" Mugshots.com " can attempt to use flowery language all it wants to shield its actions and business as free speech protected under the First Amendment; but you, as well as those who are VICTIMS of your business model, know that you are engaged in a form of "abetted BLACKMAIL and EXTORTION", pure and simple (and strictly MY PERSONAL OPINION). You mercilessly mock Boca News Now in a recent piece on your website while you drape yourself in First Amendment robes; unfortunately, your website is NOT one of those entities the Founders had in mind when they brought forth the First Amendment, for you do a disservice to it, in far too many ways. Take my example: I am an attorney. I drove into an unfamiliar part of northern Virginia in the early evening sometime last October. I nearly missed a turn by the side of an empty road. I was making a slight adjustment to enter the turn when an Officer drove up behind me and turned on his lights. I was never physically arrested nor taken to a station, talkless of having my "mugshot" taken. I was only given a Summons to appear in a Fairfax County, VA, court on a charge of "Reckless Driving". It turns out that in Virginia, when you get a Summons for such a charge, it is CONSIDERED an "arrest". The "Reckless Driving" charge was later dismised. But how many of your website's visitors understand that? They believe ALL arrests are accompanied with a person being taken into physical custody, however briefly. Since October my name has appeared on your website as the subject of an arrest, yet THERE IS NO MUGSHOT WHATSOVER TO ACCOMPANY YOUR "SCOOP" OF MY "ARREST".instead, my home address that is more than a thousand miles from the location of the "arrest" remains splashed on your website for the rest of the world to see, including someone against whom I took out an Order for Protection very recently. Now, answer this question: what would your website be without your "UNPUBLISH" service? How would you sustain your, er, BLACKMAIL OPERATION (STRICTLY MY OPINION), masquerading as an operation in defense of the First Amendment? I suspect if I had come up with the ASTRONOMICAL amont you demanded to unpublish information about my arrest (about $400), it will no longer be there. But I refuse to oil the engines of an ill-disguised BLACKMAIL OPERATION (again, My PERSONAL OPINION). What if I do decide to pay the "ransom" you demand, but instead of being a journalist with many years of experience and an attorney that I am, I am instead a "professional and veteran" criminal that somehow meets your "guidelines" for unpublishing, and my information disappears from your website? How does that protect the public or, still more incredulously, advance the aims of the First Amendment, as you guys are often inclined to bleat, as in this particular instance? Please, do not continue to assault our sensibilities with your rationalizations for continuing to operate, at least as far as the "unpublishing" part is concerned. & Akeem Adebayo Soboyede, Esq.
0 comments