Sheriff's website showing PHP code, preferential treatment for county employees?

Sheriff's website showing PHP code, preferential treatment for county employees?(sarasotasheriff.org)

34 points by late_groomer 11 years ago | 16 comments

Going through the code I found it interesting that there's a conditional in there that compares the inmate occupation to nearly half a dozen county positions (SHERIFF, JUDGE, PROSECUTOR, FIREMAN, etc.,), if the occupation matches any of those, then the script refuses to show the mugshot of the inmate. I wonder about the legality of that. You or I get arrested (not convicted, just arrested), our mugshots are posted for everyone to see. Doesn't seem fair.

shalmanese 11 years ago | |

Remind me to list my occupation as "Wet T-shirt contest judge" when being booked next time.

brudgers 11 years ago | |

Florida has rather progressive open public records requirements.[0] However, there are/were [1] exceptions for personal information such as home address for public safety officials under a rather reasonable belief by the legislature that such officials are somewhat likely to be targeted for acts carried out in the course of their work.

[0]: http://myfloridalegal.com/pages.nsf/Main/DC0B20B7DC22B741852...

[1]: Having had a provisional Building Plans Examiner license at one time, my home address was shielded under the exception. Since the exception predates September 11, 2001 it is unlikely to have been removed in the wake of the changes that event engendered.

Vexs 11 years ago | |

I'm curious about that too actually- I suppose from their view it's a safety thing for the officers- which, IMO, is reasonable. Police probably aren't the most popular people in prison, and posting a picture of their face doesn't help.

bediger4000 11 years ago | | |

Should your job make you immune from some of the prescribed legal degradations that go along with being in jail? I mean, I'm sure the corrections officers make sure that some of the inmates know exactly what new inmates are in there for. Why isn't turnabout fair play here? I can see "corrections officer" mugshot not shown for the "safety thing", but why "fireman"?

bruceb 11 years ago | | |

This a booking photo not a cell assignment. Should be public if the others are.

I actually think the pics should not be public until after conviction for all.

jdalgetty 11 years ago | |

Pretty interesting (and sadly not surprising).

bruceb 11 years ago | |

Have you notified the local newspaper?

Seems a great story.

late_groomer 11 years ago | | |

No, I haven't yet, maybe I'll submit it anonymously (who wants the attention this might bring).

I had been told by a friend that one of the guys I went to school with had been arrested and I should go take a look at his mugshot. Sure enough, I found his mugshot, even though his occupation is listed as "Fire Fighter" on the booking sheet. The coder accounted for FIREFIGHTER & FIREMAN, but didn't consider blank spaces...

nkw 11 years ago | |

Nice work finding this.

jacob9706 11 years ago |

This is a great example of a political who most likely gave the contract for the web site to a company who would in return give him a cut of the profits.

late_groomer 11 years ago | |

I don't know about that, but look what the company is charging for their hosting: https://www.notiondesigngroup.com/notioncare.html Nice work, if you can get it. I would bet they are on the "Deluxe" package with the way Sarasota throws money around. FWIW, it's just a Joomla website using a RocketTheme template. Custom Website Design, right.

andyana 11 years ago |

Mirror: http://pastebin.com/R8HUAt5q

fla 11 years ago | |

I remember the days when most of the web was written like that.

Thanks god it is (for the most part) not the case anymore :)

mlinksva 11 years ago | |

Or http://web.archive.org/web/20150611220259/http://www.sarasot...

mlinksva 11 years ago |

Why shouldn't the code for all government websites be public? This sort of thing should not be revealed only through a bug.

Not a panacea as they could run different code, and nobody might look at the published code. But those don't seem like reasons to not default to public code for public agencies.