
Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Published Article - augustocallejas
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/15/us/judge-los-angeles-times-delete-article.html
======
djsumdog
There is a lot of crossover here and the Right to be Forgotten. The EFF
opposed EU right to be forgotten laws because they could often be used in
censorship (like in this very matter).

In the US, there are fewer people who expunge criminal records because there
are companies that will produced expunged records in background checks so long
as they were public at any time. Banning this gets into 1st amendment grounds.

And that's the flip side: labeling theory. In places like Australia, certain
crimes do get removed from your record so long as you've stayed out of the
system for five years. Even their sex offender registry has limited use
(certain jobs, housing restrictions etc.); it's not public like ours. Then
again, they don't have freedom of speech (except in Victoria; sorta).

Could we have laws that restrict companies from considering criminal records
past x number of years in the US? I'm not sure if that'd be possible in our
currently legal system.

In America, you can't really restrict information, once it's published, except
in certain limited cases (like when a case involves a minor).

~~~
sschueller
I think it is abhorrent that data of expunged criminal records are kept by
private firms. Why can't this be made illegal if yelling "fire" in a theater
is?

~~~
chrisseaton
I can’t see how you can prevent someone making a truthful record of history.
What are you going to do? Hold a gun to people’s heads and tell them to forget
that things have happened?

~~~
vidarh
In a whole lot of countries this information is not readily publicly available
in the first place, and privately publishing it means someone has violated the
terms under which they were given access.

E.g. in the UK, to even be able to do a check to see if someone is barred from
certain types of work, you are required to abide by a long list of terms which
goes much further than merely not republishing the data. To request a less
comprehensive check requires you to have a compelling need (a specific set of
roles). The basic checks can only requested by the person they're about.

Violating the terms comes at the risk of no longer being able to do records
check (among other consequences), which may force you to close down your
business in the worst case.

Nothing prevents you from making a truthful record of history if you have the
data, but lots of things act to prevent most attempts to publish them.

~~~
vonmoltke
That's fine, but this thread is specifically talking about the US, where all
court records _are_ public documents unless specifically sealed by a judge,
with justification that can be challenged in court.

Now, publishing _expunged_ records in the US is morally dubious. I don't know
the case law in this area, though, so I don't know where it stands on legal
grounds.

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wcunning
Eugene Volokh discussed this case earlier today on his blog [0]. His rough
conclusion, with appropriate caselaw citations, was that the 9th circuit will
almost certainly overturn the injunction on the article.

[http://reason.com/volokh/2018/07/15/judge-orders-la-times-
to...](http://reason.com/volokh/2018/07/15/judge-orders-la-times-to-alter-
story-abo)

------
yadaeno
The times wrote about a confidential document that was mistakenly released to
the pulblic. The judge who sealed the document in the first ordered the times
to redact their article which goes against decades of case law and arguably
the first amendment. Not only this but the Streisand effect seems to suggest
that the court order will have the opposite than intended effect

~~~
hkai
I agree that rare, isolated incidents like this one will have the Streisand
effect.

However, once this practice becomes routine, it will no longer be the case.

~~~
king_nothing
Yes and arbitrary state censorship via prior restraint is knocking on our
doors right now. If this isn’t throughly thrown out with prejudice, things
will only get much, much worse.

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anothergoogler
Here's the article before it was edited:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20180714180330/http://www.latime...](https://web.archive.org/web/20180714180330/http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-
me-ln-glendale-detective-guilty-plea-20180714-story.html)

~~~
jessaustin
_John Saro Balian, 45, pleaded guilty to one count each of soliciting a bribe,
obstruction of justice and making false statements to federal investigators as
part of a plea agreement he reached with prosecutors. The document was ordered
to be filed under seal but appeared on PACER, a public online database for
court documents._

I'd say that last part is the part that got LAT in trouble... I rarely support
the whole "under seal" thing, especially when it's in order to protect a
corrupt dirtbag cop, but this "ask for forgiveness not permission" stuff won't
fly with many judges...

But yeah, this guy is scum. Not only has he gleefully profited from both sides
of the ruinous Drug War, but his police status has allowed him to escape the
draconian punishments that normal people suffer.

~~~
garmaine
> especially when it's in order to protect a corrupt dirtbag cop

It was an order to protect his family from retribution from violent
psychopaths that have in the past murdered not just informants / plea deal
recipients, but their entire family in the most bloody way imaginable. I would
not be surprised if the headline in a few days is about his wife and children
dying in ways unfit to print. And it would be irresponsible journalism of the
LA Times that made it happen.

I’m one of the most pro free speech person I know, but I’m squarely with the
judge and the right to seal court proceedings here. And with a now gone age of
journalism where this crap didn’t happen in the first place.

~~~
logfromblammo
Wow. Your circle of acquaintances must be strongly against freedom of speech,
then.

You cannot create the Memory Hole by court order. LA Times has a
constitutional right to print _anything_ they obtain legally. They are not
directly placing anyone's lives at risk by publishing.

If anything, they could publish _another_ article about how slipshod security
practices in the court system leak sensitive information to the public, and
the court system tries to censor journalists rather than investigating and
fixing their own problems.

The easiest way to protect the corrupt cop's family would have been to crack
down on police corruption, so that no cop could get so deeply involved with a
violent criminal organization that their family would ever be at risk. If the
gangs couldn't get corrupt cops to cover for them, they would find it much
more difficult to murder families for retaliation and intimidation.

Judging by Mexico's example, publishing may also put the journalists and their
families at risk.

This is definitely shooting the messenger. In a system where doing that is
illegal.

The judge is wrong, and should be reversed. Yesterday.

~~~
jessaustin
The "easy" way for cops, cop families, and normal people to be protected is to
end the disastrous Drug War. It wouldn't matter if all police were paragons of
virtue, applying enforcement rather than treatment to a drug problem is a sure
way to end up with multiplied problems.

~~~
logfromblammo
It is difficult to get someone to understand something when their livelihood
depends on not understanding it.

Drug trade earns money; money buys guns and shooters; guns and shooters
protect drug trade.

------
1996
Regardless of their reasons, it feels very wrong to think a judge or an
elected official could even think about regulating free speach. Double wrong
for doing to the press.

I hope the judge get removed from office. I don't want people like that in
charge of justice.

~~~
latch
I know this isn't related to hate speech, it was done to protect someone's
family, but in much of the world, various forms of speech are regulated (by
judges or elected officials).

To me, anyways, there's overwhelming anecdotal proof that having some limits
on speech correlates (and more than likely contributes) to a safer and more
just society without any virulent side effect. This is not a slippery slope.

I think it's good to be vigilant about these things and scrutinize judges and
officials though.

~~~
AmericanChopper
It’s the slipperiest slope of all. Thousands of people have been arrested for
causing offence in the UK after they introduced their absurd laws. Police have
recently been threatening to arrest people for mocking them online. In the US
we’re very lucky to have the first amendment to protect our speech no matter
who deems it hateful or offensive.

~~~
jkaplowitz
There are middle grounds that also work well, like what Canada has.

It's got entrenched constitutional protections for freedom of expression which
courts are willing to use to invalidate laws, but the same constitution
explicitly allows certain limits on that freedom.

The balance isn't perfect, especially not as applied to most Canadian
defamation laws (Quebec is a bit friendlier to defendants here). But it's
pretty good and way better than the UK's lack of any restraint on Parliament's
surveillance state tendencies.

~~~
AmericanChopper
Canada is a terrible example, they have compelled speech in their laws.
Referring to somebody by the wrong pronoun is a criminal offence in Canada.
The right to free speech is intrinsically the right to be offensive, for the
very simple reason that any statement at all could be taken as offensive by
somebody. As soon as you criminalise being offensive, any speech becomes fair
game for government censorship. It is the very definition of a slippery slope.

~~~
matthewmacleod
I find that definition is typically only used by people who are more
interested in “offence” than “freedom of speech”.

We should obviously all have the freedoms to be offensive, because like you
say, offence is essentially arbitrary. But we draw limits on that freedom all
the time - for safety, libel, or public order reasons, for example. The real
argument should be about where that line is drawn, and not those silly straw
men about “they are going to arrest me for calling a man a man”

~~~
AmericanChopper
It’s not silly at all, because that is literally a law in Canada.

There are also 0 restrictions on offensiveness in the US. Any restrictions on
speech are restrictions on other crimes. You can’t incite violence for
example. If your straw man of what free speech means we’re true, then a gang
leader could freely sit behind a desk and direct others to commit crime on his
behalf all day because all he’s doing is speaking, right?...

~~~
icebraining
_There are also 0 restrictions on offensiveness in the US._

That's not true: see "seven dirty words".

~~~
AmericanChopper
The Supreme Court ruling on that case held that broadcasting content into
people’s homes is materially different to public speech.

~~~
icebraining
So if the UK courts rule that posting on Twitter/FB is materially different
then it's all fine?

~~~
AmericanChopper
If twitter stopped operating on the internet, and started terrestrially
broadcasting their content into people’s homes then you might have a point.

------
kuon
This kind of things often ends up in a Streisand effect, seems very clumsy.

------
pasbesoin
Perhaps the judge should look instead to the court's and clerk's own record
management. Something that is obviously in error, and the original cause of
the risk.

Of course, they may well seek to quash such publicity. After all, who's going
to make a deal with a system so incompetent it can't keep a sealed record safe
from its own negligent mis-handling?

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newswriter99
It sounds like the reporter found it on PACER.

[https://www.pacer.gov/](https://www.pacer.gov/)

It's an extremely useful resource for information gathering.

------
billpg
I look forward to hearing how blockchain technology could have prevented this.

~~~
thinkmassive
Well the info could be hosted on IPFS, which eventually could be monetized by
something like Filecoin. I suspect you’re trolling, but decentralized
technologies certainly will play a part in publicly disseminating information
in the future.

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king_nothing
There’s already manufactured consent and corruption of civilizational-
implosion proportions, but this is a shot across the bow that the day of the
fourth estate independent press maybe numbered.

------
Bizarro
Stifling the first amendment is serious business. When are judges going to be
held accountable for their wrong actions?

~~~
danso
IIRC, federal judges can be removed by impeachment. Very unlikely that this
judge or any other would be impeached just for a controversial ruling, though:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_judge#...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_judge#Tenure_and_salary)

~~~
throw_away2
Not a federal judge and not an impeachment, but a judge has been removed for a
controversial ruling recently:
[https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/06/06/judge-
aaron-p...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/06/06/judge-aaron-persky-
who-gave-brock-turners-lenient-sentence-sanford-rape-case-recalled/674551002/)

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JumpCrisscross
Anyone have copies of the decision?

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M_Bakhtiari
> LA Times

Zero sympathy for them having been rangebanned from their site.

------
pseingatl
Wikileaks gets raked over the coals for (allegedly) printing similar
information and the LA Times gets a pass.

I believe it was in the Noriega case where the first order to CNN not to
publish was made. It was overturned by the 11th Circuit.

~~~
ars
> and the LA Times gets a pass

Hu? The LA Times took it down. How is that "gets a pass"?

The LA Times also acquired the information lawfully, Wikileaks did not.

~~~
hedora
The people at the LA times that published the information haven’t been forced
to choose between exile in an embassy, and facing a kangaroo court, and also
well-documented persecution via probably illegal psy-ops, falsified
slanderous/libelous communications “from” trusted colleagues, etc, etc.

Compared to wikileaks, they “got a pass”. It doesn’t make the mistreatment of
the LA Times any better though.

~~~
ars
Because they obeyed the court order and took it down, so obviously they didn't
have to do any of that.

I really don't understand what you are expecting. If you disobey a court, you
get punished. Why is that strange?

And the exile in an embassy thing was unrelated to any leaks, despite Assange
desperately trying to make it as if it was.

Look, I supported Wikileaks goals at first, but then Assange tried to turn it
into his personal PR firm, using the name "wiki" to try to make it as if it's
some "for the public thing".

