State agencies that manage vital records, driver licenses and other documents with personal identifiers are starting to implement new procedures for handling and releasing these documents, in accordance with the requirements of S. 2845, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (Public Law 108-458).

This article in the Muscatine Journal, Iowa suggests that agencies, promulgating uniform standards in order to receive federal money, may make access to vital records by genealogists, journalists and other unrelated parties more difficult.

Gray said they were told that access to birth and death records will be limited to family members who have a legal reason to see the records. After Jan. 1, 2007, the records will be off limits to the public and media. It’s not clear yet whether other exceptions will be made as some details of the law have not been finalized.

H.R. 418 REAL ID Act of 2005 will add another element to this law requiring state employees pass background screening.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has sent the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) an addendum to their earlier request that the FTC investigate information brokers who are selling telephone toll records through the Internet. The new and refreshing element in this EPIC missive is the positive nod to professional investigators. Much of the credit goes to the National Council for Investigative and Security Services (NCISS) and California’s own Francie Koehler:

[A]n Oakland, Calif. private investigator said it’s a dangerous practice for PIs to take clients over the Internet. “Any time you provide information to another individual, you need to know who they are,” said Francie Koehler, a member of the California Association of Licensed Investigators. “That’s the part people working over the Internet miss. They don’t know their client.”

Unlike their earlier petition requesting the FTC to impose more stringent rulemaking on the release of proprietary customer information, in which EPIC slammed investigators, the update distinguished the fly-by-night, quick-buck “investigator” from those who work within the law. This is a welcomed shift in attitude and may lay some foundation for a constructive relationship.

On a negative note, a former PI fuels the fire, telling ABC News just how information brokers gather sensitive personal information, including telephone call records.

Investigators know where to go to get our hands on a particular school yearbook. Sometimes they’re found at the school or the local library. But don’t discount state libraries and archives, and state and local historical societies in your search. For example, the Nevada State Historical Society posts a list of the school yearbooks it retains on site. The librarians in these organizations usually know their collections quite well and are enormously helpful. When I’ve needed more indepth research at a particular institution, I’ve become a member (the fee is minimal) and received hundreds of dollars worth of essential research.

Criminal defense investigators have much to be critical of in the approach to interviewing advocated in “the Reid method”, the basis for police interrogations. But all interviewers may find some valuable techniques in their monthly investigative tips.

The Contra Costa Times (free registration - use: bugmenot.com) provides a simple rundown of the steps to follow when making a California Public Records Act Request. They also refer the reader to a few of my favorite First Amendment organizations. The one negative note with which I disagree concerns the redress available to the requester should the CPRA request be denied. For a fairly low cost this can be litigated, and there are many organizations which are experienced in this area.

If you’ve ever made a CPRA request to the San Jose (California) Police Department you’ve discovered that they charge a steep fee for what amounts to research time costs, passed onto the requester. This is a direct violation of the CPRA provision that permits agencies to charge only for copying costs. But no one’s sued them…yet.

The FBI will check fingerprints for matches in their crime information database, a national source for criminal histories. Some states now require nursing homes to submit fingerprints of new hires to the FBI for a criminal background check. Could this promote a false sense that the FBI criminal history search is a complete nationwide repository for criminal information?

The study, conducted by Craig N. Winston, an assistant professor of criminal justice at Sonoma State University, found that the FBI data lacks proper identifiers to credibly link a criminal hit with the subject of the investigation.

Another finding was the large number of missed records and false positives generated. For example, when analyzing a sampling of 93,274 background checks in the state of Florida, Winston’s search revealed that the database missed 11.7 percent of the criminal records it should have identified. Even worse -of the more than 10,000 criminal records found, 5.5 percent of them were falsely attributed to those who were not convicted of a crime. Read the study

Not many of us have need to obtain police reports from Hamilton, Butler County, Ohio but maybe this town will become a trend setter! The Hamilton Police Department website provides online access to a database of reports, searchable by individual name. Then download the actual police report.

Jackson County, Missouri is suing the state over a new law about to take affect that would be so costly to implement that the county would have to remove all public records from its website.

The new law prohibits governments from publishing any personal information about elected or appointed officials on the Internet without their written permission. It goes into effect Sunday.

Jackson County joined Boone, Cass and Platte counties to seek an injunction against the law, believing it violates the Missouri Constitution. Read the article

Missouri private investigators, attorneys and public record researchers should get on the horn to their legislators, argue the case for repeal of this preferential law, then contact the counties that are standing up in defense of public access and cheer them on.

The Missouri Attorney General has a charities lookup on its website. The details are skimpy and not nearly as extensive as the California AG site for finding federally approved, state registered charities and charity fundraisers. California also provides the pdf for all recent IRS Form 990’s, which is where you’ll gather the financial details and the list of highest paid employees, and the Directors. Unfortunately, none of the other online databases that track charities enable searching within the 990’s, which would be very helpful in looking for individual names. There are a number of sources that provide a free national database of charities: GuideStar, CharityNavigator and the BBB Wise Giving Alliance are a few.

Mug shots of defendants in federal cases are public records, not just available through discovery, according to the Sixth Circuit, refuting the directive issued to the U.S. Marshals Service by its general counsel to release photos only to aid capture of fugitives. This ruling will immediately affect the states within the Sixth Circuit: Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan and Tennessee. Read the article