Nearly every news website looking for easy clicks seems to throw up a bunch of local mugshots, the Arizona Daily Star included, but why do we care about seeing our fellow Tucsonans at their worst moment, innocent or guilty? The New Yorker has an interesting article about the sociology of the mug shot online today:
The most ambitious mug-shot blogs present themselves as hybrids of newspaper and fetish sites, with photos organized under section titles that range from “Local News” and “Sports” to “Transgender” and “Beat-Up.” (Some news sites have themselves appropriated the form. The CBS-affiliated, WTSP Channel 10 news, “Tampa Bay’s news leader,” runs a slide show called “Notorious Women” on its Web site, which features dozens of mug shots of attractive women. The entertainment potential of mug shots has crept back to the source: a sheriff’s department in Arizona invites users to its Web site to vote on the “mug shot of the day.”) These sites are full of pathos and picturesque weirdness: little old ladies, suspects whose uncooperative heads are propped up by anonymous gloved hands, characters whose masklike expressiveness seems more appropriate to commedia dell’arte, people done up in elaborate Halloween costumes of animals or devils (or, fatefully, of prison inmates), a mild-mannered looking man with a “FUCK YOU” tattoo covering his entire forehead.
Mug-shot sites brand themselves as a public service, and offer the requisite disclaimers that everyone pictured on them is innocent until proven guilty. But, of course, mug shots are the very image of guilt, and seem almost proof of it, which is why some states caution judges and prosecutors against submitting them to juries. And it’s for this precise reason—instant lurid appeal—that mug-shot blogs can be profitable. Some, like arrests.org and mugshots.com, run ads from major brands: Southwest Airlines, Zipcar, Adobe, Lysol, Nokia. Mugshots.com partners with ten separate vendors with names like mugshotbusters.com that provide a service for people desperate to have their mug shot removed from the site. This semi-extortion scheme is apparently legal.
In case there’s any doubt about the relationship between these sites and online social networks, mug-shot profiles are furnished with a Twitter button. Users can click directly through a particular mug shot to find the person on Facebook. This gets at these sites’ unspoken service as a cultural corrective to the endless self-presentation that happens on social-network sites: here we are allowed to see, or to imagine, what our friends and neighbors look like when they aren’t reclining on the beach or looking good at parties. Mug shots are the gargoyles crouching at the ledges of the cathedral of Facebook.
This article appears in Jun 14-20, 2012.
This (and weather) are the go-to things that the powers that be at the ADS use to try and get people to come to their Web site. It’s such an infatuation that editors over there wanted a story about why they drape something over the suspects’ necks — it’s to keep their clothing in the mug shot from being attributed to the person when being used for identification in another crime; see? no story needed — for the front page!
Imagine using up the last of your ‘free’ views of stories in a month to click on a mug shot. That being said, there are some great ones … especially when they’re cross-eyed, or smile at the camera.
hey thats me!
Governmental issuance of public record voids it from public records.
The webmaster’s openly tell mainstream media that they are stealing public records and each state and the fed’s charges money for the records. The amount stolen goes into the hundred’s of millions of dollars.
INTERPOL
http://www.interpol.int/Forms/Contact_INTE…
18 USC § 1030 – Fraud and related activity in connection with computers
(2) intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access, and thereby obtains—
(C) information from any protected computer;
18 USC § 641 – Public money, property or records
Whoever embezzles, steals, purloins, or knowingly converts to his use or the use of another, or without authority, sells, conveys or disposes of any record, voucher, money, or thing of value of the United States or of any department or agency thereof, or any property made or being made under contract for the United States or any department or agency thereof;
Whoever receives, conceals, or retains the same with intent to convert it to his use or gain, knowing it to have been embezzled, stolen, purloined or converted—
Department Of Justice Manual
Criminal Resource Manual 1663 – Protection Of Public Records and Documents. “The taking of a public record or document is prohibited by 18 U.S.C. § 641.”
DOJ. Retrieved from http://www.justice.gov/usao/eousa/foia_rea…
Converts public records to his use or the use of another. Without authority, sells conveys or disposes of public record.
18 USC § 1028A – Aggravated identity theft
Whoever, knowingly transfers, possesses, or uses (website), without lawful authority, a means of identification (government photograph) of another person shall, in addition to the punishment provided for such felony, be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 2 years.
47 USC § 223 – Obscene or harassing telephone calls in the District of Columbia or in interstate or foreign communications
(a) Prohibited acts generally
Whoever—
(1) in interstate or foreign communications—
(C) makes a telephone call or utilizes a telecommunications device, whether or not conversation or communication ensues, without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person at the called number or who receives the communications;
18 USC § 2261A — Stalking
(2) with the intent—
(A) to kill, injure, harass, or place under surveillance with intent to kill, injure, harass, or intimidate, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person in another State or tribal jurisdiction or within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States; or
(i) that person;
18 USC § 2319 — Criminal infringement of a copyright & 17 USC § 506 — Criminal offenses
For the purpose of commercial advantage (website) and private financial gain.
Governmental Prima Facie Evidence of name and likeness copyright:
State Certified Birth Certificate, State Driver’s License, Passport and other government documents and records “created” to identify and validate name and likeness.
18 USC § 1584 – Sale into involuntary servitude
(a) Whoever knowingly and willfully holds to involuntary servitude or sells into any condition of involuntary servitude, any other person for any term, or brings within the United States any person so held, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.
Internet Spyware (I-SPY) Prevention Act of 2007
“Intentionally obtains (steals/screen scraps), or transmits (internet) to another person information with the intent to defraud (unpublish/repair reputation).”
18 USC § 875 – Interstate communications
Transmits (internet) communication interstate (world wide web) with the intent to “injure reputation” to extort (unpublish/repair reputation).
18 USC § 873 — Blackmail
Whoever, under a threat of informing, or as a consideration for not informing, against any violation of any law of the United States, demands or receives any money or other valuable thing, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.
18 USC § 1962 – Prohibited activities
(b) It shall be unlawful for any person through a pattern of racketeering activity or through collection of an unlawful debt to acquire or maintain, directly or indirectly, any interest in or control of any enterprise which is engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate or foreign commerce.
18 USC § 880 – Receiving the proceeds of extortion
A person(s) who receives, possesses, conceals, or disposes of any blackmail (unpublish/repair reputation) money.
Bizarre Logic and Reasoning
If kidnappers called the ransom amount the returning person fee would it bedazzle the system again? If the kidnappers rationalized their acts with the same logic would the system be mystified by them? Reasoning, they had to go through the hassle of kidnapping someone hence they are entitled to the returning person fee (Ransom Money).
If blackmailers called the extortion amount the unpublish/reputation repair fee would it bedazzle the system? Further, if the blackmailers rationalized their acts with the same logic would the system by mystified be them? Reasoning, they had to go through the hassle of stealing government property, identity theft, stalking people, holding people to involuntary servitude, injuring their reputation, blackmailing them, collecting an unlawful debt and collection extorting money hence they are entitles to the illegal money (unpublish/reputation repair fee).
http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-traffi…
Governmental issuance of public record voids it from public records.
Public Records of an individual.
Birth Certificate
Drivers License History
Court Records
Marriage Records
Divorce Records
I’m an American so I must “promote” and make “money” for individuals and corporations both foreign and domestic with my Public Records (Life).
Why is the USA government so bewildered that they invalidate their own identification records and documents?
18 USC § 2319 — Criminal infringement of a copyright & 17 USC § 506 — Criminal offenses
For the purpose of commercial advantage (website) and private financial gain.
Governmental Prima Facie Evidence of name and likeness copyright:
State Certified Birth Certificate, State Driver’s License, Passport and other government documents and records “created” to identify and validate name and likeness.