Not to be confused with the Connecticut Judicial Branch Task Force on Public Access, Governor Rell’s Commission on Judicial Reform has issued its final report. The Commission made recommendations on broadcast coverage of court proceedings and proposed opening “juvenile proceedings concerning abused, neglected, uncared for, and dependent children, and proceedings concerning the termination of parental rights.”

The Kansas legislature will entertain a bill to add those convicted of meth offences to a statewide registry.

Listen to the live Webcast, Hewlett-Packard’s Pretexting Scandal, followed in relentless pursuit by Internet Data Brokers and Pretexting: Who Has Access to Your Private Records? — Hearings of The U.S House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. The HP broadcast is Thursday, September 28, 2006. The data broker show follows on Friday, September 29, 2006. Both Hearings begin at 10:00AM.

The Judiciary Committee of Pennsylvania legislature is considering House bill 2912, which would establish an Internet registry of those convicted of methamphetamine related offences. The act would take effect in July 2007 and registrants would be removed 7 years after the date of their conviction.

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press has issued a new Web-based public records guide. The Open Government Guide, “a complete compendium of information on every state’s open records and open meetings laws,” is a well organized and comprehensive pointer to code section summaries and case decisions of whose records are included or excluded, which type of records are covered and fees that can be charged. Access to various types of records, including police, real estate and vital records is addressed. A digest of each open records act exemption also specifies the portion of the record that is open, closed or not named.

Public libraries are a free source of periodicals and proprietary databases, many of which can be searched remotely. In Questions? - Answers from the Internet I included links to a list of public library Web sites and a real-time research librarian service. There are also online reference sites for specific regions. If you have a Connecticut library card you can make use of the 24/7 infoAnyTime, an online chat tool that connects you to a reference librarian. An added benefit of infoAnyTime is real-time Web co-browsing, enabling a researcher to guide you through your Internet search.

See a list of many of the virtual reference services available in the United States and internationally.

Legal journals and genealogical databases are a few of the many computerized resources offered by public libraries.

The Connecticut Supreme Court Public Access Task Force report recommends that the criminal index and case dockets be made available online. This action would require a change in state law, according to a Journal Inquirer article.

The Advisory Committee on Professional Ethics of the New Jersey Supreme Court has issued an opinion that clarifies the role an attorney can assume who is also an active law enforcement officer.

The Advisory Committee on Professional Ethics considered an inquiry regarding the propriety of a municipal police officer who is an attorney affiliating with a law firm located in a municipality bordering that in which he serves as police officer. It concluded that RPC 1.7 prohibits the inquirer from representing a criminal defendant in certain matters. The Committee further concluded that, under RPC 1.8(k) and the rationale of the New Jersey Supreme Court in State v. Clark, 162 N.J. 201 (2000), the inquirer may not represent any criminal defendant in Superior Court matters in the same county as the municipality in which he serves.

Purchasers of subscriber telephone records extend into multiple industries, among them are major corporations. The same names of providers of the telco records keep reappearing, suggesting that companies, such as Action Research Group, based in Florida, are the new Touch Tone. James Rapp, the owner of the now shuttered Touch Tone, has no trouble spilling the beans on his Nebraska nephew, who is identified as an employee of Action Research.

Attorneys’ responsibility in overseeing the legality of investigations they initiate may get closer scrutiny.

The U.S. House, Committee on Energy and Commerce will grill various actors in this drama at the hearing on September 28. A sense of the expected tone of the hearing is conveyed in the announcement.

The hearing is part of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee’s seven-month inquiry into data brokers and the questionable practice known as “pretexting” - the use of lies and deception to gain access to information that is not publicly available and without the victim’s consent.

H.P. Said to Have Studied Infiltrating Newsrooms, New York Times

‘Pretexting’ Scandal Sends Chill Through Bar
Lawyers examining how pretexting is used; one state bar takes action, The National Law Journal

In the blogsphere:

H-P: Lawyers Lawyer Up & Investigating the Investigation, Law Blog

Posts indexed on Technorati

September marks the second year that the credit bureaus have been required to provide free consumer credit reports. Instantaneous retrieval available online.

The methods that HP contractors used to secure telephone call logs, “the pretext story”, repeated ad infinitum, has reporters looking for new approaches to this story. The San Jose Mercury News has posted the transcript of a call to Verizon Wireless from 1st Source Information Specialists. It’s an odd selection for an example of a pretext from an information broker since no personal information appears to have been released. Perhaps Verizon’s interest in providing the telephone conversation text is to bolster their position that they are taking effective measures to foil non subscriber access to accounts.

The investigation of the Hewlett-Packard contractors who secured the telephone call logs of phone numbers registered to reporters and HP directors is revealing footprints in Florida, Massachusetts and Iowa, which could lead to investigations and prosecutions by those states Attorneys General.

Meanwhile, the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce sent a letter to Hewlett-Packard
requesting that the company turn over documents listing employees and contractors involved in the leak probe, and “a list of all individuals or entities whose telephone records or other personal consumer information were procured…” The letter specifically requested that no telephone records be provided. I guess the House committee doesn’t want that to become a public record.

The California Attorney General asserts he will investigate whether phone records of Hewlett-Packard Board members and journalists were obtained in violation of California Penal Code 530.5 to 530.8, the identity theft law. The puffery will surely help him garner votes and ease the way into his next elective rotation, State Treasurer. The evidence, or lack thereof, to prosecute, will be revealed long afterwards.

California’s attorney general said Thursday that Hewlett Packard Co.’s investigation of its own board members violated two California laws related to identity theft and illegal access to computer records.

Whether the HP related records access rises to a criminal act “depends on the volume of pretexting” , California AG Bill Lockyer said in an interview.

He later cited two criminal statutes, intended to address identity theft and computer hacking, as the basis for the claim that these were criminal acts.
Specifically, Lockyer said, the HP case runs afoul of California Penal Code Section 502, which prohibits “tampering, interference, damage, and unauthorized access to lawfully created computer data and computer systems.”

He also said the case involves Penal Code Section 530.5, which bars use of people’s personal info “for any unlawful purpose, including to obtain, or attempt to obtain, credit, goods, services or medical information in the name of the other person without the consent of that person.”

Because of the corporate governance requirements to keep board matters secret, which a director of HP apparently violated, it would seem that the access to his phone records would not constitute an “unlawful purpose.”

People involved in the HP investigation may have also violated a California Civil Code banning a corporation’s communication of employee social security numbers to the public.

The California Database Protection Act, codified in Civil Code 1798.82 addresses breaches of computer systems by “an unauthorized person.”

A 50 state guide to the criminal statutes pertaining to identity theft is collected by the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The California legislature passed SB 202 but it has yet to be signed by the governor. This measure adds a criminal penalty for obtaining telephone subscriber call patterns.

This bill would make it a crime, punishable by fine, imprisonment, or both, to purchase, sell, offer to purchase or sell, or conspire
to purchase or sell, without the written consent of the subscriber,
or procure through fraud or deceit, a telephone calling pattern
record or list.

The California Association of Licensed Investigators has sent a letter to Governor Schwarzenegger urging him to sign it. [email me for a copy: pinewslink(at)gmail(dot)com.