consent, got caught, and was arrested and charged with "sexual exploitation of a minor". Once in court, those charges were easily plea-bargained away, b…

> but the mugshot and charges will probably be findable on the web for years and years

The injustice is that this person was charged in the first place. The court system is public, and must remain that way. We could remove the mugshot, but that won’t help people like the one you’ve described.

Re: Online, mug shots are forever – some states want to change that

#150

Post by thrwhizzle » Sat, May 15, 2021, 11:31 AM UTC

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #72

akudha wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is both. Speed limits work because majority of the people respect them. Cops can’t control the entire population, if majority choose to misbehave. This is what it feels like online. People seem to relish in posting other’s misfortune, mistakes etc with little consequences. They do things online that they wouldn’t dare to do in real life. If the attitude doesn’t change, no amount of laws would help

>It is both. Speed limits work because majority of the people respect them. Cops can’t control the entire population, if majority choose to misbehave. This is what it feels like online. Have you never driven on an interstate highway outside of rush hour? People go the speeds they deem reasonable for the conditions. Sometimes this is in the ballpark of the speed limit. In many situations it is much faster. People don'…

> Have you never driven on an interstate highway outside of rush hour?

Yeah some of these comments are from people who obviously don’t drive much. If you are driving the speed limit on a big highway you are legitimately at risk of causing an accident.