~ alameda county real property ownership ~

GIS mapping systems, now online for many cities, will plot a real property address on an aerial photograph. The GIS mapping site for Oakland, California has real property owner names, which are not available through the Alameda County Assessor online site. (This site isn't listed at the "Largest Free Public Records Directory", which shall not be named, but you already know the site. ) The plug-in for the mapping portion must first be downloaded but you can still search the property data without this software.


Technorati Tags: gis, oakland, property

~ interviewing preparation ~

This article, an introduction to interviewing techniques, comes from Humansource.com, a Canadian enterprise that provides competitive intelligence training. The author advises the interviewer to conduct research in advance of the interview and to try to develop a psychological advantage by understanding the subject's potential interests in participating in the interview.

If time permits, do some research on the source you wish to contact: academic and professional background, articles published, family setting, contacts, hobbies, etc. This research should pretty much establish the credibility of your human source. You need to be able to anticipate how the person will respond to your first contact by asking yourself this question: why would this person answer me?

Technorati Tags: Interviewing

~ find horse law ~

This site lists legal cases related to horses. Organized by theme, it provides links to the decisions.

Technorati Tags: legal, horses

~ DEA fugitives ~

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency site links to many of its local office that have DEA fugitives listed, with a photograph and description.


Technorati Tags: dea, fugitives, criminal

~ find an inmate in a county jail ~

I often check the searchsystems.net site to gauge the newness of a government-maintained public records site. These are a few California county inmate searches that I didn't find on searchsystems.

Riverside County Inmate Custody search.

Yolo County lists booking information by month for 2005; the names of inmates are listed with charges and location of arrest.

Alameda County Sheriff uses the VINE (Victim Information and Notification Everyday) program but only has telephone access. To check the status of an inmate call 1-800-511-1687, enter the name through your telephone key pad, or the PFN to find out if the individual is in custody, at which jail and module, their release date, charges, and whether they are eligible for bail.


Technorati Tags: inmates, crime, victim

~ sacramento county - inmate custody search ~

Search by first or last name, or all last names by letter, to verify inmates in custody or recently released in Sacramento County, California. Extensive details are provided on the inmate's convictions.


Technorati Tags: Inmates Technorati Tags: sacramento

~ new jersey courts release policies on records access ~

The New Jersey Administrative Office of the Courts has released its policy guidelines for access to case court records. The report addresses the procedures for handling public requests for trial court case files, not the sticky issues of electronic access.



[Technorati tags: public records new jersey]

~ this week in tech talk ~

First, a reminder. When you're out in the field and need to call directory assistance, don't pay for it, make use of one of the free lookup services: U.S. Nationwide, 1-800-FREE-411 and in the San Francisco Bay area 1-800-411-SAVE are available.

People who are more inventive than I, have crafted these tools of convenience, useful for repetitive web functions. Add an icon to your bookmarks toolbar that, when selected, drops down a menu of your favorite web functions: shorten a url or to enable "right-click" on any page, for example. I've used blummy to make quick links, that are accessible from any web page. A more knowledgeable explanation, and all manner of additional tools can be found at bookmarklets.com.

~ put a name with the face in photographs ~

A facial recognition program that will enable name associations to be applied to specific photographs, making them searchable on the Internet, is in its testing phase.

Currently in alpha testing, Riya software works by analysing 50 variables, including hair and eye colours, gender, height, clothing and other features that help identify people. It also uses text recognition to read street signs and other text in photos for clues about a picture's location.

More photos, more names, means more avenues for finding people and developing background.


[Technorati tags: internet]

~ find a federal court ~

You'll want to add this site to your courts favorites folder. This is how the uninformed among us can quickly associate the federal circuit court number with its geographical area, link to its website and the corresponding bankruptcy and appellate courts.


[Technorati tags: federal court]

~ compare public records across states ~

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press has an online tool that streamlines the comparison of various state public records and open meeting laws. The collection of public records topics is presented in outline form in a drop-down menu. After selecting the topic, then check any or all states for comparison.

Here is the item "RECORD CATEGORIES - OPEN OR CLOSED/Police Records/Victims", comparing all the various state laws.


[Technorati tags: public records]

~ fear, secrecy and the closure of divorce records ~

The privacy and security epidemic is now infecting U.S. courts, once broadly agreed to be an accessible institution open to the entire public. The attempts by wealthy individuals to seal their financial records in divorce cases, or to close court proceedings, has been met with mixed results. Tresa Baldas reports in Sealing Divorce Records for the Sake of ... Corporations that businesses are petitioning courts to remove financial data from the divorce files of their executives under the spurious claim that disclosure could harm the company.

I sense that the infectiousness of the fear of threats to our security lurking around every corner may have been contracted by certain judges. Dr. Marc Siegel points out in his book, False Alarm: The Truth About the Epidemic of Fear that the fear frenzy leads us to wildly exaggerate individual or broad societal susceptibility to threats generated by nature or humans, and to undervalue the more likely dangers. Hopefully, judges can take a more, well, judicial view, and consider the consequences to a democratic society of secret court proceedings.


[Technorati tags: courts security]

~ frauds and scams ~

Western Union may be able to accomplish more to foil Nigerian scams and other frauds than any legislation Congress can concoct. In an agreement with 47 states, Western Union will spend $8.1 million to educate and warn consumers about fraudulent wire transfers.

A recent survey conducted by seven states found that 29 percent of Western Union transfers of more than $300 from the U.S. to Canada were connected to fraudulent operations. In 2002 alone, American consumer losses to Canada-based scams totaled an estimated $113 million.

[Technorati tags: scams]

~ find an immigrant ~

Identify immigrants who came through New York before Ellis Island was established as an intake center. This online database is searchable by last and first name, and returns the name of the ship, date of arrival, country and port of origin, age of passenger and his occupation.


[Technorati tags: genealogy]

~ find a military grave ~

Confirm and locate burial site for U.S. military veterans and their dependents in Department of Veterans Affairs national cemeteries, state veterans cemeteries and other Department of Interior and military burial places. Search the Nationwide Gravesite Locator online database, operated by Veterans Affairs by descendant's name. The returns include date of birth, date of death and place of burial.

[Technorati tags: obituaries military]

~ hawaii criminal database now online ~

Hawaii is the most recent state to place a statewide criminal index online. The site has a free search component but also allows access to more complete records for a fee. The system is down for maintenance until Monday, November 14.

[Technorati tags: criminal]

~ off and online frauds defined ~

Several U.S. federal government agencies have joined forces with private companies in the development of a consumer website addressing types of scams and fraud. Identity theft, identity fraud, ponzi schemes and "Nigerian scams" are all discussed and defined.


[Technorati tags: scams]

~ fbi puts choicepoint on alert ~

Documents obtained through an FOIA by the National Journal and Government Executive shed more light on the application by the FBI of the personal information database owned by Choicepoint. The article in GovExec suggests that Choicepoint is doing for the federal government what wouldn't be allowed by law if directly undertaken by law enforcement --namely, the collection of vast amounts of personal information on U.S. residents. A new addition to this story, which surfaced from the FOIA released documents, is the alert system developed by Choicepoint to notify the FBI whenever data changes on a flagged person.

[Technorati tags: choicepoint fbi

~ gizmos, gadgets and the fun techie things ~

Some bloggers write about electronic toys, gadgets and techie things that glow in the night - the useful and the merely fun. A general technology site, that updates every 5 minutes, Engadget covers new products. A recent review touches on the surveillance feature on a new patent by a cell phone manufacturer.

Then there are tools to help you use the computer more efficiently. Lifehacker lists bookmarklets, links that sit on your toolbar and are applied at will for any website you're surfing. There's a bookmarklet that reveals your passwords and one that turns an unwieldy url into a manageable one.

~ suspect interrogations - the back and forth dance ~

This month's Investigator Tips, located at the Reid Associates site, discusses the quandary of providing evidence of guilt to a suspect in a crime. The interrogator's "evidence" may fall victim to the suspect's superior logic.

~ location tracking ~

The technology of monitoring devices, such as cell phones, for location tracking is rapidly evolving, while the law still lags. Two federal courts have ruled that the government must obtain court orders before initiating a surveillance to track a subject's movements via a cell phone. The U.S. Congress is considering H.R.3382, Sexual Predator Effective Monitoring Act of 2005, which would outfit "convicted sexual offenders with Global Positioning Systems to track their movements while on probation."

California is one of the few states to address the expanding application, according to the article, Effective Use Of Location-Based Technologies In The Workplace.

Despite employee complaints and the potential for abuse, location tracking by private employers is almost completely unregulated. For example, California’s law prohibiting the installation of location tracking equipment on motor vehicles, one of the few state laws addressing the topic, does not apply when a vehicle’s owner, renter, or lessor places the device on its own vehicle.

The National Security Administration has secured a patent for a method to pinpoint the physical location of an Internet user. Many private companies sell location tracking services for company vehicles. This one was featured in Law Enforcement Technology magazine a few years ago.

Academic studies have addressed the privacy issues raised by location tracking and position aware services.

The site, howstuffworks, gives an overview of the applications of location tracking technology and tells us simple folk how it works.

[Technorati tags: gps]