Youthful folly is fleeting, but the Internet is forever
Greg Bean
Coda

Every now and then, I get a call from someone who has gotten caught doing something illegal and doesn't want his or her name in the paper.

Usually, the caller is a normally upright citizen who has gotten stopped for driving under the influence or another similar infraction. They're not bad people, but they did a stupid thing and got arrested for it. And pretty soon, they realize there's a good chance their name will be in the paper, and all their neighbors and friends will also know about their dumb behavior.

Not only that, but now, in the time of the Internet when many newspapers put their content on the Web where it is archived, the details of their arrest will be available through infinity to anyone who types their name into a search engine. I regularly get calls from people who were arrested years ago and are still feeling the negative effects of their actions.

I don't blame them for being upset, because I know I would be if the shoe were on the other foot. Still, I always tell them the same thing. Their own poor decisions put their names in the public forum, and that's their fault, part of the repercussions of breaking the law. And if the police give us the arrest report, we put it in the paper, and we don't make exceptions. Ever.

One of the managing editors here, in fact, tells callers like this that if his mother got stopped for DUI, he'd put her name in the paper. As a matter of fact, he tells them, he hopes his mother does get arrested someday, so that he can prove, once and for all, that he doesn't play favorites.

The thing is, this guy means it.

I'll admit to having some sympathy for the lady who calls to say that if we put her name in the paper, all of her real estate clients will learn about it, and it will damage her business. I understand the concerns of the father who says he only had a few glasses of wine at a Christmas party, and if his name winds up in Police Beat, his kids will know about it, as will the parents of his kids' friends. I sympathize with their concerns, but not enough to make an exception for them and keep their names out of the paper. I've written and edited too many tragic stories about innocent people killed by drunken drivers to feel otherwise.

While I have little sympathy for those people, however, I think I have more for certain young folks who are finding that things they post about themselves on the Internet may come back to haunt them, even if the information they post does not indicate criminal behavior.

Take for example Amy Polumbo, a 22-year-old college student from Howell who is the current Miss New Jersey.

Polumbo has been in the news recently because someone, or several someones, calling themselves The Committee to Save Miss America, sent photos they pulled from Polumbo's page on the popular Web site Facebook to state pageant officials as part of an apparent blackmail attempt. Apparently, the committee intimated that if Polumbo is allowed to continue as Miss New Jersey, they will send more incriminating information.

Although no one says the photos are obscene or show any illegal activity - more exuberant, youthful indiscretion than behavior that might land one in jail - they are embarrassing enough that New Jersey pageant officials met last week to decide whether Polumbo should retain her crown. (She kept it.)

The situation echoes similar incidents earlier in the year, when nude photographs of the then-reigning Miss Nevada, Katie Rees, turned up on MySpace, and another when photos of "American Idol" contestant Antonella Barba of Point Pleasant turned up on the same site showing the contestant in flagrante delicto. Those photos cost Rees her crown and embarrassed Barba, who was also dealing with doctored photos of her on the Internet claiming to show her in even more compromising situations.

The problem is becoming more and more common as young posters on these sites discover that everything they posted in their wilder days is still readily available to prospective employers. More than one job candidate has been turned down because his prospective employer typed the candidate's name into a search engine and quickly discovered photos of the job seeker and his college pals drinking from a beer bong in their underwear.

Or worse, sometimes much worse. Like drinking from a beer bong, in their underwear, with their arms around a farm animal, wearing garters. Or maybe an old DUI.

So here's the deal. If you don't want your name in the newspaper, or the newspaper's Internet archives, don't break the law. And don't post any ridiculous statements or pictures of yourself on MySpace, or Facebook, or in an e-mail you wouldn't want your grandmother to see or read.

Trust me on this. Grandma will eventually see those photos and read that torrid prose, as long as she - or someone else in the family - knows how to Google. As the wise man said, passion and the follies of youth are fleeting, but the Internet is forever.

• • •

You know road rage is a big problem when the Vatican feels the need to issue a set of Ten Commandments for drivers, which an alert reader tells me they did last month. The commandments, issued by Cardinal Renato Martino, deal with everything from helping the victims of accidents, to drinking and driving, to not using your auto for personal power, to the admonition to not use your car as a place for sin. The list starts, of course, with the biggie: "You shall not kill."

I'm all for this set of commandments, and have a suggestion for the Department of Transportation. Let's print it up on big billboards that look like stone tablets and put one at every mile marker to remind folks to behave. That could violate the separation of church and state, but it might make the leatherhead who speeds through my neighborhood throwing trash out the window every afternoon feel guilty enough to stop.

• • •

Last week, when I gave out the U.S. Attorney's Office number for people to call in the matter of former Keyport Mayor John Merla's sentencing, I mistakenly gave the number for people with hearing impairments. The actual number is (973) 645-2700. As we say in the business, I regret being caught in this error.

Gregory Bean is executive editor of Greater Media Newspapers. You can reach him at gbean@gmnews.com.