Only Half Social Media Users Stick With Their Real Names

"Normally a survey conducted by the insurance industry isn’t all that interesting here atDigital Trends, but we’re making an exception here: a new survey of 1,040 Americans conducted by Opinion Research in April (and sponsored by the Chubb Group of Insurance Companies) finds that just over half of those surveys always use their real names on social networking services like Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare. One third said they use a mixture of their real name and perhaps a nickname to identify themselves, and 18 percent always use a nickname and never a real name to identify themselves.

And here’s something more interesting: fully two thirds (66 percent) of respondents said they would not use mobile technology that posts their location to social networking services."
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Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator

British Columbia drunk-driving laws to hide penalties

"One of the consequences of B.C.'s new drunk driving laws is that many of the penalties will be imposed in secret, with no public record of the offence.

B.C.'s superintendent of motor vehicles confirmed yesterday that the new administrative penalties for impaired driving will not show up in any court records and are shielded from public scrutiny.

"When it comes to a person's driving record, that's considered personal and confidential," said superintendent Steve Martin."

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Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator

Pennsylvania: Emails on home computer of Commissioner aren't public

"A York County judge has sided with York Township Commissioner Kenneth Silberstein by ruling e-mails kept on his home computer are not a public record.

And an attorney involved in the case said he believes it's the first time in Pennsylvania a county judge has ruled in such a case since the state's new open records law went into effect last year.

The case began in February 2009, when the township board of commissioners rejected Heritage Hills Associates' application to build a traditional neighborhood development on the golf course behind its hotel on Mount Rose Avenue.

The company has said it believes former township commissioner Dennis Ness and Silberstein illegally conspired with each other and several residents to bring down the project."
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Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator

Senators Oppose Facebook Changes, Schumer Urges Trade Commission to Regulate Social Network Services

"Senators Charles Schumer (D-NY), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Mark Begich (D-AK), and Sen. Al Franken (D-MI) have sent a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to express concern about "recent changes to the Facebook privacy policy and the use of personal data by third-party websites." Senator Schumer has also asked the Federal Trade Commission to establish guidelines for social networking sites."  
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Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator

Police records show up in copiers in New Jersey

"A copy machine may seem harmless, but it's actually a potential jackpot for identity thieves. A CBS News investigation uncovered stunning, confidential information on an old machine in New Jersey from the Buffalo Police Department.

Did you know that almost every digital copier made since 2002 has a hard drive that stores thousands of images and unless you scrub the hard drive they all remain? So your old copier could end up being resold through a warehouse like this in New Jersey, where CBS News investigators bought four used copiers and two of them happened to be old Buffalo Police copiers.

Read more Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator

Local police back bill to restrict access to information about crime witnesses

"Invariably when a crime happens, police begin an investigation and, most times, produce a trove of information.

Just who has access to that information, and how much of it they can obtain, remains a balancing act for lawmakers. The smallest details of what can - or should be - publicly released often spark debates between competing interests.

It usually requires the state Legislature to step in and re-interpret the California Public Records Act, which has been on the books since 1968.

"I know it's a balancing act," Whittier police Chief David Singer said.

It pits "public information versus what we need to do or what the victims need or want," said Singer, who also heads LA IMPACT, a regional narcotics task force.

That debate, mostly dormant since the mid-1990s, was reignited last week with the consideration of a bill authored by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. The proposal would allow law enforcement agencies to withhold the address of a victim of a crime from journalists or any other member of the public"

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Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator

Wife posts pics with boyfriend on MySpace, loses child custody

"This is one of those cases that’d do well as a movie on Lifetime Television for Women. Unlike other cases I talk about on this blog, this one only kind of deals with the internet Here the husband (an Iraq war veteran) saw pictures on MySpace of his wife in bed with another man, so he filed for divorce and sought child custody.

What’s worth paying attention to in this case is the “disparaging and intemperate remarks” made in open court by the judge."

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Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator

North Dakota New Court Case Management System Goes Live in Twelve More Counties

"The North Dakota Court System successfully launched the second phase of its new case management program on Monday, April 19. The Odyssey Case Management System by Tyler Technologies is now being used in all of the counties of the Southeast and
East Central Judicial Districts and in the municipal courts in West Fargo, Jamestown, Wahpeton, and Valley City."

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Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator

Indiana voters gain vastly improved online tool for researching campaign contributions and spending in statewide races

Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita announces modernization of Indiana Campaign Finance website; upgrade includes expanded searching and exporting functions

INDIANAPOLIS – Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita announced today that his office’s online campaign finance reporting and research tool has been upgraded and re-launched for the 2010 election season. Indiana Campaign Finance online now offers vastly expanded capabilities for voters, media and others interested in knowing how candidates for statewide offices raise and spend money for their campaigns.

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Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator

No privacy for workers using Tulare County computers

At their regular meeting, supervisors noted that employees have no privacy rights if they use work computers for personal matters.

The board Tuesday unanimously approved 19 technology policies, including one calling for the words "Your activities may be recorded and monitored" to appear on computer screens when employees log on. Additional policies may be developed to deal with social networking via Twitter, Facebook and similar sites, said Peg Yeates, the county's information technology director.

County computers are for county business, Tulare County supervisors emphasized Tuesday.
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Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator

California legislature considers bill to close criminal record information

Californians Aware and the California Newspaper Publishers Association are opposing a bill, up for its first committee hearing next Monday, that would remove the addresses of all those arrested and all crime victims from the public record, leaving only the city of residence, if any, listed. AB 1682 by Assemblywoman Norma Torres (D-Ontario) will be heard in the Assembly Committee on Governmental Organization. CalAware's opposition letter reads as follows:"  
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Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator

Private Investigator News: Maine governor closes birth, marriage and death records

"A bill to restrict the release of Mainers' birth, marriage and death records has been signed into law. Supporters say the law will prevent fraud and identity theft based on those records.

The bill signed Friday by Gov. John Baldacci would restrict release of those records to the person on the document and that person's spouse or domestic partner, parents or guardians, descendants and designated agent or attorney."
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Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator

California appeals court rules sex offender site okay for employment screening

"A California employment-screening company had a right to quote information from the state’s sex-offender Web site and cannot face liability for furnishing such information to a prospective employer. A California appeals court decided March 23 that a trial court had properly ruled that the state’s anti-SLAPP law could be used to dismiss a lawsuit brought by an individual mentioned on the sex-offender Web site.

William Mendoza sued ADP Screening and Selection Services Inc. in California state court under a provision of the state’s sex-offender law that prohibits the use of information on the sex-offender site for employment purposes. Mendoza contended that ADP violated this law by telling a prospective employer about information from the site."
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Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator

Private Investigator Research Links - Week of April 2

• 
  
  Compensation - University of Miami - School of Medicine
  Faculty Compensated Outside Professional Activities in the University of Miami Health System
• 
  
  Firearms laws by state
  Summaries of State and Local Firearms Laws
• 
  
  Expert Witnesses & Consultants
  Find legal expert witnesses, mediators and professional resources. Add your own listing.
• 
  
  Workplace Verification | Businesses Using E-Verify
  "This database is a nationally accessible database of immigration status information, including more than 60 million records. "
• 
  
  Stats about all US cities - real estate, relocation info, house prices, home value estimator, recent sales, cost of living, crime, race, income, photos, education, maps, weather, houses, schools, neighborhoods, and more
  "over 74,000 city photos not found anywhere else, graphs of latest real estate prices and sales trends, recent home sales, home value estimator, hundreds of thousands of maps, satellite photos, stats about residents (race, income, ancestries, education, employment...), geographical data, state profiles, crime data, registered sex offenders, cost of living, housing"
• 
  
  Online Federal Court Opinions
  "Members of the public are advised that not all opinions and rulings, even by participating judges, are necessarily posted to this page."
• 
  
  Asian Name Pronunciation Guide
• 
  
  Learn How To Pronounce Names Correctly
• 
  
  Pronounce Names - Dictionary of Name Pronunciation
  
• 
  
  The Traceability of an Anonymous Online Comment
  "Yesterday, I described a simple scenario where a plaintiff, who is having difficulty identifying an alleged online defamer, could benefit from subpoenaing data held by a third party web service provider. Some third parties—like Facebook in yesterday's example—know exactly who I am and know whenever I visit or post on other sites. "
• 
  
  Industrial products and services
  Search to find manufacturers, distributors and service providers -

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Subscribe to additional links to research sources and new public records sites, delivered by RSS or viewed through your Twitter application at: http://twitter.com/PIbuzz.

Palin's appearance at a California university raises cry of public record advocates

"Critics of private organizations that support public universities have seized on Sarah Palin's upcoming appearance at CSU Stanislaus as the latest reason to expand California's public records law.

The California State University Stanislaus Foundation — a nonprofit affiliated with the state college — is bringing the former vice presidential candidate to its Turlock campus for a black-tie fundraiser on June 25. Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, and the California Faculty Association, the union representing CSU professors, are incensed the foundation won't say how much it is paying Palin for her appearance.

"This is exactly the problem we've been fighting over with the CSU for years," Yee said. "They continue to operate in this cloak of secrecy when it comes to their foundations and auxiliary organizations."
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Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator

New Jersey Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Employee Privacy

"The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled in favor of a female employee whose employer read emails that she sent while using Yahoo Mail on a company-owned laptop. The employee, Marina Stengart, had exchanged emails with her attorney regarding a possible discrimination lawsuit against the employer. The employer then pulled the emails off of the laptop's hard drive and used them to prepare a defense to the discrimination suit."  
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Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator

Floida takes bold steps in giving public access to court records

"At a time when many courts and government agencies are recoiling from the realization that public records can be accessed, searched and disseminated electronically, the Florida Supreme Court has stepped bravely and boldly into the future.

Completing a process that began in 2003, the court on March 18 amended several rules that govern public access to trial and appellate court records. In doing so, the court acknowledged that electronic access to court files is both inevitable and valuable and embraced the challenge of balancing the public’s right to know against parties’ legitimate needs for confidentiality.
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Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator