Police in Montgomery County in Texas (Houston area) have decided to post the names of drunk drivers on Twitter. While the police in this county will only do it through New Year’s and other holiday weekends, it raises a great number of questions.
First, one has to wonder if the fact will directly affect anyone’s decision to drive after having a few too many to drink. Think about it: a good number of people affected under this “new policy” may not understand the penalties, let alone know what Twitter actually is.
While getting your name published on a website for committing a crime could result in some initial embarrassment, the tweets or updates could be picked up by other websites and indexed in Google for an extended time. This could raise some issues if the intoxicated driver is eventually proven innocent. Google results could get buried but don’t necessarily go anywhere.
According to the news story, Venkat Balasubramani, a lawyer and law blogger, made a good point. He stated that just because facts are available to the public does not mean that the prosecutor needs to actively publicize the facts. Who is to say that police won’t start tweeting about other committed crimes in the future?
Let me know your thoughts on this story in the comments. Is tweeting the names of drunk drivers an acceptable approach to take?
Police Will Tweet Drunk Drivers’ Names: Acceptable?
First, one has to wonder if the fact will directly affect anyone’s decision to drive after having a few too many to drink. Think about it: a good number of people affected under this “new policy” may not understand the penalties, let alone know what Twitter actually is.
While getting your name published on a website for committing a crime could result in some initial embarrassment, the tweets or updates could be picked up by other websites and indexed in Google for an extended time. This could raise some issues if the intoxicated driver is eventually proven innocent. Google results could get buried but don’t necessarily go anywhere.
According to the news story, Venkat Balasubramani, a lawyer and law blogger, made a good point. He stated that just because facts are available to the public does not mean that the prosecutor needs to actively publicize the facts. Who is to say that police won’t start tweeting about other committed crimes in the future?
Let me know your thoughts on this story in the comments. Is tweeting the names of drunk drivers an acceptable approach to take?
(Source: CNET News)