Family Has Right of Privacy In Decapitation Photos 262
big6joe sends in an update to a morbid story we discussed last year: a California appeals court has overturned a lower court ruling, granting the family of an 18-year-old woman who was killed in a traffic accident in 2006 privacy rights and recourse against the California Highway Patrol. "In a case that highlights how the ease of online communication can overthrow both common sense and basic decency, a California appeals court has ruled that families have a right of privacy in the death images of their loved ones. In 2006, an eighteen-year-old woman was decapitated in a traffic accident. Two of the police officers who reported to the scene emailed photos of the woman's body to their friends and family one Halloween."
So... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:So... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:So... (Score:5, Interesting)
My friend was recently run over (Age 20), crossing a highway drunk.
I thought it sucked when we found out and turned into the news to see his dead body, bloody on the highway. At the same time a select few saw the aftermath up close ("Cleaned up")These are things people see and have to clean up.
These images remind us all of our fragile mortality. I ride my motorcycle much more conservative since my friends passing.
If people saw reality more often, I think reality would become less grim as people realize how eggshell life really is.
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
If people saw reality more often, I think reality would become less grim as people realize how eggshell life really is.
I wonder to what degree the views that underly this ruling exist outside the US. Photographs of tragedies when published in American newspapers and magazines (or broadcast on TV) are typically from the sanitized category. The reasoning behind that is we don't need to see what happened to know what happened (or less charitably, people prefer human interest stories).
Consider something like a bus bombing. In the US, if a photograph is included it will typically show grief-stricken onlookers, or alternatively, the charred remains of the bus after everything has been cleaned up. Elsewhere, it's not at all uncommon to see multiple photographs showing the blood-spattered carnage in the immediate aftermath.
Granted, the sensibilities of the newsreading public weren't at issue in the case, but still, the ruling does appear to reflect points of view that may not apply elsewhere. And if those views aren't universally held, it stands to reason that decisions related to the publishing of those images (self censorship among them) merit a re-examination. Fragility of life? I think we'd all agree that's an important lesson that needs to be learned. But consider this: the US has been engaged in two wars for years, and I've yet to see anything in the American press that reinforces that lesson, provides evidence of what is really happening, or more generally, reflects the true nature of war.
Is the news coverage of violence and tragedy too sanitized for our own good? If the box office numbers for the "Action-Adventure" genre meant to satisfy the puerile tastes of the movie going public are any indication, I'd suggest it is. How else to explain the attraction and repeated desire to view dramatic re-enactments of something that, according to this judge, is morbid and doesn't deserve to be seen?
My condolences on the loss of your friend. Drive safe and hope for the best. It's the most any of us can do.
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
These images remind us all of our fragile mortality. ...and many people don't like that.
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Thing is - not many "spattered bodies horror scenes" have much to do with actual "gore", certainly not those which become semi-popular. It's something a bit different, I think, some kind of weird fascination with blood, which I'm not sure from where it's coming from... ...not long time ago I cut my hand quite deeply on a can. Cleanly too, I didn't really notice it untill large part of my hand was covered in blood, with it dipping happily to the ground. Couldn't do much about it, at least not properly, for a
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You are wrong. There's a time to do drugs, drive dangerously, hate authority, defy the cops, shit and piss in the entrances of churches (please tell me I wasn't the only one), and any other crazy stuff you want to do. It's called High School. You get out of it with a loot of good stories, and a lot of knowledge about what things you shouldn't do if you want to keep your life.
Most make it out alive. Many die in the process. Well, that's evolution at work.
When you see guys in their 50s fucking 16 year old gi
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From http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/nikkicatsouras.net [siteadvisor.com] (McAfee Site Advisor, makers of McAfee Anti Virus)
Also, it's hosted on a Russian server.
From: http://www.tech-linkblog.com/nikki-catsouras-being-used-to-spread-malware [tech-linkblog.com]
"Nikki Catsouras being used to spread Malware"
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Sorry for the malware guys. I don't use Windows. I didn't notice.
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Dude, I wasn't trolling. I Genuinely said sorry, because I didn't notice the site had malware.
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Hey, that's cool. Can I get MSE for Linux?
"It's been 19 seconds since you hit 'reply'."
NOTE TO SELF: Try typing slower, alright?
problem with the officers (Score:5, Insightful)
In 2006, an eighteen-year-old woman was decapitated in a traffic accident. Two of the police officers who reported to the scene emailed photos of the woman's body to their friends and family one Halloween."
Sounds like they have a problem with immature police officers as well. Hopefully the officers got reprimanded for doing that.
Re:problem with the officers (Score:4, Informative)
Sounds like they have a problem with immature police officers as well. Hopefully the officers got reprimanded for doing that.
One was suspended 25 days (w/o pay), the other resigned (but says it was for reasons unrelated to the accusation).
One thing nags at me: family says they did not have a legal right to prevent websites from carrying the photos. However, the photos should still be copyright CHP.
I wonder how the case would have stood if it had been an unrelated bystander who took the photos and intentionally displayed them to the world?
Re:problem with the officers (Score:5, Insightful)
Copyright CHP? The CHP are public servants...anything created by the government is public domain. Good thing, too...that's why we have such rich geodata, b/c the government agencies that collect it all using our tax dollars are compelled to share it back with us. (After all, we paid for it.)
In this case, I don't have a problem with courts restricting usage of public domain images of a crime scene in sensitive matters like this...but I have to say that we ought to tread lightly when it comes to limiting access to public domain information. It should only be barred from usage in particular cases, not in general.
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anything created by the government is public domain
That only applies to the federal government. State and local governments can copyright their stuff if they like. Florida and Minnesota don't allow it, but I don't know about anywhere else.
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In the general case, I agree with you, but something seems very wrong with that idea if I think about other cases. For example, anything to do with national security - spy photos, weapon designs, lists of operatives, etc. I really don't think photographs of d
Re:problem with the officers (Score:4, Interesting)
National security is already covered by laws granting the government rights to control that material.
The general rule in the US is, if public money pays for it, the public owns it. Crime scene photos absolutely should be accessible for most purposes. I think that judges ought to be able to bar particular uses, but in general public information should be publicly available.
Say, for example, I'm a graduate student in forensics writing a paper on crime scene photography techniques. The results of my paper could make sure more guilty people are convicted and, more importantly, innocent people are not. I can't have access to crime scene photos? I have to beg a judge for access to information that was taxpayer-funded?
I want to respect the rights of families, but in this case it's not really their rights being infringed...it's the deceased. And dead people don't have a whole lot of rights. (Rightly so, I think.)
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Sounds like they have a problem with immature police officers as well. Hopefully the officers got reprimanded for doing that.
I believe it has been reported that the reason they sent the photos out was as an cautionary example of why one should not text and drive at the same time,
It isn't like they did it out of a sick sense of humor.
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Sure, but the "real"problem is that the photos are out there with the name of the victim on them, given name and surname. If that was not the case I think the case would be weaker. Getting photos of your dead daughter in your mailbox along snide commentary is definitely reason to try complaining to law enforcement.
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I wish more cops and more emergency personnel would publish photos. These images need to be in the mind of every person who drives a vehicle. It should be part of driver's education. "This is what YOU will look like, if you are stupid enough to drive your car into a rock wall at 80 mph!"
It should hit females harder than males. No female wants to be buried looking fugly. Guys care about their appearance at their own funeral somewhat less, but the graphic images SHOULD get their attention anyway.
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put the pictures in full color on billboards by the highway
With flashing lights so that everyone driving by is looking at them!
The side benefit is you'll have a steady stream of new pictures for your billboard, now if I can just find a way to monetize that.
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The problem with doing things for "the greater good" is that by and large people are by their very nature selfish bastards who, if given an opportunity to enrich themselves (expense to others be damned), they will do so.
That's the trouble with the phrase "benevolent dictator". Anyone with the inclinations to actually succeed at the "dictator" part is doomed to flunk out on the "benevolent" part.
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History. Have you paid attention to it at all?
Do we really need to Godwin the thread so quickly?
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"correct the problems that cause it."
I thought Darwin had that solved. Those who are susceptible to cancer die off sooner or later, while those who are not so susceptible breed like rabbits.
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Not before many of those susceptible have already bred. Sure not all of them do breed but enough will. Lots of cancer cases happen in later life after they already have teenage kids themselves.
Re:problem with the officers (Score:5, Insightful)
Hi. I'm the guy who shrugs it off and goes on with the next call.
Gallows humor is a fine coping mechanism, and there are plenty of others that are better and some that aren't as great, but the lucky ones among us can cope with the fact that we're doing a job that someone has to do, we're the best people who can do it, and we just do everything we can but eventually you have to be able to let it go. Unfortunately it took me a long time to even get to this point. I was otherwise the 80-hours-black-humor guy until relatively recently.
Still... I don't care what you have to do to cope with it, you do NOT send pictures of a scene out to anyone that isn't part of the agency. That's total bullshit, and they should have known better. It should have been common sense... but unfortunately, common sense isn't.
Re:problem with the officers (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is it that every time a cop misbehaves and gets called out for it, other cops crawl out of the woodwork and start defending his actions? Do you think that carrying a star makes you immune to laws? Are you one of those policemen who help corrupt cops who conduct crimes avoid justice?
Having a stressful job means you deserve sympathy, but it does not mean you get to abuse your power.
Yes, there is, and some of them are acceptable and some are unacceptable. This was unacceptable.
And before defending these officers, just consider what it's be like to find that pictures of your daughter's dead corpse have become online showpieces and find that.
Or are you already past the point where only other cops are real humans who's needs, feelings and rights need to be considered?
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Why is it that every time a cop misbehaves and gets called out for it, other cops crawl out of the woodwork and start defending his actions? Do you think that carrying a star makes you immune to laws? Are you one of those policemen who help corrupt cops who conduct crimes avoid justice?
Because people who are supposed to be beacons of trust and the like don't particularly like that they're still human and not always above bad behavior. It's a sense that if one is shamed, everyone is shamed, most likely.
If you were part of a close knit group and one of them was called out for something, and it made everyone look bad in the group, you'd probably do the same thing. While the logical response would be to excise them from the group, most tight groups try to cover each other, in many places of l
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Because they're villains.
They apply laws selectively, they make up rules of their own and attempt to make them stick (and often succeed) under ill-conceived blanket laws (e.g. "disturbing the peace" for verbally questioning a cop's authowitay), and they give other cops (and to a lesser extent EMTs and cop's families) a free pass on almost everything. When they get into court their testimony has nothing to do with t
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Because they're villains.
While I disagree with your blanket application in this statement, it is essentially a personal opinion.
I personally think that the majority of cops are just trying to do their job. Unfortunately, cops don't always correctly understand the law that they are applying, (and really we're all retards about the law in some way.)
I think the biggest difference is that I'm less fearful about an individual cop causing trouble, because I understand most of my rights, and I am assertive about respecting them.
I believe
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That doesn't work if the cops are chummy with one of the judges who in turn is more than happy to fire off an instant search warrant.
Seems like there's regulatory capture in the legal system itself even.
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Have you ever worked an unsuccessful code on a 6 year old? Have you ever gone out to a call and found a person who'd literally had their head crushed? Have you ever seen someone who was shot 12 times with shotguns, or a person who was stabbed 56 times? Until you have, I suggest you STFU.
If you were to send out pictures to civilians about a crime scene you are effectively contaminating the scene because you could be releasing evidence to the public (and therefore potential suspects) that typically you would want to remain private information. How do you justify taking pictures due to "stress" when you would be contaminating a crime scene and therefore not doing your job properly?
Why is this different... (Score:5, Insightful)
...than the Ohio Dept. of Public Safety films we were forced to watch in driver's ed showing decapitations, amputations, and other sordid details meant to "shock" us into not driving drunk/impaired/stupidly?
It's human nature to look upon the misfortunes of others as something fortuitous for the viewer: The idea of "Thank God that's not me or a loved one". And to be truthful here, the Newsweek article pointed to in the original /. story did mention that the M.E. found cocaine in the girl's system, even though the family tried to put the blame on a brain tumor. The family should embrace the opportunity to show young people what happens when they choose to get behind the wheel after a few lines of coke.
Re:Why is this different... (Score:5, Informative)
Surprisingly, the ODPS videos are still available. [ohio.gov]
It's different because the officers... (Score:5, Insightful)
...identified the victim in the photos and sent them out as a Halloween joke. The images flew across the Internet and the same sick people who frequent the gore sites across the internet emailed the images back to the family with taunts, ridicule and abuse.
Sure, the girl drove under the influence. She paid for it with her life. I think that's sufficient punishment. Her parents buried their teenage daughter. I think that's more than enough punishment.
Speaking as a father, the bad guys in this story are the officers on the scene. How they could think it was OK to use those photos for their own sick little joke on Halloween is beyond me. How they could think they had the authority to release those photos to the public at large is beyond me. Has law enforcement become so craven in this country they don't understand what we mean by "respect for the dead?"
I've seen the Daniel Pearl and Nick Berg videos. I think they should be required viewing for every adult of voting age in this country, because seeing those two videos provides context for foreign policy decisions we need to vote on. I can even see the usefulness of "mechanized death" videos that try to make a point with immortal 16-year-olds, provided the footage is anonymous and separated by a healthy number of years.
However, I can also see the difference between a major newsworthy event that should inform foreign policy and two ghouls in uniform getting their sick little jollies at the expense of grieving parents. Sick minds like these need doctors and asylums, not badges and guns.
Re:It's different because the officers... (Score:4, Interesting)
In one way it just demonstrates we still have a long way to go before we can expect *all* police to be professional, some are, some aren't.
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I expect that not all police will be professional. :(
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The problem is that ALL police carry the force of Law, the color of Authority and the ability to use deadly force. Their testimony carries the presumption of truth in the courtroom. We invest them with an ENORMOUS amount of power in our society.
NONE of them should be unprofessional. We give them far too much power to tolerate even the appearance of bad behavior. If you are not truly "One of the City's Finest," then you need to be out of the uniform.
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Has law enforcement become so craven in this country they don't understand what we mean by "respect for the dead?"
I know cops. They regularly deal with deal, and other horrible things. From my personal observations, it seems that they typically develop strange, distasteful senses of humor as a defense mechanism. I'm not saying you should find that acceptable, but you should attempt to UNDERSTAND it.
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Sure, but why include the name of the girl?
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I'm not saying you should find that acceptable, but you should attempt to UNDERSTAND it.
I work a lot of municipal security too. I also work with a lot of cops. I grew up military.
I do understand it. I don't find it acceptable. I'm completely willing to allow these two officers to resign from the force and enter the care of a mental health professional on the city's dime.
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Speaking as a father, the bad guys in this story are the officers on the scene.
Everyone in this family is a "bad guy". The girl was driving coked out. The cops sent her picture to people as a gag. The parents raised a spoiled, irresponsible girl. Nobody needs to see the pictures to know she was decapitated; we have a word for it in our language. But nobody needs to be driving under the influence, either. And double-extra nobody needs to blame the death of a cokehead on a brain tumor to make themselves seem less pathetic. It's all bad.
Everyone's a bad guy. (Score:2)
Sure. I can agree with that. The girl paid for her crimes with her life. The parents paid for theirs by burying their teenage daughter.
The only ones who haven't been held responsible yet are the cops on the scene.
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I totally agree. (Score:2)
My willingness to agree to this is contingent on one thing: that we also require the voting adults in question to watch videos of Predator drone strikes, the aftermath of bombings in civilian areas, and so forth. Showing atrocities and horrific events is (or can be) important, but if you only show the consequences of one side's actions, you're not informing or "providing context", you're pushing propaganda by trying to excite people's desire for revenge.
Certainly. I completely agree with you. I'm always in favor of more information to the voters, not less. We intentionally don't cover military funerals any more, nor de we allow actual reporting from the war theater as we did in WWII and Vietnam. The Pentagon put these policies in place intentionally to keep the voters at large in the dark.
It's outright treason against Jefferson's legacy, and it dishonors the soldiers who gave their lives. It's shameful.
We absolutely should show ALL of it.
Yep. Good catch. (Score:2)
I need a better word for "morally bankrupt," "ethically callous," "ghoulish behavior." Have at it, Roget. :-)
Driving impaired? (Score:3, Insightful)
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Having trawled through the Decision, the above isn't so far off the conclusion here. The fact that these pictures were made by cops carrying out their duties while their dissemination was out-with the purposes of those duties was pervasive - see the conclusion on the final page.
There is an inevitable tendency to take the basic information from the summary a
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What's the difference? (Score:3, Insightful)
I fail to see how this is any different from the thousands of people who rubberneck and gawk as they pass an accident on our nation's highways.
If you go out and kill yourself in public, chances are very good people are going to see your dead body. That's what "public" means.
I guess the "problem" here is that it was the police that distributed the photos instead of some hapless bystander who happened to have a cell phone or digital camera? I can understand if they're compromising some homicide investigation... damn right they need to get in deep trouble for that, but if all signs are that you managed to kill yourself in darwinistic fashion (as this appears to be), then your death SHOULD serve as a lesson to the rest of humanity.
The difference (Score:5, Interesting)
The pictures ended up on sites like 4chan, and idiots even found the email addresses of the family and sent trick emails containing the images. They also made harassing prank calls. So the difference in this case is that the officers who distributed the photos directly caused pain and suffering to the family by leaking the pictures to the rest of the world. There are some very cruel people out there who think being callous makes them funny.
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Now - the officers involved should definitely be held responsible for any damages they caused. As should, frankly, anyone who can be proved to have been using the pictures in a way that caused d
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Wrong. Freedom of speech is freedom from responsibility - it protects not only the act of speaking, but from being punished for it.
The thing is, freedom of speech is selective; it's purpose is to protect political (or artistic) speech, but it is limited in other cases, like libel or in this case, it might be protected by Personality Rights [wikipedia.org].
Re:The difference (Score:4, Insightful)
Wrong. Freedom of speech is freedom from responsibility - it protects not only the act of speaking, but from being punished for it.
The thing is, freedom of speech is selective; it's purpose is to protect political (or artistic) speech, but it is limited in other cases, like libel or in this case, it might be protected by Personality Rights [wikipedia.org].
No, it protects you from being punished by the government, there are countless reasons one can be successfully punished in civil court for something that is clearly "protected speech"
You are free to disseminate trade secrets of a corporation you worked for, but they are free to sue the living shit out of you for it.
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Wrong. Freedom of speech is freedom from responsibility - it protects not only the act of speaking, but from being punished for it.
The thing is, freedom of speech is selective; it's purpose is to protect political (or artistic) speech, but it is limited in other cases, like libel or in this case, it might be protected by Personality Rights [wikipedia.org].
No, it protects you from being punished by the government, there are countless reasons one can be successfully punished in civil court for something that is clearly "protected speech"
You are free to disseminate trade secrets of a corporation you worked for, but they are free to sue the living shit out of you for it.
Quite true. Freedom of Speech actually cannot be restrained prior to the speech actually being made. All forms of speech may be made without any ability to make it immediately illegal to make it. For instance, any law, or protection order saying "you must not say anything bad about anyone" would immediately hit into trouble with first amendment rights.
Basically, you can sue someone for libel/slander once they open their mouth and say whatever they want, but you cannot get a court order or law telling the
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Wrong. Freedom of speech is freedom from responsibility - it protects not only the act of speaking, but from being punished for it.
The thing is, freedom of speech is selective; it's purpose is to protect political (or artistic) speech, but it is limited in other cases, like libel or in this case, it might be protected by Personality Rights [wikipedia.org].
The problem is that it has already been established by case law that the government cannot prevent even defamatory speech from being made. Freedom of Speech grants us the inalienable right to say whatever the hell we want to... but it only protects certain forms of speech from responsibility.
Defamation of a public figure isn't an actionable case in law because of the First Amendment, it is protected by the fact that they do not have an valid expectation of privacy.
The difference is, as I noted below, you c
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They could always follow legal precedent established by RIAA lawyers, and file a John Doe lawsuit. They can work out who actually caused the harm once they get to damages.
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They are at fault because they violated a trust placed in them by the public. We are are not paying them to snap photos of things and make them public. When they are on duty, they are working for us. And while I do not begrudge them a water cooler conversation, I do not think I am happy with paying them to snap personal photos of the poor dead people they encounter in their line of work and distributing them on the Internet.
As for exactly how she ended up dead or her personal habits, I don't think they'r
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Unless they uploaded the pictures to 4chan themselves, they can hardly be held responsible for that particular group of abuses. (The department should certainly discipline them, though.)
This would actually be inconsistent with how we handle other cases of someone committing an initial crime and that crime spurring additional harm. If you commit a crime, you'll often get to take responsibility for ALL the harm that crime caused. The images wouldn't be on 4chan if they didn't commit their crime in the first place.
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Amen. Whenever the police act in an inappropriate manner, we need to nail their asses to the wall.
When I'm king, there will be a new law making it illegal to violate the public's trust. Politician taking bribes? That's a hanging. Spitting in the food while working at a restaurant? That's a hanging. Police brutality/theft/rape/torture/sending out pictures of a mutilated teenage girl? You better believe that's a hanging.
Society doesn't work when the people we give control over aspects of our lives aren't
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1. The photos were taken by police officers improperly.
2. The photos found their way onto the sickosphere.
3. The photos were then shown to a school class, which included the deceased girl's younger sister
4. No, you don't have a right to view anything and everything that someone has a camera on.
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Darwinistic according to what set of rules?
Using a nature show(relevantly) as example, the slower wilderbest that is caught by a predator is taken out of the breeding pool there by enhancing future progeny.
Similarly, if your 18 yo daughter fails to avoid a drunk driver on the wrong side of the road, 2 off her peers having previously a
questions, questions.. (Score:5, Insightful)
What kind of fucktards do they allow into the police force, anyway? Doesn't that give you pause? And isn't that the real issue here? If those cops weren't scum, the case would not have come about. So why allow scum to police people, and how to change it? How would one make the police force (or the military for that matter) a no go area for character dwarfes, while attracting people where, uhm, you don't have to wash your soul after each time you had contact with them, or heard about them in the news? I wonder.
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How would one make the police force (or the military for that matter) a no go area for character dwarfes, while attracting people where, uhm, you don't have to wash your soul after each time you had contact with them, or heard about them in the news? I wonder.
It's called civilian oversight police review boards. Any police force not kept in check by one will eventually become a fascist gang, if it doesn't just start that way. Positions of power attract those who will abuse it.
My tax dollars produced the photos. (Score:2, Insightful)
My tax dollars paid for the taking and processing of those photographs.
They should be public property anyway.
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Protect the privacy of criminals! (Score:2)
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Yes you are - it just proves that you are extremely immature and hasn't considered your own mortality yet.
Considering your spelling skills it's also evidence of immaturity.
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ust because these people had their feelings hurt does not mean that they should be able to censor pictures that were taken IN PUBLIC of an 18 YEAR OLD ADULT.
Fair enough. I even agree with this, though I also believe that the officers involved should have been fired. Or, failing that, that the employment rules for the highway patrol have been updated to ensure that the next person who does this DOES get fired. If John Q Public takes the pictures and sends them around, that's one thing; if a public servant who obtains the photos in the line of duty does so, that's an abuse of privilege.
There was no expectation of privacy and if I recall correctly, the woman was a drug addict who died because she stole her father's Porsche and proceeded to drive it in a very reckless manner.
This is where I don't follow. What does a) her possible drug issue or
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The "Post anon" checkbox can take focus when you tab from the subject to the message body.
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and if I recall correctly, the woman was a drug addict who died because she stole her father's Porsche and proceeded to drive it in a very reckless manner.
Excuse me, how is that relevant?
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Fuck you.
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of an 18 YEAR OLD ADULT
Sorry, what?
The way you're phrasing it, it has more in common with a voyeuristic paparazzi taking photos of a celebrity sunbathing in their fenced back yard. Not following?
1) The scene of an accident is not often "public". It gets cordoned off pretty quickly by police. Police officers taking pictures of her body for personal purposes was a breach of duty - and dignity.
2) The woman was dead. It was not an 18-year-old woman, it was the body of a deceased loved one (to someone); once you
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Her indiscretions are not really relevant. Keeping the photos private is consideration to the family, not to her. (I don't think she is likely to issue a preference one way or the other.)
There are still some expectations to privacy on public land. For example, putting a movie cam in the sewer drain to look up people's skirts--not okay. In a way, this is also an instance of taking advantage of an involuntary indecency.
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And no, you don't have a right to view the result unless you're a complete fucked-up ghoul.
Unfortunately, the ghouls DO have the right to view. Nobody said free speech was always pretty.
As GP said, the real problem here is that it was police who sent the info out - abusing their positions to do so.
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Ah, bollocks. Free speech is meant to protect political speech, denouncers, etc. It doesn't mean you can post everything, unless I can illegally distribute copyrighted movies and call it free speech.
In the US, it's called the Right of Publicity [wikipedia.org] and it's a state law, rather a federal law. While IANAL and so cannot be sure if the appropriate state laws cover this specific case, it's not correct to say that Free Speech covers all.
Re: Your brains (Score:5, Insightful)
You're wrong. There are no limitations on free speech. Our Constitution is not intended to protect some particular kind of speech, political or other. In fact, it's not designed to protect the free speech of citizens at all.
Our Constitution does not grant citizens free speech, it recognizes our right to free speech as an inalienable right. The point of this document is not to call out specific freedoms that people have, rather it's to grant the government certain powers. If it's not specifically mentioned, rights are presumed to reside with the individual or the state in the US (and state constitutions are similarly framed).
In the case where information is generated by government officials (the police), that information is presumed to be in the public domain except in specific circumstances.
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Uh, perhaps you didn't read what I wrote above carefully. Unless the "particular kinds of speech" you're referring to are specifically prohibited by law (making that law subject to Constitutional review), then that's exactly what it means.
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I was only addressing free speech wrt government, not anything to do with impinging on other individuals' rights. What one can be criminally prosecuted for and what one can be sued for are two completely different things, and I'm discussing more the former. Well, not exactly prosecution, but government control of public domain information that effectively creates a criminal situation if you violate th
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And nobody stopped you from opening your mouth and saying what you will. Or picking up a pen and writing what you will. But surely you can't tell me that the Framers intended for government officials to have the right to take pictures of people who died in the most horrific of ways, taken in the line of duty, and send them around as a sick joke, resulting in a family being terrorized by anonymous internet fucktards with a barrage of photos of their dead daughter?
Surely you can't tell me that this was what
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Ah, the censor's best friend; the person who is for free speech in the abstract, but whenever it is put to the test, finds a reason for it not to apply.
Publishing is an action, and it is indeed covered under freedom of speech a
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Child Porn.
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So why was she then allowed to drive? (Score:2)
And so far I seen no evidence that she wasn't under the influence, your claim is the first and you provide no evidence.
You always get these claims after someone did something bad. Suddenly it is not their fault, the moment a lawyer has been consulted. How odd.
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The same goes for the Darwin Awards stuff. We are talking about people who DIE. Their lives end, their loved ones have to bury them in the cold, cold earth and will never see them again.
Just FYI, assuming that it took you a minute to write your post, ~100 people all over the world died in the meantime.
So, yeah, people DIE. It's kinda part of the experience.
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You need to watch some Chuck Jones shorts; and lighten up.