Honolulu police are not saying why they closed the curtain on a Web page full of drunken-driving suspects two months before the pilot program's final act. However, the copy-and-paste of the suspects' photos to the popular Facebook site on the Internet brought legal questions into play. Those should be addressed in any review of the pilot program, and shared with the public.

The Honolulu Police Department began last November to post names and photos of people arrested for alleged drunken driving. The Scarlet Letter posting of those arrested the previous week was made for a 24-hour period for good reason. New York judges had laid down the conditions for such a display in 2008, and one of them was that the posting be brief. A Nassau County judge cited a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that “;something more than simple defamation”; by law enforcement agencies is necessary to reach what he called “;stigma plus,”; which is not allowed.

An endless display of people arrested for drunken driving was “;sufficient to be the 'plus,'”; the judge concluded. The county responded by limiting the Web site postings to those who had been convicted of the offense.

Honolulu police spokeswoman Michelle Yu said “;an administrative decision to conduct a review”; led to the premature closing of HPD's Web site of drivers arrested on drunken-driving charges, called “;Oahu's Drunk Drivers.”;

Despite the department's showing of the names and photos briefly, ACLU of Honolulu staff attorney Laurie Temple pointed out that names and photos “;posted on the Web are likely to be around forever, even if the intention is to only post them for a short time.”;

Indeed, HPD's DUI site was growing in popularity. Two sisters launched the Facebook extension of the material from “;Oahu's Drunk Drivers”; and their site had received 10,731 hits by the time HPD shut down its site. HPD's Yu said the department was aware of the private postings of DUI suspects on Facebook but said that was not the reason for closing its site. She declined to say why it was shut down.

The names and photos of people arrested on suspicion of drunken driving can be derived from HPD's database. Acquiring the names of those who were actually convicted would require cooperation of the state Judiciary, which might reject it as modern-day humiliation by public stock, and that posting that information would infringe on their authority to determine punishment.

If results of the abbreviated pilot program indicate that it was effective in discouraging people from driving drunk, police should ask next year's Legislature to authorize a Web site displaying those who have been convicted of driving drunk.