In yet another example of how government censorship tends to creep from country to country, a German law firm is demanding that Wikipedia remove all references to a man convicted in the brutal 1990 murder of filmmaker Walter Sedlmayr:

At issue is an apparent conflict between the U.S. First Amendment -- which protects truthful speech -- and German law -- which seeks to protect the name and likenesses of private persons from unwanted publicity. Sedlmayr's murderer became a public figure when he and his accomplice were tried for brutally killing the well-known actor, and contemporary newspapers published his identity at that time. Fifteen years later, according to his attorneys, German law views the killer as a private citizen again. So, his lawyers have sued the German language Wikipedia, and threatened the English language version with the same, if they fail to censor the Sedlmayr article. They've also gone after an Austrian ISP that had published the names, and it looks like that case may head to the European Court of Justice. Perhaps Germany wants to make it easier for defendants to reintegrate into society, and publicizing a man's past crimes interferes with the effort. After all, "he who controls the past, controls the future". But this slogan from Orwell's Ministry of Truth is anathema under U.S. law, which takes it as an article of faith that people must be allowed to publish truthful information about historical events.

A foreign power should not be able to censor publications in the United States, regardless of whether doing so suits the country's domestic law. The current dispute is reminiscent of LICRA v. Yahoo!, in which a French court ordered the American company to prevent access to its Nazi memorabilia auctions by French residents, then fined the company for failing to do so. Yahoo! sought and obtained a ruling in the U.S. that imposing the French law on the company would violate the First Amendment. (The opinion was subsequently overturned for lack of personal jurisdiction over the French entities).

At stake is the integrity of history itself.

And imagine if we had a similar standard here. People would not be allowed to discuss the crimes of such charming people as Michael Vick. Or Squeaky Fromme. Or Bernardine Dohrn (who according to a recent report, may yet actually face murder charges).

I'm glad that so far, Wikipedia is sticking to its guns. Here's an excerpt from the entry on the Sedlmayr murder (and please forgive the html garbling that will occur to the German characters):

In July 1990, Sedlmayr was found dead and mutilated in his bedroom. He had been tied up and killed with a knife and a hammer. Through lurid reports in the Munich tabloid press, his homosexuality became a matter of public knowledge for the first time. In 1993, half-brothers Manfred Lauber and Wolfgang Werlé,[1][2][3][4] former business associates of Sedlmayr, were sentenced to life in prison for his murder. They were released on parole in 2007 and 2008.[5]

Sedlmayr's life and murder were the subject of the 2001 biopic Wambo by Jo Baier, where he was played by Jürgen Tarrach, and of an episode of the ARD TV series Die großen Kriminalfälle.

In October 2009, lawyers for Wolfgang Werlé sent Wikimedia Foundation a cease and desist letter requesting that Werlé's name be removed from the English language Wikipedia article Walter Sedlmayr.[6][7][8] The U.S. First Amendment protects freedom of speech and freedom of the press, although German law seeks to protect the name and likenesses of private persons from unwanted publicity. The German language version of the Wikipedia article about the Sedlmayr case removed the names of the murderers.[9][10]

As it is now, I could probably get sued in Germany just for quoting Wikipedia's true statements in this post.