Florida Mugshot Removal

Florida Mugshots

Proposed Mugshot Removal Legislation, Florida Senate Bill 0276

Florida Senate Bill 0276 for the 2015 legislative session was introduced by Sen. Darren Soto of Kissimmee, Florida.  The bill is intended to shut down the mug shot extortion industry.  By now, most people are familiar with the industry.  Bills have been introduced in previous sessions, but none have become law.  Even if the earlier bills had become law, most were unconstitutional and would have been set aside.  This bill is drafted to prohibit the commercialization as opposed to content.  The First Amendment has nothing to do with whether or not this bill will accomplish its objective.  The objective is to shut down the mug shot extortion industry and Bill 0276 will fail to accomplish its objective.

Mug Shot Removal Industry is Thriving

The extortion business is thriving on the internet right now.  The mug shot extortion industry is just one of many.  Certain websites label themselves as “consumer protection websites” are also considered part of the online extortion industry.

Mug Shot Removal Regulation Will Fail

Here is why Bill 0276 will fail.  All internet domains are registered to an owner.  The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, hereinafter “ICANN” keeps track of what individual and/or company owns the various names.  You can think of it as the internet’s registrar of deeds.  Just like the registrar of deeds, you can do a search.

The largest, if not the largest, company in the mug shot publishing industry is mugshots.com.  Please note that I am not linking to them.  The owners of the website did not simply register the domain with Godaddy.  Rather, it appears, the owners went to great lengths to create a jurisdictional gordian knot to shield themselves from liability in the United States.  Click here to view the ICANN domain registration information.  The ICANN registration information indicates that the website was registered by a corporation in Belize through a registration company in Australia.

The registrar, a website to purchase domains, is Fabulous.com.  Fabulous is an Austrailian company.  The registrant, person or corporation buying the domain, is International Whois Privacy Services Limited, hereinafter “IWPSL.”  IWPSL acts as a proxy to register the website and hold it in trust for the owners.  IWPSL’s registration address is in Belize.  The listed servers are located in Canada and England.  Additionally, those may be proxies as well.  Mugshots.com is owned by JUKISSUUDESSA which is a limited liability corporation located in Nevis, West Indies.

Legal Manuvering

Mugshots.com and Mugshots.com Database appear to be two separate entities.  By creating two separate entities, Mugshots.com and Mugshots.com Database may not have any liability due to the way the Florida Senate Bill 0267 is currently worded.

Solution

Most people find the mug shot publishing/extortion industry distasteful.  With no less than 5 different jurisdictions involved, the only way to shut down the industry is to limit the access to the data or possibly creating federal legislation which would permit the federal government to seize offending domains.  Police reports will and should always be a matter of public record.  State legislatures may want to reconsider their positions on mugshots.

The Law Offices of Michael A. Dye, PA, 1 East Broward Boulevard #700, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301 (954)990-0525 or
The Law Offices of Michael A. Dye, PA, 2 S Biscayne Blvd, Miami, FL 33131 (305)459-3286