Private Investigator News: Adoptees in search of their past

"In the dictionary between "abstract" and "astray," the word "adoptee" describes the millions of Americans whose biological roots were cut. Those in open adoptions (typically born since the 1980s) know their roots. But many from closed adoptions long to learn who they were before they were planted into their adoptive families.

Blocking their way is the closed adoption record, imposed by states in the early- to mid-1900s. As the stigma of "illegitimacy" fades, though, activists from the adoption triad (adoptees, birth parents, adoptive parents) have rallied for open records, with mixed results.

Only Alaska and Kansas had open records all along. That is, adoptees can get their original birth certificates (OBCs), which differ from the amended versions issued at adoption. Other states' laws run the gamut from "open" to "closed," and are rife with rules."
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Location Oakland, Ca | San Francisco, Ca | California - Private Investigator

Private Investigator News: Facebooking in Court: Coping With Socially Networked Jurors

"At the office, in the car or anywhere else, we share every detail of our daily existence in real time on Facebook. Most of the time, this is acceptable and constitutionally protected behavior. But what happens in the courtroom when jurors post their opinions about a case online during trial?


Last month, one Michigan juror found out. Before the case was over, this juror posted on Facebook how it was "gonna be fun to tell the defendant they're GUILTY." Alert defense counsel saw the posting, and the trial judge dismissed the juror, fined her $250 and ordered her to write a five-page essay about the constitutional right to a fair trial.

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Location Oakland, Ca | San Francisco, Ca | California - Private Investigator

Private Investigator News: Connecticut judge rules no release of secret sex-offender list

"Details cannot be disclosed about how some convicted Connecticut sex offenders are placed on a confidential registry rather than the list available to the public, the state Supreme Court ruled yesterday.

The court’s unanimous ruling, which will be released officially on Nov. 2, overturns a lower court in a dispute over Connecticut’s “restricted” registry, a sex-offender list available only to police and courts."  
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Location Oakland, Ca | San Francisco, Ca | California - Private Investigator

Private Investigator News: FTC Testifies on the Rights of Employees Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act

"The Federal Trade Commission today told the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) imposes requirements on Consumer Reporting Agencies (CRAs) - which include the three major credit bureaus - and on employers that use the information “to ensure that sensitive consumer report information is used with fairness, impartiality, and respect for consumers’ privacy.” Read more
Location Oakland, Ca | San Francisco, Ca | California - Private Investigator

Private Investigator News: People Are Liars, Especially On Twitter

"A UK insurance company called Direct Line asked an agency called Opinium Research to carry out a study on dishonesty on social networking sites for its latest ‘Straight Talking Report’.

The research firm polled just over 2,000 British adults on the Web from 3rd -7th June 2010, and discovered a shocking truth: that people are not always honest when they’re able to hide behind a screen name and an avatar rather than talk face-to-face."

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Location Oakland, Ca | San Francisco, Ca | California - Private Investigator

Private Investigator News: Fifth Circuit upholds public's right to court documents

"A federal appeals court Wednesday ordered the disclosure of a Texas district court ruling that had been filed under seal, highlighting in its written opinion the importance of public access to court proceedings and documents.

Circuit Judge Emilio M. Garza of the U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans (5th Cir.) wrote the unanimous opinion for the three-judge panel, saying that court decisions “must be made in light of the ‘strong presumption that all trial proceedings should be subject to scrutiny by the public,’” and that “a court must use caution in exercising its discretion to place records under seal.”

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Location Oakland, Ca | San Francisco, Ca | California - Private Investigator

Private Investigator News: Vermont judge urged to reveal cell phone tracking data

"A Vermont judge heard arguments but didn’t rule yesterday on a lawsuit aimed at forcing the state to reveal whether and how its criminal investigators use cellphone tracking technology to keep tabs on people.

The ACLU of Vermont sued the state in March after filing public records requests that sought information on the state attorney general’s use of data from cellphone service providers to pinpoint the locations of people.

The state contends that the information is exempt from public records statutes because it involves criminal investigations, which were specifically exempted from disclosure when the Legislature adopted the Access to Public Records Act.  
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Location Oakland, Ca | San Francisco, Ca | California - Private Investigator

Private Investigator News: Department of Homeland Security wants to be your "friend"

"The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) engaged in widespread harvesting of information from social networking sites both to check up on immigrants applying for citizenship and to monitor online activity around President Barak Obama’s inauguration, according to DHS documents secured by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

Last year, the EFF, in cooperation with the University of California, Berkeley, submitted requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to a number of government agencies for documents regarding surveillance of social networks."

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Location Oakland, Ca | San Francisco, Ca | California - Private Investigator

Private Investigator News: The Iowa Association of School Boards says a new ...

OPEN RECORDS: The Iowa Association of School Boards says a new ...: "AP Staff Writer A school board group contends a new law making the organization subject to the state open-records law doesn't cover past employees' ...
"

Location Oakland, Ca | San Francisco, Ca | California - Private Investigator

E-mail resistance by San Joaquin court administrator tests state's public records provision - Inside Bay Area

E-mail resistance by San Joaquin court administrator tests state's public records provision - Inside Bay Area: "STOCKTON -- The executive officer in charge of running the San Joaquin Superior Court's administration quietly works outside of the public's view, calculating the court's $37 million budget and ensuring it operates efficiently. Chief Executive Officer Rosa ..."


Location Oakland, Ca | San Francisco, Ca | California - Private Investigator

Private Investigator News: PublicData must return MO DMV records

"A class action that an attorney claimed might bankrupt Missouri has been settled for $90,000. U.S. District Judge Nanette Laughrey gave final approval last week to the settlement between Missouri drivers and The Source for Public Data and Shadowsoft.
     Plaintiffs claimed The Source for Public Data and Shadowsoft illegally obtained a database from the Missouri Department of Motor Vehicles, with confidential information about Missouri drivers, and sold it to third parties, violating the Federal Driver's Privacy Protection Act.
     Ten employees of the Missouri Department of Motor Vehicles were named as defendants. The state itself could not be sued.
     The settlement "requires the return of all personal information that is in the possession of Shadowsoft and Source for Public Data. It prevents further reselling of such information and greatly reduces the risk of identity theft and the illegal use of such information from Missouri drivers," court papers state."
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Location Oakland, Ca | San Francisco, Ca | California - Private Investigator

Private Investigator News: Daily Number: 11% - Older Adults Tweeting

Daily Number: 11% - Older Adults Tweeting: "One-in-ten online adults ages 50-64 use Twitter or another status-updating service."

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Location Oakland, Ca | San Francisco, Ca | California - Private Investigator

Employer sued for charging workers for comp policy

Employer sued for charging workers for comp policy: "10/15/2010"

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Location Oakland, Ca | San Francisco, Ca | California - Private Investigator

Homeland Security using social media to check for marriage fraud

"The Department of Homeland Security used social networking to determine whether applicants for citizenship are guilty of entering into "green card marriages."

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services documents obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request by the advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation show immigration agents were instructed on how to "friend" applicants for citizenship on social networks such as Facebook in order to observe their lives and determine if their marriages are in fact valid."  
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Location Oakland, Ca | San Francisco, Ca | California - Private Investigator

Private Investigator News: Mom Uses Social Media To Locate Hit-Skip Driver http://ping.fm/dXlCN

Private Investigator News: Mom Uses Social Media To Locate Hit-Skip Driver http://ping.fm/vRmU0

Court Upholds Firing of 'Touchy/Feely' Supervisor http://ping.fm/Aixx3

Private Investigator News: New Orleans website to launch Verdicts & Settlements database

"New Orleans CityBusiness, the region’s weekly business journal since 1980, will launch a searchable online database of verdicts and settlements from area state and federal district courts in the coming weeks.

The website, which will work in conjunction with neworleanscitybusiness.com, will allow attorneys to provide detailed information upon the conclusion of civil court cases. The goal is to build a valuable research tool for lawyers who try cases in area courtrooms.

Some of the details will include verdicts, award amounts and distributions, fault allocation, action type, injuries, pretrial demands and offers, judge and attorney information, and expert witnesses."
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Location Oakland, Ca | San Francisco, Ca | California - Private Investigator

Private Investigator News: Mom Uses Social Media To Locate Hit-Skip Driver

"A southern California mother is tapping into the power of social networking to find the driver who hit her son while he was riding his bicycle.

Victim Nick Hargraves says a driver hit his bike, sent him flying over his handlebars and left the scene.

Hargraves now lives with road rash, torn tendons and memories of the driver.

"She rolled her window down, and she was like, 'Oh, I'm so sorry.' Just saying she didn't see me but didn't get out or anything to see if I was OK," he says.

Hargraves' mom, Cami Stanley, turned to the Internet to help police locate the driver who harmed her only child."

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Location Oakland, Ca | San Francisco, Ca | California - Private Investigator

Suffolk County, New York Creates First-ever Animal Abuser Registry

Suffolk County legislators unanimously approved a bill to create the nation’s first animal abuser registry on Tuesday.

Suffolk County Legislator Jon Cooper (center) is joined by peace officers from the Suffolk County SPCA, animal rights advocates and both two-legged and four-legged supporters as he announces his plan to create an Animal Abuser Registry, similar to the kind already in place for sex offenders.

The registry will be a publicly accessible and searchable database listing the names of those living in Suffolk County over the age of 18 who are convicted of inhumane treatment and torture of animals, similar to the sex offender registry. Convicted animal abusers will be required to register their names, aliases, addresses and submit a photograph for the registry at least five days after their conviction or the release of their incarceration.

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Location Oakland, Ca | San Francisco, Ca | California - Private Investigator

Private Investigator News: ReprintPrint Email Font Resize San Joaquin County Sheriff's Office using Facebook to help solve cold cases

"You can now count the San Joaquin County Sheriff's Office as one of the millions of Facebook users. The agency is asking users of the social networking site to "like" it on Facebook to get updates from the agency on cold case homicides and missing person cases.

The agency sees the popular social networking site as another way to get information out to the public.

"By embracing today's technology, social networking gives our citizens an opportunity to help us with our continuing pursuit of solving cases and bringing justice to the citizens of this county," San Joaquin County Sheriff Steve Moore said in a statement.
The page may be found by doing a search on Facebook for "San Joaquin County Sheriff's unsolved homicides/missing persons." The official page has a profile picture of the Sheriff's Office shoulder patch."
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Location Oakland, Ca | San Francisco, Ca | California - Private Investigator

Private Investigator News: California Department of Corrections launches inmate locator searchable database

"The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) today launched the Inmate Locator web page, an online database designed to help family members find an inmate in California’s prison system.
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Location Oakland, Ca | San Francisco, Ca | California - Private Investigator

Private Investigator News: Washington State judge makes petition signers name a public record

"Information regarding the signers of initiative petitions in Washington were made public Sept. 30 in response to a state superior court judge’s decision to lift a ban on the disclosure of 11 petitions, according to the Office of the Secretary of State.

Superior Court Judge Richard Hicks removed his temporary restraining order on initiative petitions that had been requested for public inspection after a hearing on Sept. 3. The reversal was in reaction to a June U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Doe v. Reed, which determined that, as a general matter, the release of petition signers' names does not violate signers' First Amendment rights."  
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Location Oakland, Ca | San Francisco, Ca | California - Private Investigator

Private Investigator News: Supreme Court says email metadata is public record

"In a case of first impression, the Supreme Court ruled this morning that metadata associated with public records such as email is a public record, subject to disclosure under the Public Records Act"

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Location Oakland, Ca | San Francisco, Ca | California - Private Investigator

Schwarzenegger vetoes bill to extend FOI law to UC and CSU foundations & auxiliaries. Gov says bill would deter some donors from giving http://ping.fm/kmZ1a

Private Investigation News: California Accountancy Board accusations online http://ping.fm/WQlFx

Find Housing Authority Records http://ping.fm/0JARQ

Private Investigator Research Links – Aug and Sept 2010 http://ping.fm/YIkiP

Private Investigator News: San Bernardino boosts presumption of public access to documents http://ping.fm/Cd58J

Private Investigator News: LinkedIn innovations give users more Internet exposure http://ping.fm/dTTpD

Private Investigator News: LinkedIn innovations give users more Internet exposure

"But those of us who have spent time marveling at the innovations of Facebook, Twitter, Google's various products, Microsoft's Bing, and other cutting-edge Internet products, LinkedIn has seemed soporific. No more.

Signal appears, for now, as a separate page inside LinkedIn. In the center is a list of posts—links to articles, statements of opinions about current business or other developments, or whatever else someone posts on their profile. On the left hand column is a set of filters. You can pick your direct connections, second-degree connections (friends of friends), third degree, or anyone on LinkedIn. Other filters are for specific industries, companies, the time something was posted, or where the poster is located. All of these functions are customizable.

So now, if you want to see all the posts over the last day by Facebook employees who work in New York which reference the new movie The Social Network, you can do it. Or all posts by General Motors employees in the past month referencing Ford cars. Or everything said by people in the Internet industry who live in Columbus, Ohio about the book The Facebook Effect (a search I tried, since I'm the author—there were four posts). Your imagination is the only constraint.

Well, the other constraint is the amount of information available. My own experiments suggest there is already a huge amount of data ready to be exposed inside LinkedIn. And because everything everyone posts in this service, unlike in Facebook, is by definition public data, everybody's posts are searchable."  
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Location Oakland, Ca | San Francisco, Ca | California - Private Investigator

Private Investigator News: San Bernardino boosts presumption of public access to documents

"San Bernardino County supervisors unanimously approved a "sunshine ordinance" Tuesday that they say will increase public access to government documents. The law, which will take effect in early November, states that the county should process all public records act requests with the presumption that all government records are public. The burden will be on the county to cite any exemption prohibiting the release of those documents." Read more
Location Oakland, Ca | San Francisco, Ca | California - Private Investigator

Private Investigation News: Nevada concealed weapon permit holders concerned about making identity public

"Owners of guns with concealed weapons permits are upset their names are now open to public inspection and those enrolled in the medical marijuana program want to know if they can receive a permit. The Nevada Supreme Court ruled in July that information about concealed weapons permits are public records." Read more
Location Oakland, Ca | San Francisco, Ca | California - Private Investigator

Private Investigator Research Links - Aug - Sept 2010

• Finding and Researching Experts and Their Testimony
  

• Links to Housing Authority Websites
  

• Hire a Professional Skiptracer

  
  

• Trailmeme

• Theses and Dissertations - OpenThesis
  

• 4 Best Sites To Get 10GB Free Online Backup & Storage
  

• Real Time Search - Social Mention

• Openbook - Find public Facebook postings

• Booshaka!

• CLEAR - Thomson Reuters
  

• CollegeOnly - "Facebook" for students
  

• Cold Case Files | Colorado Bureau of Investigation
  

• Live Ships Map - Vessel Traffic and Positions
  

• Comprehensive GM VIN Decoder
  

• Professional Fiduciary Association of California
  

• National Student Clearinghouse: Degree Verification or Enrollment Verification for Companies or Individuals
  

• Directory of Genealogical Societies

• Workplace Verification (E-Verify)

• The Franchise Registry

• Insurance Seller Licensees
  

  
  

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

Pennsylvania. court tosses union's bid to keep teachers' addresses private

"A Pennsylvania appeals court has thrown out a lawsuit filed by the state’s largest teachers union that sought to prevent public disclosure of public school employees’ home addresses. Commonwealth Court on Sept. 24 ruled against the Pennsylvania State Education Association, which sued the state Office of Open Records to keep it from ordering the release of the addresses under the state’s Right-to-Know Law."
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Location Oakland, Ca | San Francisco, Ca | California - Private Investigator