Wikipedia sued by German killers in privacy claim.

How should we protect murders' right to privacy?
As we know, Wikipedia has many types of sources including information about murders, and recently, two German murders sued Wikipedia for right to privacy.
They killed an actor in 1990, and were sentenced to prison in 1993. They were released in 2007 and 2008. This incident became infamous because of the killing a popular actor, and information spread out to many media, especially on the Internet.
However, German courts gave a decision that their names should be removed from media after their prison terms. Their lawyer said that "they should be able to go on and be resocialized, and lead a life without being publicly stigmatized," and furthermore, "a criminal has right to privacy, too, and a right to be alone."
The editors of Wikipedia in Germany already removed murders' name, but in other languages, the names still appear. They appealed to remove their name from English Wikipedia.
Wikipedia administrators have discussed this issue for more than a year; however, there is a deep divergence between German-determined right of privacy and the US First Amendment. In the article, a prominent First Amendment lawyer told, "the US Supreme Court would agree that the Wikipedia artile is easily and comfortably protected by the First Amendment. But Germany's courts have come up with a different balance between the right to privacy and the public's right to know," and also said that "once you're in the business of suppressing speech, the quest for more speech to suppress is endless."

Yet it is not clear that Wikipedia will remove the murders' name from the English site, but since the Internet is a worldwide availabe tool, I think this is on eof important media law issues, which is beyond the border.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/nov/13/wikipedia-sued-privacy-claim