"In an interesting twist to the police being one step ahead of
offenders with outstanding arrest warrants, people are now able to
search online for their own active arrest warrants," indicated Daniel
H. Wannamaker of Wannamaker and Associates, of Austin, Texas, with
offices in Dallas and Houston.

Being able to search online for an active arrest warrant certainly
gives new meaning to the term "too much information." Imagine finding
out that the traffic ticket which was never paid way back when, went to
a bench warrant. Now this could be a blessing or a curse, depending on
your point of view, as the police have the same information.

This means that if a person thinks they have an outstanding ticket
and wants to deal with it and get it off his or her driving record,
they need to know the status of the ticket. "Finding this out online
will avoid the inevitable arrest if courthouse records are searched
instead," said Wannamaker.

There doesn't have to be a lot of money spent to find out if there
are outstanding tickets either. Many of the online search sites happen
to be free, so don't be attracted to the expensive sites that charge
for searching a police site; when for zero investment, another site
will provide the same information.

Taking this kind of search one step further, it is not too difficult
to imagine that in the future the general public will be able to search
for even more information than just online warrants. In fact, even
today there are some sites that will allow people to search for arrests
and convictions.

"This kind of information floating around on the Internet is a major
concern to attorneys who realize this is a direct violation of a
person's right to privacy," indicated Wannamaker. The biggest concern
is that the records may not be up-to-date, and there is no guarantee of
accuracy either. "It doesn't take too much of an imagination to see
what might happen if an online site has an outstanding warrant for a
particular offense (say for instance, unpaid traffic tickets) but not
the updated fact that the offender paid the fine two weeks ago,"
explained Wannamaker.

This whole area of criminal information, charges, dispositions, etc.
on the Internet is highly controversial and many attorneys would rather
this kind of information be kept away from the general public who has
no experience in correctly interpreting the charges or the disposition
of them.

"As with anything dealing with the legal system, everything is
relative to the circumstances of the case and any criminal defense
attorney with extensive experience in this area will tell you a case
may change on the drop of a dime," added Wannamaker.

Daniel Wannamaker is a board certified criminal law specialist and
has 24 years of criminal trial experience with proven results as a
Dallas criminal defense lawyer practicing in Austin criminal defense
and Houston Texas. To learn more about Dallas criminal defense lawyer, Houston criminal defense lawyer, Austin criminal defense lawyer, visit Wannamakerlaw.com.