PC World wrote a story that people arrested for DWI during holidays in Montgomery County, Texas will have their names put up on Twitter by the local district attorney. So far Brett Ligon’s tweets haven’t included any names although there sure is a lot of information about DWI activity in his county.
Although it’s apparently not an uncommon practice for newspapers to put up this kind of information, Twitter obviously distributes this information far further than any local papers. A Google search of a persons name will reveal tweets although it’s not clear how recent the post would have to be. It’s also not clear that names would be removed if people were exonerated. The prosecutor’s office has said they will only post arrests that are “strong enough to prosecute.” Despite the fact that conviction rates for DWIs are quite high, charged and convicted are still not the same thing.
One place where this information could be quite harmful is if someone were to look for a job. A DWI arrest could be enough to keep somebody from being hired irregardless if the charge was dropped, the person was exonerated or if the record was sealed or purged.
I really hope some court will someday declare twitter unconstitutional…but I’m doubtful.