News Student posts perp details to Twitter

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2009/04/20/student-posts-perp-details-to-twitter/1

Photography student Brian Baugh has written an app to automatically re-post details on arrests made by the Denton Police Department to Twitter - to the police's dismay.

 

Sounds perfectly reasonable tbh - there's already a site that publishes the info. It's not like he hacked the police servers and stole the info. :\

 

hahah thats golden, mugshots are always good for a laugh- sux2beacrim.

 

+1

 

yeh if theyre putting it up he should be allowed to do this. publics public

 

This is brilliant, the information is already in the public domain, the Twitter feed is merely making this fact more aware to a wider range of people. It's like saying "Hey guys, you can find out who died by looking at the obituaries" or "Hey guys, you want to know which company has been made bankrupt go to the courts or read the papers." Baugh should include a tweet every now and then telling people how they can find out this info themselves.

 

Now this is how twitter should be used

 

Damn thats awesome. I wonder if I could get a copy of that and modify it to my area.

 

This is hilarious. We should have one for every department. Until I get arrested for something that is.

 

As I seem to be nicest or luckiest guy in history I don't get arrested for anything so I'm not scared that any information about me might ever appear on any police's page. So I'd tell the police to hire that guy, make this a regular instalment for every department big enough or that wants it and show the people what you do.
I'd say please don't do it with car crashes or fires as that'll just attract all those annoying people always standing in the way anyways.

for the guy who did it though!

 

Ya, I congradulate the guy. Although I wonder if he could be named "A member of the press" since his site is a publication of sorts.

 

I could see them having an issue with him using "Denton Police" even if he clarified he's unofficial. I almost think that might be what they mean by "close the account". I don't think they'd have a claim to stopping him from reposting public information but under the name "Denton Police" is a bit like saying the police endorse it by proxy. I could be something like "Denton Reports" or "Denton(tion)" or something. I'm not a marketing rep. lol.

 

+1

 

Found this on the hardocp forum: