Free speech regulations should be cautious, narrow

In a 1783 address to United States army officers, George Washington said, “If the freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”

Like Washington, I believe that the freedom of citizens to exchange information with each other is essential to our security. However, I also acknowledge that the freedom to publish anything is a privilege that can be viciously abused.

Case in point – Mugshots.com. The website claims to be performing a legitimate public service by publishing every booking photograph it can get its hands on, but its real racket is charging people as much as $400 to have their mugshot removed.

All thanks to the freedoms afforded by the First Amendment.

Enter Colorado’s House Bill 14-1047, which passed committee last week. Sponsored by District 13 representative KC Becker (D), the bill aims to protect citizens who have had their mugshot published on a commercial website by requiring requests for removal by persons who are not charged, have had their charges dismissed or have been acquitted of charges to be accommodated at no cost.

“This is a modest proposal to deal with a real issue where innocent people are harmed, because people make assumptions when you have a mug shot,” Becker told the Denver Post.

Although the bill’s intentions are good, it suffers from a common pitfall of attempted speech regulations — its language is too broad.

The bill does contain an exemption for news outlets: “publisher[s] of a newspaper or periodical; wire service; radio or television station or network; news or feature syndicate; or cable television system” cannot be compelled to remove mug shots. However, this definition fails to include independent journalists and bloggers who may be just as instrumental in informing the public as a professional organization.

Freedom of speech as we enjoy today in America permits people to do and say some pretty nasty things, but it also allows us to protect ourselves by staying informed. Try as I might, I cannot imagine a situation in which trading some of my freedom for the suppression of a nasty thing — even so nasty as Mugshots.com — is a good deal. Regulation such as Becker’s bill, while a great idea on paper, goes just a hair’s breadth beyond its stated regulatory goals, but even that infinitesimal distance is entirely too far.

The First Amendment, despite its vaunted nobility, casts a sort of shadow on society, a shady place occupied by creeps like the proprietors of Mugshots.com. Although turning the harsh light of regulation upon this dark area may scare those boogeymen away, its side effect will be creating a much deeper and darker shade on the other side, the very sort of place to which Washington feared we would be led, “dumb and silent… like sheep to the slaughter.”

crclark2@mavs.coloradomesa.edu

Categorised in: Opinions

This post was written by critedev