
German murderer wins 'right to be forgotten' - onetimemanytime
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50579297
======
Grumbledour
What always baffles me about the right to be forgotten is that the issue never
is if something should truly be forgotten - it should not, it will stay on
record, in news articles etc. - but always if the offending piece of
information should be removed from search engine indexes.

I find this really troubling, because just making it harder to find does not
remove it and shifts power to persons who can make better use of
search/indexing tools or have the means to hire someone who does.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
It's a reasonable, but imperfect analogue for the old obscurity by sheer
quantity.

If you are a regular employee seeking a new job, it shields from idle searches
turfing up minor offences from years or decades ago. Europe seems to embrace
the possibility of rehabilitation, and I think it's fair that shoplifting or a
suspended sentence eventually goes away. In this context, plenty of roles
would be exempt from the expiry, e.g. joining the police, or working in the
legal system, among many others.

Neither case will prevent some major politician, business leader or celeb
being investigated if they come under enough of a cloud. Lack of search just
makes it a little less trivial. If your journalist really thinks there is
history to be found you send an intern or three to trawl through 30 years of
press archives at the local reference library. How it used to be done.

To me, that seems a reasonable balance and sensibly protective of the general
population being discriminated against for having done something minor and
daft 25 years ago.

~~~
Grumbledour
It just seems like a sloppy solution to do this at search engine level,
especially when most of these search engines are outside of european
jurisdiction.

I think it would be much more sensible to require the actual sources to
anonymize their online content after a certain time or just whenever something
like this goes to court instead of having private companies keep registers of
"forbidden" links.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
Hmm, given just about everything is found via search, that seems a reasonable
place. Your alternative might have someone needing to request forgetting from
dozens or hundreds of sources all over the place.

~~~
Grumbledour
But there isn't just one search engine and you will still have to submit all
the urls of these possible hundreds of places to all of them so they can be
blocked.

It is a really hard or maybe impossible problem to de publicize something on
the internet. Though I do think clear laws with due process would work much
better then using middlemen like the search engine providers to police on
their own merit.

------
Nitramp
> [...] violated his rights and his "ability to develop his personality,"

That's a rather poor translation of "Recht zur freien
Persönlichkeitsentfaltung". It's not really about developing your personality,
it's the right to live freely and pursue your personal life goals; something
more akin to "the pursuit of happiness".

~~~
onetimemanytime
>> _it 's the right to live freely and pursue your personal life goals;
something more akin to "the pursuit of happiness"._

I bet that the people already rotted due to his bullets will ask the court for
the same rights.

~~~
Nitramp
He's served his term of 20 years. He has the same human rights as you or I do.

------
jonathanstrange
I'm a bit torn in this case. I'm generally for the right to be forgotten,
especially in cases like this one, after the criminal has served a lifetime in
prison and has been re-integrated into society. However, the decision has some
strange aspects to it and elicits the usual ignorance about the Internet.

From what I've read, the judges primarily bemoaned that it is so easy to
search for his case by his name. Instead, the German magazine _Der Spiegel_ is
supposed to kind of obfuscate the original articles in their online archive,
making discovery harder, but not necessarily to delete them or alter his name
in them. The idea is that the stories should be harder to find in searches by
name. In my opinion that makes no sense, neither technically nor from the
point of view of the 'right to be forgotten' \- and in a case like this, the
stories are all over the net anyway.

~~~
DangerousPie
Makes perfect sense to me. The aim is not to eradicate all evidence of the
crime. The aim is just to allow him to lead a normal life where he doesn't
have to worry that a single Google search of his name would lead to him
getting fired.

~~~
larnmar
From my reading of the 1982 Spiegel article (which you can still find if you
google his name, Paul Termann) he was 44 when he committed his crime. He’d be
81 now. I don’t think getting fired is his concern.

------
monroviamonkey
Link to original article:
[http://magazin.spiegel.de/EpubDelivery/spiegel/pdf/14355425](http://magazin.spiegel.de/EpubDelivery/spiegel/pdf/14355425)

------
tom_mellior
Court ruling (in German, unsurprisingly):
[https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/SharedDocs/Entscheid...](https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/SharedDocs/Entscheidungen/DE/2019/11/rs20191106_1bvr001613.html)

Interestingly, the ruling refers to the yacht as "A.", unlike the BBC article
which uses the full name.

~~~
bildung
Because the BBC does not fall under German juristication.

~~~
tom_mellior
That's not the point. The BBC was not forced to redact the name, yes. This
still left the BBC free to redact it, or not hint at the name at all (like the
Guardian). The BBC seems to have made a conscious decision to make the case
easier to Google. They didn't need to do that.

~~~
mytailorisrich
In the UK people in criminal cases are always fully named (except minors).

In fact, at least in local news it is customary to publish name and residence
location (to avoid confusion).

E.g. a newspaper article would say that "John Doe of Dodgy Street, London has
been sentenced today at the Old Bailey to 10 years for drug trafficking",
often with the police mugshot as illustration. My local news site runs an
article every month with these details for all the people sentenced locally
during the past month.

~~~
tom_mellior
> In the UK people in criminal cases are always fully named (except minors).

If that were some sort of important guiding principle of all of the UK press
in general, you'd think that the BBC would have dug up the person's name in
this case. I don't have much data to go on, but I thought that the BBC might
apply different standards than tabloids or the local news.

~~~
mytailorisrich
The interesting point here is that the BBC refrained from naming the person,
not that they named the other details of the case.

As said, in the UK it is not viewed negatively to name people and specifics in
criminal cases, quite the opposite: It is something the public expects and
demands.

~~~
tom_mellior
Again, the Guardian's readers don't seem to demand this. And the BBC's readers
don't seem to demand it either. You might be confusing tabloids with all of
the UK press.

------
NeedMoreTea
Well that's disappointing. I've generally been in favour of right to be
forgotten as in a UK context it aligns well with the Rehabilitation of
Offenders Act.

A minor offence would be legally forgotten quickly, a murder would carry a
sentence of over 4 years which would never be eligible for forgetting. It
seems odd to me to clear something quite so serious.

------
curt15
So does "right to be forgotten" mean that people don't have a right to
remember?

~~~
nabla9
You are asking seemingly rhetorical and sarcastic question based on overly
literal understanding of the 'right to be forgotten'.

------
mytailorisrich
I find interesting that while the "right to be forgotten" does not prevent the
person from being named, all the articles I have found on Google are careful
not to name him (and I'm not talking about German articles, but articles in
English from non-German sources).

This strikes me as self-censorship.

As an aside, it's also interesting that a person sentenced to life for
murdering two people in 1982 was freed in 2002...

~~~
aliceryhl
A life sentence is rarely truly a life sentence in western countries.

~~~
larnmar
So why do courts keep lying to people? Why not just be honest about sentences?

~~~
jeremyfranco
Because it's not a lie.

Justice system in Europe is not a business, like it is in US, or a way to
inflict a punishment, it is a rehabilitation process: if you prove you have
changed, you can benefit from reduced sentences, furlough for good behavior
and/or early releases.

If you haven't, you stay in jail.

Think about the U.S. system where people can be taken to custody for murder
but can bail out, is that better in your opinion?

In Italy, for example, to keep mob affiliates in jail in solitary confinement,
so they can't speak with the outside, they had to make a specific law,
otherwise it would not be possible within the Italian prison system.

~~~
larnmar
The justice system is, and should be, always primarily about punishment.
Governments who forget that do so at their peril. Punishment isn’t just why we
have a justice system — there’s a reasonable case that it’s why we have
government at all!

Humans have a strong natural instinct towards justice — when soneone wrongs
us, we want to take revenge. In a state of nature this of course leads to
endless and bloody feuds, so at some point it became more sensible to devolve
the job of taking revenge to some kind of king or government, to ensure that
revenge is taken exactly once instead of becoming a never-ending cycle.

This worked pretty well for thousands of years, but in the last century or so
it has been falling apart. Soft-headed Government types have started to
believe that the actual purpose of the justice system is rehabilitation, not
justice, and as a result justice is rarely if ever served. Ask victims of
crime if the sentence given to the perp is anywhere near what they’d choose,
and they’ll say no. And then, the sentence that is given rarely gets carried
out, like this scumbag who was sentenced to life and released just twenty
years later.

The right to revenge is one of the most important human rights of all, and it
is utterly neglected in western societies these days. A proper justice system
would have a lot more crooks dying in jail and a lot less crime being
committed.

~~~
jeremyfranco
> The justice system is, and should be, always primarily about punishment

Not in Europe, since "Dei delitti e delle pene" (On Crimes and Punishments )
from Cesare Beccaria.

It was 1764, we were already aware of that.

Justice is not a way to __inflict __punishment, the sentence, as Beccaria put
it _" should be in degree to the severity of the crime"_ and should work as
deterrent, not as retribution (which is usually the case in US especially the
death penalty, that have the purpose of giving "an eye for an eye" to the
victim's family).

> Humans have a strong natural instinct towards justice

No, they don't.

Homō hominī lupus, men are very social animals, it doesn't mean they lean
naturally towards justice, they just defend their communities against other
communities.

> This worked pretty well for thousands of years

It didn't actually.

That's why we constantly reformed our justice system.

Think about the code of Ammurabi, does this work in your opinion?

 _" If the wife of a man has been caught lying with another man, they shall
bind them and throw them into the waters. If the owner of the wife would save
his wife then in turn the king could save his servant."_

It never really worked, especially for the regular folks, still today has a
lot of flaws let alone thousands of years ago. In Italy it was legal to kill
the wife that cheated (but not the husband who did the same), it was called
"honor killing" and it was abolished only in 1981.

So, no.

> The right to revenge is one of the most important human rights of all

It is its greatest fault indeed.

And it is what makes USA a country where the risk of being killed by a
stranger is 10 times higher than in Italy (5.63/100,000 vs 0.55/100.000), it
is higher than many third world countries or countries that are at war like
Sudan, Kenya, Niger, Libya, Syria or Iran.

------
vixen99
An Orwellian rectification that seems to be catching on.

"rectify — the Ministry of Truth euphemism for the alteration of the
historical record:"

~~~
Cthulhu_
I don't know the details of this case, but, the guy was caught and served his
time. He has been punished for what he did, and hopefully he's been
rehabilitated and can reintegrate back into society.

That's a lot more difficult if any employer (for example) googles his name and
decides to not hire him because he did something thirty years ago.

He's asking for a change in search results, that won't erase what he did and /
or his conviction.

~~~
Gibbon1
It's like the joke: but do they call me "McGregor the bridge builder"? No!

Point is in life there are things you can't walk back.

------
ga-vu
Was there even an internet for someone to chronolog his murders back in 1982?

I don't get this article at all...

~~~
Tomte
Newspapers have been digitizing their back archives.

------
Tomte
I find these discussions pretty boring, because virtually none of the
commenters have ever even read the two or three short articles of our
Grundgesetz that are at the center of this legal question.

I'm not talking about familiarizing yourself with standard legal doctrine or
landmark constitutional court rulings. Just having a little respect for the
fact that the US Constitution does not apply.

The right to be forgotten is not decided on a whim by a few judges, according
to their personal preferences, there is legal text surrounding the issue.

We Europeans who criticize your Second Amendment may be shallow, as well, but
we have usually at least read something about a "well-regulated militia" or
the "right to keep and bear arms", so we understand where you're coming from,
even if we think that's nuts.

~~~
tom_mellior
Not disagreeing with you, but...

> none of the commenters have ever even read the two or three short articles
> of our Grundgesetz

... referring to "two or three" specific articles without providing a link, or
at least the numbers so we can look them up, is not as useful as it could be.

~~~
Arnt
The Grundgesetz too is written the way it is for reasons, and IMO it's
generally better to go back to them.

Someone (a chief of police somewhere, IIRC) once put it like this: "We have a
tradition in this country that you're sentenced by a fair court, and once
you've served your punishment, you have paid your dues. Adding extra sanctions
afterwards threatens the fairness of that system." That's a poor misquote on
my part, but good principle on his/her, and legible in a way that the
Grundgesetz doesn't try to be.

~~~
Intermernet
Yes, but the question of how a society treats someone who is responsible for
an action is orthogonal to whether or not a society records and remembers that
an action happened.

The right to be forgotten tries to alleviate the symptoms of the first
question by addressing the second question.

It's similar to addressing homelessness by banning the reporting of
homelessness. There are complex questions that need to lead to major societal
change that can't be solved by removing data from the public record.

~~~
LeanderK
No, it's about the individual. Once we try to reintegrate somebody into the
society they deserve a chance to live without being discriminated against by
their past action (after they have served their punishment).

So I think it's entirely different than banning the reporting of homelessness.
It's similar to deleting your past status as homeless once you've made if back
from the streets (assuming such a register exists and should exist...).

It's also entirely different than banning statistics about murders, past
murders or the trend of murdering people. These statistics are not about the
individual.

~~~
threatofrain
Shouldn’t investors be able to keep little journals in their pockets about
prior fraud, and to chat freely about it in their meetings?

Shouldn’t a newspaper or public forum be able to discuss a wrongdoing in the
context of a history of wrongdoings?

The public’s clarity is what’s being traded here. I would argue that the
public and any relevant professional groups should never forget fraudsters
such as the CEO of workriot or theranos.

Another very dubious aspect of the right to be forgotten is that so as long as
outside parties exist in a complicated multipolar world, some very major and
relevant parties such as landlords or investors will likely play with such
knowledge and also be able to afford cover. Meanwhile everyone else has less
clarity on the situation.

~~~
LeanderK
Of course it's a tradeoff and needs to be balanced. The right to be forgotten
was never about censoring information itself, just making it less available
(e.g. newspapers do not need to erase names etc.). The more publicity your
case had, the less like it gets to be forgotten.

But I think you touch the issue. I don't think the answer to your questions is
always an unconditional yes, the opposite question can also be agreed upon.
There is no right or wrong. If our goal as society is rehabilitation and
reintegration of offenders (and not punishment as an end to itself), then
starting with a clean slate after serving your sentence is a fair solution.
Shouldn't people have the chance to leave their past behind and not be
followed by their mistakes for the end of their live? They only have one. But
if we choose this path, we have to be realistic, since your question are
certainly important consequences.

> The public’s clarity is what’s being traded here. I would argue that the
> public and any relevant professional groups should never forget fraudsters
> such as the CEO of workriot or theranos. I agree, but I think is on the
> "should not be forgotten" part of the balance.

I think it may highlight cultural differences. In another comment "freedom of
speech" in germany was brought up. It's a similar tradeoff there and we rely
on a reasonable legal system to implement it correctly and balance the
tradeoffs. I agree even stronger with our approach on "freedom of speech" and
certainly do not want rights as phrased for example in the US constitution. In
my point of view it's an important lesson from our history in germany. Its
something I very, very strongly agree with.

------
1e10
Well let’s put the mans name here and references so that we don’t forget...

------
onetimemanytime
>> _...when he shot and killed two people and severely injured another during
a row._

My two cents: maybe the memory should be longer for a few things, stealing a
loaf of bread or smoking pot is quite different from murders. In many
countries cold blooded murders give you a life sentence or death (either by
the state--or victim's family members when the state does not act) so maybe
this guy should have had the chance to file such an appeal.

~~~
precisioncoder
From the sounds of this it wasn't actually murder, it was manslaughter. Murder
requires being premeditated where this sounds like it was heat of the moment.

Personally I think we should either rehibilitate and then forget in order to
give them a chance to contribute to society, or keep them in prison. The idea
of releasing people but then villifying them will basically just channel them
back into the criminal system again. Studies have shown the best way to
prevent crime is with reintegrating them socially. The biggest risk factors
are:

"prior criminal history, lifestyle instability (unemployment, frequent moves),
and negative peer associations"

The right to be forgotten would reduce two out of three of those risks.

[https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/pblctns/smrsk-
fctrs...](https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/pblctns/smrsk-fctrs/index-
en.aspx)

~~~
NeedMoreTea
Wouldn't that make it second degree murder in US context?

~~~
precisioncoder
It could be either depends a lot on the context that led to the altercation.

"Voluntary manslaughter Sometimes called a crime of passion murder, is any
intentional killing that involves no prior intent to kill, and which was
committed under such circumstances that would "cause a reasonable person to
become emotionally or mentally disturbed". Both this and second-degree murder
are committed on the spot under a spur-of-the-moment choice, but the two
differ in the magnitude of the circumstances surrounding the crime. For
example, a bar fight that results in death would ordinarily constitute second-
degree murder. If that same bar fight stemmed from a discovery of infidelity,
however, it may be mitigated to voluntary manslaughter."

