Page 125 - Privacy in a Cyber Age Policy and Practice

8

The Right to Be Forgotten

A. Second Chances: A Generic Opportunity

A young man in upstate New York drinks too much and gets a little rowdy,
picks a fight, smashes up the bar, and is arrested. When he gets into trouble
again a short time later, the judge sends him to jail for a week. After his
release, he gets fired and cannot find a new job because he has a record. The
local newspaper carries a story about his misconduct. The merchants on
Main Street refuse to sell him anything on credit. The young women gossip
about him and refuse to date him. One day, he has had enough. He packs
his meager belongings, leaves without a good-bye, and moves to a small
town in Oregon. Here, he gains a new start. Nobody knows about his rowdy
past, and he has learned his lesson. He drinks less, avoids fights, works in a
lumberyard, and soon marries a nice local woman, has three kids, and lives
happily ever after. Cue the choir of angels singing in the background.
The idea that people deserve a second chance is an important American
value. Perhaps it grows out of America’s history as a nation of immigrants
who moved to the United States to start new lives. And as the American
West was settled, many Easterners and Midwesterners found a place there
for a second beginning. More profoundly, the belief in a new beginning is a
tenet of Christianity, which allows sinners to repent and be fully redeemed,
to be reborn. In a similar vein, the secular, progressive, optimistic, therapeutic
culture of today’s America rejects the notion that there are inherently bad
people. As individuals, Americans seek insights into their failings so they
can learn to overcome them and achieve a new start. From a sociological per-
spective, people are thrown off course by their social conditions—because
they are poor, for instance, and subject to discrimination. But these condi-
tions can be altered, and then these people will be able to lead good lives.
Under the right conditions, criminals can pay their debt to society and be
rehabilitated, sex offenders can be reformed, and others who have flunked
out can pass another test. Just give them a second chance.