Mugshots Shouldn't Be Extortion Bait

Mugshots are a matter of public record. Apparently that gave an idea to some ... well, one hesitates to call them "entrepreneurs," but the word that does spring to mind can't be printed here. (This is a family blog, y'all.) The New York Times recently described one casualty of their entrepreneurial efforts:

Birnbaum was caught with five ecstasy pills in a routine traffic stop. We will leave aside the issue of whether he should have been arrested for such an offense, and concentrate on the fact that he was. Birnbaum is paying his debt to society. But this quasi-legal extortion means that he'll never get a clean discharge of that debt. He says he doesn't have the money to buy his shot from all the people who are hosting it. And even if he pays off all these reprobates, what's to prevent the owners of these sites from starting yet another site to extract yet another payment?