I agree that the contention between the two problems is real. That censorship is bad needs no explanation in a community like this. But the stigmatization of ex-criminals is counterproductive to them achieving the standards they're being judged against, and this is a real and under-recognized problems.

However, I don't think that the censorship legislation is an effective way to address this problem. I'm not convinced that legislation is a proper way to address it at all, but I think this legislation in particular is especially misguided, because it's dodging the whole question. It does not limit people's discriminatory actions, much less attitudes, against former criminals. It's not having been criminals that's the problem, it's people's reaction to it that's a problem. That's a social engineering issue, and this German law is a band-aid fix that tries to sweep the whole thing under the rug and call it a day.

The German law casts a discrimination issue as a privacy issue, and therefore misses the point. I side with the First Amendment on this one.