The Texas Attorney General is employing various media - screen shots, video, press releases and court documents - to broadcast its recent shuttering of USA Skiptrace, AMS Research Services, Inc. and Worldwide Investigations, Inc. for selling consumers’ private telephone records and impersonating those account holders. These businesses were based in Colorado but conducted business in Texas when they called Texas telecommunications companies.

The Office of the Attorney General charged USA Skiptrace with violating the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. The corporate defendants were ordered to pay $150,000 in civil penalties, with John Strange also responsible for a separate fine of $2,500.

Do you think that the telephone companies might someday send customers automatic email alerts notifying them of inquires?

Northwestern University hosts this searchable database of homicides in Chicago that occurred between 1870 and 1930. The mandatory search field is street name, but many other criteria can be added.

Read the description of this massive project, transferring handwritten records to a digital format.

The Chicago Historical Homicide Project began with the discovery of the availability of a rich log of more than 11,000 homicides maintained consistently and without interruption by the Chicago Police Department over the course of 60 years, from 1870 to 1930.

A search by street name returns a list of records with a short case summary. This image is about half of the data from one of those records.

Public records researchers will appreciate the pop up window of sources for related original documents.

The one change to the database I would wish for is to be able to search by name, but the option to download the data in an Excel file should remedy that limitation.

Formal disciplinary actions against a California Emergency Medical Technician will now be available as a public record, thanks to AB 2917, signed by the governor today.

AB 2917 will provide the public with with certification and licensure information and create an EMT registry, specified by Section 1797.117 of the Health and Safety Code.

The legislation details the personal information that will be a public record, which is similar to that which is available on other California professional licensees.

The information made available to the public through the centralized registry system shall include all of the following data elements: the full name of every individual who has been issued an EMT-I or EMT-II certificate or EMT-P license, the name of the entity that issued the certificate or license, the certificate or license number, the date of issuance of the license or certificate, and the license or certificate status.

The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) issues topical summaries of each year’s state legislation that has become law. The NCSL report, 2008 Privacy Legislation Related to Event Data Recorders (”Black Boxes”) in Vehicles, will help private investigators stay informed of the legal parameters of the application of electronic surveillance and tracking of of others’ movements. Twelve states have passed laws related to event data recorders in cars. Previously, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration instituted a rule that requires auto manufacturers to disclose if an event data recorder is installed, starting with cars produced in 2011.