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August 2, 2009
Dallas - Unfair Park - UNT Student Behind "Denton Police" Twitter Says New Media Mash-Ups Inspired Him
Dallas - Unfair Park - UNT Student Behind "Denton Police" Twitter Says New Media Mash-Ups Inspired HimUNT Student Behind "Denton Police" Twitter Says New Media Mash-Ups Inspired Him
By Patrick Michels in News You Can Actually Use, ActuallyFriday, Apr. 17 2009 @ 6:32PMBrian Baugh, the University of North Texas senior behind the "Denton Police" Twitter account, says his project began with his surprise at how much information is out there about each of us online. Not just the party photos on Facebook, the home address in the people search or your Twitter update about the Lean Cuisine in the microwave -- but what happens when all that information comes together in one easy-to-find place.
Baugh, who studies photography at UNT, says he was inspired by new media art projects like We Feel Fine, a mash-up of blog entries with the words "I feel" layered with information about the author like their gender, their location and what the weather was like at the time.
When he saw the Denton Police Jail Record online, he says, he wondered where he'd find out if anyone he knew had been arrested and how long that would take. Pulling information from the public site and pushing it on a Twitter account he opened, he created a new, easier way to keep tabs on who's getting pinched. "I thought it would just be a thing with my friends," he says.
"I guess I'm happy that it got popular," Baugh says. "I didn't expect that to happen. I thought it would just be a thing with my friends."
As we wrote earlier, there's an effort underway from Denton's city attorneys to get the feed shut down, which Baugh finds ironic since it's all public information anyway. "The only way they might shut it down is if they wanted to use the account for themselves."
As with most dust-ups between the law and the Internet, the practical effect of any legal challenges would be pretty limited. "If someone was wanting to use the information maliciously, it's already out there," Baugh points out. "At this point it's too late to put it back in the bottle."
be careful driving in denton, tx, you'll be tweeted for dui
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Denton Police Department
City Jail Custody Report
If you have any questions please review the FAQ section. Click here to see the disclaimer. This listing is updated with each visit to this webpage.
© 2005 City of Denton
Name DOB Arrest Date/Time
ChargeMug Shot
Bond/FineBond Amount THOMAS, DEREK 05/21/1988 08/02/2009 02:02:11 DPD/INSPECTION CERTIFICATE/EXPIRED BOND $452.00 DPD/INSPECTION CERTIFICATE/EXPIRED MORE THAN 60 DAYS BOND $452.00 RIOJAS, SEBASTIAN 10/24/1988 08/02/2009 02:01:54 ALCOHOL/PUBLIC INTOXICATION BOND $500.00 CONSUMPTION OF ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE BY MINOR BOND $500.00 GLENN, JIMMY 04/24/1968 08/02/2009 01:26:31 ALCOHOL/PUBLIC INTOXICATION BOND $500.00 GONZALEZ, PEDRO 12/04/1989 08/02/2009 01:15:15 DRIVING WHILE INTOXICATED To Be Determined NO DRIVER'S LICENSE BOND $300.00 DIAZ, DESIREE 11/08/1989 08/01/2009 20:29:15 DPD WARRANT/ SPEEDING BOND $452.00 DPD WARRANT/ SPEEDING FINE $193.00 HAMMONS, RICHARD 12/01/1982 08/01/2009 19:51:35 FAIL TO IDENTIFY FUGITIVE FROM JUSTICE BOND DCSO WARRANT / THEFT PROP >$20.00 < $ 500.00 $1500.00 BUMGARNER, ZAKARY 09/17/1987 08/01/2009 15:57:45 DPD/EXPIRED INSPECTION BOND $452.00 DPD/EXPIRED REGISTRATION BOND $419.00 MASON, SHANNON 01/01/1990 08/01/2009 15:26:19 THEFT >=$50<$500 BOND FARRIS, NATALIE 06/22/1990 08/01/2009 15:24:02 THEFT >=$50<$500 To Be Determined DPD/EXPIRED REGISTRATION BOND $419.00 DPD/FAIL TO DISPLAY DRIVERS LICENSE BOND $419.00 AZIZ, KALEN 04/11/1988 08/01/2009 09:51:57 DPD/SPEEDING 42 IN 30 MPH ZONE BOND $652.00 DPD/FMFR BOND $569.00 DPD/FAIL TO DISPLAY DRIVERS LICENSE BOND $419.00 NORTH RICHLAND HILLS PD/PUBLIC INTOX-OTHER FINE $375.00 TAYLOR, KELLY 01/18/1960 08/01/2009 07:50:45 DPD/FMFR BOND $569.00 DPD/EXPIRED INSPECTION CERTIFICATE MORE THAN 60 DAYS BOND $452.00 NORTH RICHLAND HILLS PD/PUBLIC INTOX-OTHER FINE $375.00 BREWER, JOHN 02/12/1966 08/01/2009 01:23:40 DENTON PD / ALCOHOL/PUBLIC INTOXICATION FINE $594.00 DENTON PD / ALCOHOL/PUBLIC INTOXICATION FINE $594.00 DENTON PD / ALCOHOL/PUBLIC INTOXICATION BOND $719.00 YANK, MICHAEL 03/26/1983 07/31/2009 01:52:21 DRIVING WHILE INTOXICATED BOND $2500.00 DPD/DL/NO DRIVERS LICENSE BOND $419.00 DPD/DL/RAN RED LIGHT BOND $452.00 
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Fearing the Moonwalk Revolution: East German Stasi Spied on Michael Jackson - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International
Fearing the Moonwalk Revolution: East German Stasi Spied on Michael Jackson - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - InternationalEast German Stasi Spied on Michael Jackson
The East German secret police were right to be scared of rock'n'roll and all the Western decadence it implied. Concerts given by Michael Jackson, Pink Floyd and Bruce Springsteen in Berlin in 1988 could well have inspired a revolution. The Stasi were so concerned they spied on Jackson during his visit.
Recently deceased pop star, Michael Jackson, may have had more to do with the fall of the Berlin Wall than anyone ever knew. And so might the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Pink Floyd and other musicians from the capitalist West.
Files kept by the former East German secret police, the Stasi, indicate that they were worried about the concert that Jackson, who died last month, gave in Berlin in June of 1988. This was just over a year before the fall of the Berlin Wall -- but the East German youth were already restive.
In a note from the Stasi, found in files revealed by German mass circulation newspaper Bild this week, the secret police were worried that the "youths will do anything they can to experience this concert, in the area around the Brandenburg Gate." And, they noted, "certain youths are planning to (use the occasion) to provoke a confrontation with police.""They were concerned dissident youths would call for the Wall to fall," Steffen Mayer, a spokesman for the government agency that looks after the Stasi archives, told Reuters. "This was seen as a potential security threat given the amount of foreign media that would be present."
In fact, the Stasi had good reason to worry. Concerts in West Berlin like Jackson's had already been a problem the previous summer. German music promoter, Peter Schwenkow, currently head of German Entertainment AG (DEAG) a firm which now brings in acts like Coldplay and Alice Cooper, had been responsible for putting on various concerts near the Berlin Wall. This included a three day, open air concert series featuring acts like David Bowie, Genesis and the Eurythmics in the summer of 1987. Schwenkow later told Die Welt newspaper that putting on the concerts in West Berlin, right next to the Wall, had been deliberate.
Pink Floyd Turned Their Speakers Toward The East
East German youths had been informed of the gig by West German radio stations but when they tried to get near the Berlin Wall so they too could listen to the show, they were turned back by police cordons. There were scuffles and around 200 people were arrested.
When more shows -- Pink Floyd was one, Michael Jackson another -- were planned for the same spot in the summer of 1988, Schwenkow says that the East Berlin government complained to the West Berlin administration. They said that the concerts were too close to a nearby hospital and that the noise and vibration could cause the deaths of seriously ill patients there.
"But I had already sold 30,000 tickets to Pink Floyd -- the concert couldn't be cancelled," Schwenkow said. "Even though we had to make sure that we played very quietly and directed our sound toward the west, it was Pink Floyd's decision, during sound check, to turn the speakers toward the east and blast East Berlin with (Pink Floyd hit) 'The Wall.'"
Pink Floyd played on June 16 and Michael Jackson was to play a few days later on June 19. So perhaps it is hardly surprising that by May of that year, the East German secret police had opened up a file on Jackson. Notes in his file indicate he had been watched as he toured Berlin. The Stasi observed Jackson's visit to the Allied Checkpoint Charlie, an important border crossing in the middle of the city. Stasi spies noted that three cars pulled up to the checkpoint building, with "many unknown male and female people. Among the people was the USA rock singer Michael Jackson. Accompanying him at all times was a female person, about 25 years old, 165 centimeters tall, with a slim build."
The documents also outlined how the Stasi were considering a diversionary concert in a stadium to draw rebellious music fans away from the border. There was already one diversion: Olympic ice skating champion Katarina Witt was hosting a "Rock Show" further away, in East Berlin, starring Canadian musician Bryan Adams. In Jackson's case, it was suggested that an additional alternative be organized, during which Jackson's show could be broadcast onto a cinema screen. And there would be a two minute delay, in case of "political provocation." Should Jackson's concert feature anything politically inappropriate then they would simply play a video of an earlier Jackson show.
APA photograph from Michael Jackson's Stasi file.
Secret Police 'Hurled The Young People To The Ground.'
As it was, the distraction never happened. Instead, as feared, there were violent clashes between East German music fans and police, many of whom were in civilian clothes, mixing into a crowd of thousands. As eyewitness, Alan Nothnagle, a translator living in Berlin, writes on his Salon.com blog: "We noticed 'inconspicuous' men in civilian clothes, slouching on street corners in groups of three, eyeing the passers-by. The reason was no secret: somehow everyone knew that Michael Jackson was giving a concert in front of the Reichstag that evening, just a few hundred meters from where we were standing … Hundreds, soon thousands of young people congregated to hear the music. The Stasi agents also multiplied... We never heard a note of music that night, but soon voices arose in the crowd calling 'The Wall must go!' and 'Gorbachev! Gorbachev!' Now the plainclothes Stasi men came alive. They hurled the young people to the ground, shouting 'What did you say? What did you say?' and hauled them off by the collar into side streets where police vans were waiting to bundle them off to Stasi headquarters."
Television camera crews from the West German channels, ARD and ZDF, filmed the altercation and also came under attack from the secret police. The West German administration later made official complaints about the mishandling of members of the western press.Strangely enough, exactly a month later, American singer, Bruce Springsteen played at an East Berlin velodrome, to around 160,000 East German fans, many of whom had entered the grounds without tickets. At that concert, which was organised by the Communist youth group, there was provocation aplenty. East Germans sang along to "Born in the USA and Springsteen pulled a 17 year old East German Fraulein onto the stage to dance with him. "I want to tell you I'm not here for or against any government," Springsteen called out to the crowd as he introduced his version of the Bob Dylan song, "Chimes of Freedom". "I came to play rock'n'roll for you East Berliners in the hope that one day all the barriers will be torn down." The official broadcast of the concert was censored.
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