In a 53-14 vote that took place days ago, South Dakota's legislative House passed legislation that makes arrest booking photos public records. The measure, which cleared the state's Senate in January, will be signed by Governor Dennis Daugaard.
With that signature on Senate Bill 25, (PDF) South Dakota becomes the 49th state requiring mug shots to be public records. The only other state in the union where they're not public records is Louisiana.
The South Dakota measure is certain to provide fresh material for the online mug shot business racket. These questionable sites post mug shots, often in a bid to embarrass people in hopes of getting them to pay hundreds of dollars to have their photos removed. The exposé I did on this for Wired found that some mug shot site operators had a symbiotic relationship with reputation management firms that charge for mug shot removals.
[...] The law allows for the release of mug shots, even including those of minors, for those arrested for various felonies. The law also allows agencies to refuse to hand over booking photos that are more than six months old. Agencies are entitled to recover costs "to provide or reproduce" mug shots.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 15 2017, @02:01PM (4 children)
The article summary seems to be all about the South Dakota law and its implications, which is fine and interesting in itself; however, the article title puts the major focus on the fact that there is only one US state remaining where mug photos are not public record, and unfortunately, the article summary doesn't even mention what state is remaining.
(Score: 4, Informative) by AndyTheAbsurd on Wednesday March 15 2017, @02:26PM (3 children)
Not only is it in the article, it's in the summary (emphasis added):
The only other state in the union where they're not public records is Louisiana.
Please note my username before responding. You may have been trolled.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday March 15 2017, @06:52PM (2 children)
Louisiana is broke and everybody there is a criminal. It would be too immense an undertaking for them to roll out public mugshots. And also kind of pointless to do so, because everybody there's a criminal.
(Score: 3, Informative) by AndyTheAbsurd on Wednesday March 15 2017, @07:09PM (1 child)
Hey, man, they have to catch you before they can take your mugshot, and just because you're a criminal doesn't mean you got caught. I'm sure "not getting caught" is how the elected representatives in Louisiana stay in office...but I guess that's true in DC, too.
Please note my username before responding. You may have been trolled.
(Score: 2) by Murdoc on Thursday March 16 2017, @02:02AM
Nonsense. They get caught all the time, they just don't get punished, usually. Just like big corps like Microsoft and the banks. They're special, 'first class' citizens, unlike the rest of us.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday March 15 2017, @02:16PM (8 children)
Wow, state enabled blackmail. We'll respect your privacy if you continue to pay us more than the other guys. Anyone still wonder why so many people hate the government? Big banks get bailed out, little people get kicked out.
Punishment is supposed to end, though in practice once tarred with a felony conviction, deservedly or not, they can never live it down. Making mug shots public adds to that problem. How about adding a few choice mug shots of bad corporations and the corporate officers responsible?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday March 15 2017, @03:02PM
How about adding a few choice mug shots of bad corporations and the corporate officers responsible?
You're mistakenly thinking the information isn't available which is why no one cares, whereas the actual situation is the information is widely available AND no one cares.
You can't participate in the stock markets legally without freely available prospectus and open-ish books and those are full of names, names which are mostly ignored and unpunished but hardly secret.
Also the whole point of state business registries is to make it more difficult for random dude to impersonate a business.
This stuff is all public.
Actually domain names are considerable more private than business officers are.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday March 15 2017, @06:47PM (6 children)
The situation is even worse with mugshots. Your mugshot is made publicly available before you have been convicted of any crime. You might have charges dropped or be found not-guilty and still have your mugshot out there implying you committed a crime.
But to your point, yes. Once you have served your time, your record shouldn't generally follow you for the rest of your life. I can understand that you probably shouldn't be able to get a job as an armored car driver if you just completed parole for bank robbery or embezzling, but you shouldn't have to check the box forever.
(Score: 2) by dry on Thursday March 16 2017, @02:01AM (5 children)
Don't Americans have any rights besides being able to be armed if you're the right colour and being able to be impolite? Simple things like the right to be considered innocent until convicted, little well being able to continue your life if found convicted and completed your time.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday March 16 2017, @03:13AM
In theory, yes, but in practice there are many loopholes that allow the violation of rights to be privatized while pretending that the government has no part in it..
(Score: 2) by Marand on Thursday March 16 2017, @11:10AM (3 children)
Simple things like the right to be considered innocent until convicted, little well being able to continue your life if found convicted and completed your time.
Theoretically you have this, in the sense that the justice system is supposed to work this way, but the government can't make people stop being people. If you're charged with a crime the general public will assume you're guilty right out if they find out about it, and employers will find other excuses to not hire you even if they can't legally discriminate.
It's made even worse by the media, which loves to make sensationalist claims and headlines about criminal accusations, but is extremely reluctant to mention when someone is found innocent, because doing that would mean they'd have to admit they dragged an innocent person through the mud for their own benefit. Better to either ignore it or (not so) subtly imply that the person still did it but cheated the system somehow. Oh, and you don't even have to be charged of doing anything illegal to get skewered by the media! You just have to get accused of the wrong kind of ethically questionable act, and the media will rake you over the coals without even bothering to check for the accuracy. Then you have that shadow hanging over you for the rest of your life.
TL;DR: Doesn't matter what rights you're supposed to have when people like to assume the worst and the media capitalises on it.
(Score: 2) by dry on Friday March 17 2017, @03:12AM (2 children)
Yet this story is about the various State governments empowering the media by publishing mug shots of non-convicted people. It sounds like the various American governments do a lot of the empowering. Shit they're one of the 2 countries in the world that still have the medieval classification of felon along with the segregation that goes along with it.
The government doesn't control people or the media but it does control itself and really doesn't seem to care about most basic rights.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Friday March 17 2017, @03:58AM (1 child)
Right. I wasn't trying to say "oh, the government is blameless here, it's just the media and people" or anything like that. Just observing that the government ostensibly does offer innocence until guilt is proven, but the unfortunate reality is that, even if the government had a perfect record of adhering to "innocent until proven guilty" in every way and at every level, the accused people will still end up ruined, because the public has an obsessive desire to look for and believe the worst in others, and the media capitalises on that. When there's blood in the water, nasty things show up to feed.
(Score: 2) by dry on Sunday March 19 2017, @03:24AM
The media is mostly interested in the infamous cases, rapes, murders, especially involving certain demographics are very popular. In a small town, the local paper might publish every court appearance or arrest if the government publishes the info. In a big town it is only certain cases that get the media attention.
It is the government that is publishing the arrests, it is government that is making mug shots available. An arrest doesn't really mean much, sometimes it is just to take a drunk of the street till they sober up and the cops are pretty well free to arrest anyone on the smallest suspicion. At least here, after arresting someone, they can hold them for a short while before they have to go in front of a Judge and actually lay charges, at which point things become public. No cameras in the court room so the media have to show up with pencil and paper to create a picture of a perp. In America the law enforcement, prosecution, and judging is so politicized that simple rights are routinely ignored in favour of looking like they're doing something.
These mug shots are not generally being published by the regular media, there's a whole new industry in publishing them to extort payment to not publish.
Perhaps it is a culture thing, here the right to privacy seems a lot higher then it is in the States and to me it just seems so wrong to have the government spearheading the violations of basic rights. Of course rights are always a trade off, with the most famous example being how far the right to swing your fist goes.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by VLM on Wednesday March 15 2017, @03:14PM (8 children)
The South Dakota measure is certain to provide fresh material for the online mug shot business racket. These questionable sites post mug shots, often in a bid to embarrass people in hopes of getting them to pay hundreds of dollars to have their photos removed.
A large part of the real opposition is concern trolling where certain people find it highly inconvenient that certain demographic groups are committing crimes at levels inappropriate for their fractional representation of the population, and if only it were legally impossible for people to know the facts, then we could push even faster on various cultural issues.
A classic example is illegals find drunk driving to be hopelessly irresistible, I do not understand this at all, not being a Mexican citizen I guess its expected. Its just weird because every fatal hit and run in the news is inevitably another non-deportable illegal with the right to kill any citizen they want because illegal rights are superior to mere citizens rights. We're just supposed to pay taxes and shut up until we die and are demographically replaced.
Usually the "mug shot" is irrelevant and what they're really after is closing the records completely. Say we imported 1000 Somalians, how many white women got raped as an inevitable result, so if, I mean, when, we import 1000 more we can expect X more rapes, well, sorry that's legally a secret now because of the "keep mugshots secret" movement.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Wednesday March 15 2017, @04:41PM
The problem is that mug shots reflect arrests, rather than actual convictions.
Sometimes, when it is cold out, the poor ask to be arrested.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Kromagv0 on Wednesday March 15 2017, @05:07PM
Its just weird because every fatal hit and run in the news is inevitably another non-deportable illegal with the right to kill any citizen they want because illegal rights are superior to mere citizens rights.
Not all of them. Sometimes it is a privileged wealthy white woman [twincities.com] who is married to a local former sports star. There the travesty was the leniency of the punishment because had she been just about anyone else she would be rotting in jail for many years.
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 15 2017, @06:42PM
Because wow it is hard to read what you wrote as anything other than racist trolling or satire.
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Wednesday March 15 2017, @07:49PM (4 children)
Hmm, trying to think of something witty to post. “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” That sort of fits, but I think we need a bit of an adjustment.
Let's try “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Nationalism, deserve neither Liberty nor Nationalism.”
Thanks, Ben!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 15 2017, @08:46PM (1 child)
I never understood why anyone would take lessons on safety from a guy who thought that flying a kite in a thunderstorm was a sane thing to do.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Bot on Wednesday March 15 2017, @10:29PM
Because he has been enlightening, OBVIOUSLY.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 16 2017, @12:57AM (1 child)
Problem: it's not "essential" to import millions of freeloaders from other countries and pay for their homes, food, schools, child support and medical expenses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 16 2017, @04:04AM
Ah, alternative facts. Lemme make that less "alternative" and more "facts" for you.
Problem: it's
not"essential" to import millions offreeloadersworkers from other countriesandto pay fortheirour homes, food, schools, child support and medical expenses.(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday March 15 2017, @10:28PM
Why not fight back then?
Put the mugshots on torrents, ipfs, freenet, gnunet, or even archive.org - NEVER REMOVE ONE. They are like currency, so a lot of shady people will try collecting them.
This drives the reputation management firms out of business for what concerns mugshots.
Then legislators will do a 180 turn and they will have the mugshots removed. Sorry for those caught in between, every war has its victims and you were fucked anyway.
4. ???
5. PROFIT!!!
Account abandoned.