Private Investigator News: Pennsylvania Judiciary website adds comments button http://ping.fm/GWpSh

Private Investigator News: Pennsylvania Judiciary website adds comments button

"The Pennsylvania Judiciary website has added a new feature to make it easier for the public to interact with the judiciary.

Starting Wednesday, a “Public Comments” button has been added to the home page of the Unified Judicial System. Those submitting a comment or reporting a problem about the state judicial system will receive a response from the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts, the office said."

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Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator

Private Investigator News: UC objects to California open records legislation

"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will have to determine whether to sign off on a bill this week that would bring UC and CSU foundations under the authority of public record requests, though UC officials say the bill could end up costing the cash-strapped university millions of dollars in anonymous donations.

The bill, authored by Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco/San Mateo, was unanimously approved by the state Assembly last week and narrowly cleared the state Senate Thursday morning. If approved, the bill would expand the definition of a state agency to include state university auxiliaries, bringing them under the California Public Records Act (CPRA).

UC officials are opposing the bill, saying expanded access to records could mean a loss of anonymous donors at a time when the university is growing more reliant on donor funds. University foundations provided over $500 million to the UC in the 2008-09 fiscal year, according to a UC officials.

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Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator

Private Investigator News: 'Private' Data on Social Networks Is Protected from Discovery http://ping.fm/um8HA

Private Investigator News: 'Private' Data on Social Networks Is Protected from Discovery

"On May 26, a federal court issued an opinion in a discovery dispute that applies outmoded federal electronic privacy laws from the 1980s to Facebook and MySpace. The ruling could permanently change the way "social networking" sites are viewed by businesses and those involved in litigation. The decision also appears to offer the first in-depth analysis on the effect of "privacy settings" found on many social networking sites and whether information is protected from discovery by federal privacy laws."
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Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator

Judge: Colorado Public Records Law Applies to State Workers' Comp Fund http://ping.fm/xAVPp

Private Investigator News: Oregon Sheriff to pay roughly $43,500 for hiding public records

"A three-year court battle between the Mail Tribune and Jackson County Sheriff Mike Winters over concealed handgun license public records has cost the county nearly $44,000.

Winters was required to pay the newspaper's legal expenses after the Oregon Court of Appeals ruled in June that Winters was wrong to deny the Mail Tribune's request for the names of 2006 and 2007 concealed handgun licensees. The newspaper sent a bill of about $20,674, while the county's own legal expenses reached about $22,860, according to the county counsel's office."
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Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator

Illinois doctor records no longer online - Profiles once listed physicians' criminal convictions, malpractice payments

"Illinois once provided the public with detailed histories of the state's doctors — including whether the physician was convicted of a crime, fired by a hospital or forced to make a medical malpractice payment within the previous five years.

Judging from online traffic, there was great hunger for that information: During the two years that they were posted, the physician profiles generated 130,000 clicks per week.

But access to the profiles came to a screeching halt in February, when the state Department of Financial and Professional Regulation removed them from its Web site and placed them under lock and key — the latest chapter in a long political battle that has pitted patients' advocates against the state's medical lobby.

Now the only information available to the public is whether the regulatory agency has disciplined the doctor."

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Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator

Facebook Places - four settings to change

"I'm sure that you've read that Facebook is now rolling out a Places option, so you can check in and tell your friends where you are. Great if you want to use it, not so great if you don't. In order to change the settings you need to go to the Account option (top right) and choose Privacy Settings. You'll see an option there called 'Places I check in to' and it will probably be set at Friends only. Other options are Everyone, Friends of friends or Custom. You'll note that there isn't an option to turn it off. In order to do that you need to go into the Custom mode and choose 'Only me' which is as close as you can get. (1)

You also then need to choose the next option on the Privacy screen, which is 'Include me in 'People here now' after I check in'. This is visible to friends and people checked in nearby and is enabled by default. You want to uncheck that box as well. (2)

Wait! Wait! You're not finished yet - did you seriously think Facebook was going to make it that easy? Scroll down to the section 'Things others share' and choose the option 'Friends can check me in to places' You need to disable that as well. Then I think you're done. Note that I only say 'think'. Facebook make it deliberately difficult to find all this stuff - when you first go into the Privacy option you don't see the two other options, just the 'Places I check in to' one."

Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator

New Illinois Law Restricts Employer Use of Credit History

"On August 10, 2010, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed the Employee Credit Privacy Act, which prohibits most Illinois employers from inquiring about an applicant’s or employee’s credit history or using an individual’s credit history as a basis for an employment decision. The definition of “employer” under the Act exempts banks, insurance companies, law enforcement agencies, debt collectors and state and local government agencies that require the use of credit history.

The Act does not prohibit an employer from checking the credit history of an employee if “a satisfactory credit history is an established bona fide occupational requirement of a particular position.” That condition is met only if at least one of the following circumstances is present:  
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Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator

New Mexico police complaints are a public record

"Citizen complaints brought against police are subject to public disclosure, according to a state Court of Appeals ruling that reinforces a New Mexico sunshine law granting access to government records. The court ruled this week against the state Department of Public Safety, which refused to release complaints against one of its law enforcement officers on grounds that they were confidential personnel records."
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Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator

More Cities Ban The Box Asking about Criminal Records on Job Applications

"According to a recent report from the National League of Cities (NLC) and National Employment Law Project (NELP), an increasing number of cities have decided to “ban the box” and remove questions on job applications asking about criminal records.
 
The July 2010 report – “Cities Pave the Way: Promising Reentry Policies that Promote Local Hiring of People with Criminal Records” – features 23 cities and counties that have chosen to “ban the box” on their job applications that asks about an applicant’s criminal record, and defer the criminal background check to the final stages of the hiring process."  
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Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator

More Than 20 Million Americans Have More Than One SSN On Record, Study Says Data entry errors, falsifications suggest that SSNs might not be effective as unique identifiers

"If you're a company -- or a hacker -- who is seeking to associate a Social Security Number with a single individual, then you might have a harder task than you expected.

According to a study published earlier this week by ID Analytics, more than 20 million Americans have multiple Social Security numbers (SSNs) associated with their names in commercial records.

The study also found that rather than serving as a unique identifier, more than 40 million SSNs are associated with multiple people.

ID Analytics examined more than 280 million SSNs to determine discrepancies."


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Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator

Poor criminal-records check behind baby death: inquiry

Poor criminal-records check behind baby death: inquiry: "The conclusion is in a report on the case of a 13-month boy who was shaken to death in 2005, less than a month after he was transferred to a home in which one of the parents had a criminal record and violent history that wasn't fully revealed to caseworkers."

Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator

California appeals court allows publication of courtroom photos

California appeals court allows publication of courtroom photos: "The California Court of Appeal ordered a Superior Court judge to reverse her ban barring the Los Angeles Times from publishing the courtroom photos of a murder suspect. -db
Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator

Los Angeles County investigates improper release of information on child death and neglect cases

Los Angeles County investigates improper release of information on child death and neglect cases: "Los Angeles County have asked departments to investigate inappropriate disclosure of child welfare information, but in making the request in a closed meeting, according to legal experts, have violated the California's open meeting law, the Brown Act. -db


Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator

INTERNET LAW - Authenticating Evidence Obtained from a Social Networking Profile

INTERNET LAW - Authenticating Evidence Obtained from a Social Networking Profile: "It is interesting to see how some social networking users provide "more-than-needed” information in their walls and profiles; this is similar to those who ...
See all stories on this topic »"

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Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator

Court says lying about Medal of Honor no crime

Court says lying about Medal of Honor no crime: "A federal law making it a crime to lie about receiving the Medal of Honor or other military decorations violates freedom of speech, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday. Although a Southern California water board member convicted of violating the Stolen... Medal of Honor - Southern California - Law - United States - Military awards and decorations"

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Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator

Wyoming Judge rules schoold district employee names and salaries are a public record

Private Investigator News:
"The Wyoming Tribune Eagle filed suit against the school district after it was denied access to the information.
CHEYENNE -- District Court Judge Michael Davis ruled in favor of the Wyoming Tribune Eagle on Friday, making the names of all Laramie County School District 1 employees and their salaries public record.

The Wyoming Tribune Eagle requested access to the records last December. But John Lyttle, LCSD1's assistant superintendent of human resources, denied the request.

Lyttle cited the Wyoming Education Code, which requires the district to publish salaries only by category. The statute states that no other identifying information could be disclosed, he said.

The court disagreed."
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Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator

Psycholgical reasons why people use Twitter

Private Investigator News: "Psychological research on Twitter reveals who tweets, how much, what they talk about and why.

There are now 190 million Twitter users around the world producing 65 million tweets each day. 19% of US internet users now say they use Twitter or a similar service to share updates about themselves—double the figure from the previous year (Pew, 2009).

So who tweets? Why? What are they talking about? And what is so engaging about all those little textual transmissions?"  
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Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator

Private Investigator News: Court of appeals rules search warrant needed to use GPS device

"A federal appeals court, for example, issued a ruling last week that contradicts precedents from three other appeals courts over whether the police must obtain a warrant before secretly attaching a Global Positioning System device beneath a car. The issue is whether the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches covers a device that records a suspect’s movements for weeks or months without any need for an officer to trail him.

The GPS tracking dispute coincides with a burst of other technological tools that expand police monitoring abilities — including automated license-plate readers in squad cars, speed cameras mounted on streetlight poles, and even the widely discussed prospect of linking face-recognition computer programs to the proliferating number of surveillance cameras."  
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Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator

P.I. Charged With Stalking

"A private investigator who does what many P.I.s do -- surveillance -- has been charged with stalking."

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Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator

Intelius to pay $1.3 million to settle claims its post-transaction marketing practices were illegal

"Hundreds of thousands of consumers may have unknowingly enrolled in membership programs while using Web sites owned by Bellevue, Wash.-based Intelius. A two-year investigation by the Washington Attorney General’s Office alleges that Intelius received thousands of consumer complaints regarding unauthorized enrollment in the programs and that company management including CEO Naveen Jain knew about the complaints but chose to continue the deceptive and tremendously profitable marketing tactics." Read more
Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator

Debate continues over scope of SEC FOIA exemption

"The scope of three federal Freedom of Information Act exemptions contained within a section of recently passed financial reform legislation is continuing to provoke debate among the Securities and Exchange Commission, members of Congress and the media about just how far the exemptions reach in shielding SEC-held documents from the public." Read more
Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator

Blog Comments as Trial Evidence

"Evidence from social-networking sites, such as Twitter, Facebook, and blogs, has become increasingly common in modern litigation. In a recent decision, the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware permitted the use of consumer responses to a blog post as evidence in a lawsuit alleging fraud and deceptive trade practices."
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Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator

Web Attack Uses Google Geolocation Database to Identify Address of Routers

"First of all, as usual with stories like this, I have to refer back to my old essay that deals with the Ugly Truth About Online Anonymity.

Second, this hack isn’t new. See the Skyhook Wireless antics, circa 2008.

Third, the article below doesn’t make it clear, but this will only reveal your exact location if you’re using a wi-fi router that is in Google’s location services database."

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Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator

New Mexico Supreme Court personal information rule leads courts to limit release of public records - Private Investigator News

"The chief clerk’s office of Taos Magistrate Court refused to turn over public court records to The Taos News this week in light of a new rule from the New Mexico Supreme Court that has courts all over the state scratching their heads.

After submitting magistrate court’s own records request form Tuesday (July 27) to see public case records to be included in the weekly public records list of the paper, The Taos News was refused its request by the office of chief clerk Frances Martínez, who stated that in order to view public records, the newspaper would need to file a motion in court.

The refusal and demand for court filings flies in the face of the state Inspection of Public Records Act, which gives the public the right to inspect public court records. The problem Taos Magistrate and other courts across the state are struggling with is a rule passed down by the state supreme court designed to protect the personal information of the parties involved in a case by blocking information such as dates of birth and social security numbers."
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Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator

Private Investigator Research Links - July 17 - July 31

• Website Information, Analysis & Research Tool

  "Find out how good a site is. Get comprehensive website details. Discover competitors.\n\nSee people, traffic data, similar sites, social comments, description, social popularity and much more about websites" Identifies executives for public companies.

• How Facebook Can Make or Break Your Case

  Legal strategies and necessities.

• Internet Service Provider List

  "site and ISP list is for law enforcement use and contains a variety of ISPs and similar information services, specifically, contacts at the legal departments for law enforcement service of subpoena, court orders, and search warrants."

• ICE Online Detainee Locator System

  "Locate a detainee who is currently in ICE custody, or who was released from ICE custody for any reason within the last 60 days."

• Companies, Executives - news and profiles

   

• Reviews and profiles of companies

  Salary and compensation and employee reviews for some companies.

• Intelligence on directors, executives, and their relationships

  "executive and board member biographical information" Shows interlocking directors. Fee service with free trial.

The rest of my favorite links are here. Location Oakland, Ca - Private Investigator