identity
Citizens in the United States are not given full ownership of the elements of their identity -- and they have a right to it. Some of the most important things about each citizen, photos, names, addresses, phone numbers, etc. are passed freely around -- even bought and sold by marketers often without the citizens even being aware.
The 'identity ownership' issue has a number of facets from email spam to junk mail to telemarketing to getting a fair trial in our court system.
One very important facet is in the judicial realm. Nearly every day we see on television or read in the newspaper information about people being accused of or arrested for various crimes. Unfortunately the 'not-guilty' verdict is seldom reported with as much enthusiasm as the accusation and arrest. Innocent people have lost their jobs because they were accused and publically identified. Reputations and relationships have been destroyed -- lives have been damaged beyond repair. All for the sake of entertainment or a sellable headline in the evening news!
That is wrong. I believe that identifying information about people arrested or accused should be released to the news media only if the person involved agrees to it or if they are eventually found guilty in the courts. Innocent people should not be put on display for the purposed of entertainment or for the benefit of the evening news.
Public identification of accused, but legally innocent people can affect their ability to get a fair trial. The news media itself reports repeatedly of court trials that have been made difficult and in some cases, impossible because the names and information about accused people were published and sensationalized and in so doing, biased prospective jurors. The courts often do protect the names of witnesses, but never the accused.
The US Supreme Court has determined that this issue involves 'freedom of expression' and the 'freedom of the press' and has therefore allowed it to continue. Unfortunately this freedom does not extend to the actual living, breathing, voting citizens of our nation. I believe all Supreme Court decisions should be 'citizens first'. In this case, I believe we should identify the guilty and protect the innocent.
The 'identity ownership' issue has a number of facets from email spam to junk mail to telemarketing to getting a fair trial in our court system.
One very important facet is in the judicial realm. Nearly every day we see on television or read in the newspaper information about people being accused of or arrested for various crimes. Unfortunately the 'not-guilty' verdict is seldom reported with as much enthusiasm as the accusation and arrest. Innocent people have lost their jobs because they were accused and publically identified. Reputations and relationships have been destroyed -- lives have been damaged beyond repair. All for the sake of entertainment or a sellable headline in the evening news!
That is wrong. I believe that identifying information about people arrested or accused should be released to the news media only if the person involved agrees to it or if they are eventually found guilty in the courts. Innocent people should not be put on display for the purposed of entertainment or for the benefit of the evening news.
Public identification of accused, but legally innocent people can affect their ability to get a fair trial. The news media itself reports repeatedly of court trials that have been made difficult and in some cases, impossible because the names and information about accused people were published and sensationalized and in so doing, biased prospective jurors. The courts often do protect the names of witnesses, but never the accused.
The US Supreme Court has determined that this issue involves 'freedom of expression' and the 'freedom of the press' and has therefore allowed it to continue. Unfortunately this freedom does not extend to the actual living, breathing, voting citizens of our nation. I believe all Supreme Court decisions should be 'citizens first'. In this case, I believe we should identify the guilty and protect the innocent.
posted by Sam | 6:01 AM
2 Comments:
This sounds like agreat idea, but could potentially change so many things that our world wouldn't be recognizable.
Wow, this sounds like you want a very strong version of the privacy protection laws found in Europe. Might it be that liberal Keynesians have good ideas from time to time?
I would also point out that Europe is also quite friendly to small farms and to small businesses. While living in France, I was able to buy bread that was baked fresh locally, buy groceries at a local market from local producers and dine in resturants that were not part of a national chain that cooked everything somewhere else. (Go to Granite City or any other 'chain resturant' and see if the 'chef' can tell you how much salt was added to the soup. He will have no idea because he didn't make it. In France, you can ask for almost anythig to be 'low sodium' becuase the chef can simply not add the normal amount of salt.)
I hope that blogs like this will lead to a synthesis of ideas from all over the globe. I feel that there can be quite wide agreement if we find ways around the divisive nature of American politics. It almost seems that squabbles are being created just so keep us distracted from the important issues of economy, health, justice and equality.
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