Complaint Review: www.mugshots.com - Internet

The Issue of Florida's inconstent laws about mugshot/ booking  information. When it suits them, the booking photos are removed from websites on line.

If you are just an ordinary person,  Florida follows the Sunshine Law, if you are "one of the Officials", they pick and choose who is to stay online or not... What is wrong with this picture? This split in the law and use of the law for individual rights should be looked at more carefully in the courts. when does the law work for some, but not for others?

Theres nothing private about what your face looks like, and theres nothing private about being arrested for a crime.
Yet journalists/ bloggers seeking copies of police booking photos are at times encountering stiff resistance from law enforcement agencies.

Records kept by all government agencies including police departments, sheriffs offices and jails are assumed to be publicly available unless a specific statutory exception applies.

 Mug shots have been routinely accessible by the news media for many decades (and indeed, police themselves frequently distribute photos of wanted fugitives to the media to enlist the publics aid).

When a Florida newspaper wanted to publish the mugshot of a prominent former police major indicted on racketeering charges, the county commission refused to release it. The commission took the issue to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi for guidance, and on June 8, Bondis office issued an advisory interpretation that says Florida law imposes no duty to keep mugshots confidential. In other words, a Florida agency can decide to release or withhold a booking photo at its discretion.

The federal courts of appeal are split over whether the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which applies to agencies of the federal government including U.S. Marshals and the federal prison system, requires the release of mugshots.

The Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has said that mugshots are a matter of public record. But in a pair of more recent rulings, the Tenth and Eleventh U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals have decided otherwise.

Last year, the Atlanta-based Eleventh Circuit rubber-stamped a district courts decision that denied a freelance journalist/Bloggers access to booking photos taken by federal marshals after arresting a suspect on charges of securities fraud. The court applied the personal privacy exemption of the federal FOIA, finding that the publics interest in disclosure was outweighed by the arrestees privacy concerns:

[A] booking photo does more than suggest guilt; it raises a unique privacy interest because it captures an embarrassing moment that is not normally exposed to the public eye.

However, the privacy interest in the Karantsalis case was especially weak, because the person in the photo was not just accused but convicted of securities fraud after entering a guilty plea. If the public believed Luis Giro to be unsavory, it would probably be because he admitted ripping off investors in a Ponzi scheme, not because his picture was badly lit.

In February of this year, the Tenth Circuit agreed that federal agencies need not honor FOIA requests for booking shots. In World Publishing Company v. Department of Justice, the court found that the Tulsa World was not entitled to mugshots of federal detainees, because the public interests served by disclosure were speculative in comparison to the impact on privacy.
Influenced by the World Publishing decision, at least one Oklahoma prosecutors office recently changed its policy and stopped making arrest photos available even though federal FOIA rulings dont apply to state agencies.

Whats remarkable about this phenomenon is its utter lack of consistency. At the same time judges are concluding that there is an overriding privacy interest in booking photos, law enforcement agencies are cooperating with news organizations to make galleries of mugshots (even shots of those facing relatively minor and nonviolent offenses) viewable online as a shaming tactic. The opther part that is being dismissed is the length of time that the information remains on a private, business website/bloggers, until it is paid to be removed. from that site.

What are these people in public office thinking? OR are they Not?...

Dear Sir/Madam,
1)It has crossed my mind, that In the minds of the Predatory mugshot Websites, they think they are doing nothing wrong. They are justifying their Miss Use of "facts/Truth", for their financial gain as not having any legal wrong doing. It has not not sat well with me, that these websites are acting in collusion with vendors that are from Canada and other States, (I do wonder about how they are reporting the revenue is being exchanged (for My calling Canada and paying to take my name down  "off" the internet costs alot of money. It has crossed my mind that the general public does not know what their rights are (Business law and personal law and the internet). If these mugshot websites (www.mugshots.com0 were not breaking the law, why  do they not have the business transparency, that a legal honest business would have? It has crossed my mind to find out and learn how these sites are legally operating. many other things have crossed my mind.

2) If I did not have an interesting 4 hours, I might not even know about these sites. I would never had learned about Botnets, I would never have thought twice about the predators that exist on the internet and justify their behavors and compromised morals under "Freedom of Speech and "Freedom of Information". I would never have thought that there could be such a Perversion of the use of "Facts and Truth". In America, the people behind these sites are getting away with something that, in other countries their fingers could get cut off for.

 The Internet is a different "Publication" than the paper publications. Paper publications have  registared business identification numbers, do these internet blogs have that? These websites move "Publication" to a new level. This is not journalism. Dozens of paper publications are in a different boat. These webhosted, webmaster bloggs are a different means of communication. These sites are not news, these sites are deceptively parading like they are  associated with Law Enforcement. These sites are engaging in unfair and deceptive business practices on the interent, via wire, via use of creditcard transactions, illegal Post Office boxes (speak to post master general). Hiding behind "Safe Harbor Act" and First Amendment.  If these sites are "doing nothing wrong", why don't they give their real business information?..Why to they lack the transparency that legal business and organizations have? Business that are legal have no problem producing their DBA, the states they are registared in. Legal business, even if they make people angry, don't hide their identities.. Do these websites fear retaliation from many people that do not like their business practice?. I guess the courts  would get the opportunity to figure that one out.

3)These sites are placing persons that have been arrested, in the position of duress to use "their authorized vendors" "or else", their pictures and information will remain at the hands of who ever is running the site. These sites are putting people into odd positions to figure out who is running these  websites. I don't have a weak agenda. I am an American Citizen, with Rights. These websites have a weak agenda, that over then next 24 months will change. Www.mugshots.com et al., exist to make money from hacking and scrapping secure sites, these sites do racial profiling, entertainment venues. These sites play unfair optimizing games to an arrestee's name, after expungments. These websites would like to make themselves appear "as if" they have any Journalistic worthyness. These sites bring real journalism to a whole other level. Unfortunattely, these sites also taint the meaning of Julian Assange. The people that run these "mugshot" websites are cowards, that hide. Cowards that are just holding on to booking photos, until they get paid, victimizing a person that has been booked, expunged and even forgiven by  "A State". These sites are behaving like criminals, that think they are not going to get caught. These sites are putting people that have nothing to do with them in danger, because their names are published in connection with other sites.

4)Everyone that reads these reports needs to know that they have rights to report the miss use of booking information to their state officials, the officials of the state they were booked, the FTC (877-382-4357), Senator Rockerfeller; 531 Hart Building, Washington, DC 20510, Att: Complaints Office, Internet/websites . If incident was in Florida,  report sites to BBBFL (727-535-5522), Pam Bondi's office (561-837-5000) (850-414-3990), Florida Department of Agriculture and consumer service ((850-488-2221). File complaints and request copies of complaints and reports from these agencies.
My agenda of informing the public of their rights and getting a balance to fair honest, current  real freedom of speech and information;  may be a bit more worhty than defending  a "For profit" blog/website that is rouge in hiding and miss placing it's agenda.

Maybe the reason you don't get the results you want is because they aren't breaking any law? If they were breaking the law then many dozens of other publications would be in the same boat as well. The truth of the matter is you've got a weak personal agenda. You got arrested and the mugshot is on the site. Don't like it? Try and change the U.S constitution.