I was just arrested. Is this public information? Who will know about it?

Arrests are public information and that comes from the history of an arrest warrant, bond form and these things were actually filed, and still are filed, with the clerk of court. And you even have a situation where in many instances your full name, date of birth, social security number, physical address, all of that is on the warrant, it’s on some of the other forms and those are publicly filed. Whereas in the past, no one would go look at those, generally speaking they could go to the courthouse and look at them but no one would take the time to do that.

Now those items are publicly disseminated or given out electronically so you have, for example, mug shot services where they publish some of that information, certainly the persons picture and name online; people look at those things. They’re also published in newspapers. These things come out weekly and have a surprisingly large following.

So yes, an arrest is public, your picture that’s taken at the jail which is always unflattering, that’s public; it’s on the Internet and there are many people that will see it in all likelihood.