German Killers Sue Wikipedia To Remove Their Names 859
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.'"
Re:Bubby? Is that you? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Wolfgang Werlé and Manfred Lauber (Score:3, Informative)
Wolfgang Werlé and Manfred Lauber are killers. Nothing can whitewash that.
Re:Bubby? Is that you? (Score:3, Informative)
That these guys killed someone and were convicted of it is a recorded, historical fact. No allegations, simple fact. Are we not allowed to state simple facts now?
Depends where "we" is - in Germany, apparently not. In the US, yes.
Different lands, different laws.
Small incorrectness in the NYT article (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Get your lawyers ready /. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Bubby? Is that you? (Score:2, Informative)
Re: A fresh start (Score:2, Informative)
Forgive and forget? Seems pretty short-sighted. I'm not sure I'd call murder a "mistake". An act like this *should* haunt the perpetrators for the rest of their lives.
The life of the law has not been logic: It has been experience. - Oliver Wendell Holmes And as far as calling murder a mistake -- come home and find your wife sleeping with another man and then we'll talk about that.
Except for the guy they killed. Where's his freedom and chance? Lastly, what about the victim's family and friends? How about their chances for normal lives without the murder of their loved-one haunting them. Some things cannot be forgiven and some things should definitely not be forgotten.
A standard disclaimer for the stock market is also true of the legal system: "Past performance is no guarantee of future results." And for the record, forgiveness isn't for the benefit of the criminal, but rather the victim.
Re:Get your lawyers ready /. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Get your lawyers ready /. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Wolfgang Werlé & Manfred Lauber are mu (Score:0, Informative)
The victim was Walter Sedlmayr, born in 1926. Where did you get the "young"?
Re:NOT Ironic!! (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Case in point (Score:1, Informative)
that isn't something you want to come to light later on when said person goes on an office rampage.
That is exactly WHY German law prevents the public availability of the fact that they murdered someone. What you are proposing is punishing them for their entire lives, even if they are better people now and wouldn't do the crime again.
Having served their sentence, they should be given a second chance to prove their integrity, and their value to society, by holding a decent job and earning a decent living. If they are ready to turn over a new leaf, attitudes like yours will prevent them from ever doing so.
What I am really saying is...you will FORCE them back into a life of crime by DEPRIVING them of the chance to earn a living legally, and you will do this out of fear of who they used to be (rather than who they have become). German law is trying to protect them from people like you.
Yes, I know they killed someone. But they also served their sentence and now they should be given a second chance, whether YOU want to give them one or not.
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:A fresh start (Score:4, Informative)
(1)Human dignity shall be inviolable. To respect and protect it shall be the duty of all state authority.
(2) The German people therefore acknowledge inviolable and inalienable human rights as the basis of every community, of peace and of justice in the world.
(3) The following basic rights shall bind the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary as directly applicable law.
That's what our society is built upon. Personal freedoms come second, equality before the law third, freedom of faith fourth and freedom of speech fifth. Of course they're all equally important as far as the law is concerned and nobody except a lawyer cares about the exact order anyway. But that first article is the important one: We believe that everyone has a basic, inviolable right to dignity. Freedom of speech violates the ex-inmates' dignity in this case, therefore freedom of speech is wrong in this case.
Yes, the USA think differently. Yes, I'm going to receive two dozen answers all angrily telling me that Germany must be completely insane to not put freedom of speech above everything else and that this guarantees we will devolve into an inhuman, totalitarian regime any minute now because non-total freedom of speech invariably begets total censorship. Hey, if you feel particularly zealous why don't you suggest we topple the government through force?
I don't care. I don't declare freedom-of-speech-at-all-costs my personal god. If someone thinks that makes me borderline fascist then so be it.
Re:Get your lawyers ready /. (Score:3, Informative)
That's the funny thing, because I never said anything about killing them. A life sentence (a real one) would have exactly the same outcome I described.
Re:Bubby? Is that you? (Score:4, Informative)
> 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.
> 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.
Public trials, public records are public because of certain laws make them public (simply ignoring to check if it was a public trial in this specific case). In order to be able to have public trials, there is the need for additional rules. In Germany the people (being a democratic country) have decided to provide some kind of protection to offenders. So, when claiming information is public one must honor as well the limitations set that made this information public.
> 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.
> The question is not whether this fact may or may not be published; it has been published and is part of the public record. The question is whether government has the right to retroactively rewrite public databases, public records, and public facts.
Wrong. The question is whether the subjects have to right to request said information to be removed from public records that were illegally added to such public records. Note, in Germany the government has nothing to do with this at all; they wrote those laws in the past. It is now up to a judge to decide which law/right to uphold. As op said, there are different approaches to prison. Some countries see it as punishment, others as a correction tool where wrong behavior is adjusted. Study both approaches carefully and you'll see they are worlds apart.
Re:Get your lawyers ready /. (Score:3, Informative)
None of which is U.S. enforced.
All the things you just described are State-level agreements. i.e. "If you find a criminal in your state, please arrest him. Thanks."