[sterlind]

if a politician is arrested on corruption charges, are you not allowed to name them? or if someone's spouse is arrested for their murder, you can't disclose it? or that the suspect is, say, a tech worker rather than a homeless person? how can you possibly cover high-profile crimes if you're not allowed to disclose facts about the suspects?

[pohuing]

You can do it after judge said guilty. High profile just uses initials.

[lazyasciiart]

In America most people are never declared guilty by a judge, they get held in jail until they give up and agree to the prosecutor declaring them guilty instead.

[not2b]

Juries, not judges, declare people guilty in the US. Prosecutors don't declare people guilty either; what you're talking about is people taking a plea bargain and pleading guilty. Bail reform can help take the pressure off of people to falsely confess to get out of jail, and we need more of it.

[kstenerud]

> how can you possibly cover high-profile crimes if you're not allowed to disclose facts about the suspects?

It's done like this: https://www.dw.com/en/german-police-arrest-25-suspects-over-...

[sterlind]

that exposes quite a lot more information than I expected, given OP's description of how the privacy laws work. it includes the suspects' ages, backgrounds and (very distinctive) first names. it took me a mere second to find their full names by Googling - there's not many 71-year old noblemen named "Heinrich XIII"!

so I guess it's a figleaf? good for them, I guess?

[kstenerud]

That's a high profile case. In most cases they don't release any names at all.