A little noticed but potentially significant (for public records researchers) California Attorney General opinion was released a week ago. The opinion upends the almost universal interpretation of the Public Records Act by county Assessors pertaining to disseminating property addresses on the Internet.

If you go to any California county Assessor online public inquiry you’ll see an explanation similar to this on the Stanislaus County site:

California Government Code 6254.21 states that “No state or local agency shall post the home address or telephone number of any elected or appointed official on the Internet without first obtaining the written permission of the individual.”

Therefore the agencies don’t reveal anyone’s address.The law seems to be hewed to regarding the real property addresses for public officials, right? Not according to the AG. Deputy Attorney General Daniel Stone says the common interpretation is wrong and isn’t what the legislature intended.

As a practical matter, we believe that a broad and overly literal reading of section 6254.21(a) would lead to unworkable results. Some public agencies…might conclude that they were forced to refrain from making any property-related database accessible to any internet technology, no matter how secure or limited the network, due to the possibility that the data could contain home information of public officials. Other public agencies… might conclude that they were forced to review and redact their databases… Such an identification process would be difficult, time consuming, and inevitably incomplete. Furthermore, the resulting revised property databases… would no longer be comprehensive and would therefore be of diminished utility to users. We are hesitant to conclude that the Legislature could have intended such impractical results.

Simply put, the 1998 law was “intended to prevent public agencies from posting on their public websites any list or directory of public officials’ home addresses and telephone numbers, without first obtaining each official’s written permission to be included in the listing.” In other words, government agencies can’t construct a list of names and residential addresses of government employees and put that on their Internet sites.

Giving the Assessors permission to reconsider their ban on including addresses and names in their online databases, Stone states, simply:

Indeed, we believe that if the Legislature had in fact contemplated a comprehensively literal application of section 6254.21(a), that intention would have been more clearly reflected in the statute.

Give a kindly call to your local Assessor and ask her/him what changes they anticipate making in their Internet access in light of this opinion. What did the Assessor say?

Defendants Barred From Obtaining or Selling Consumers’ Phone Records to Third Parties

The Federal Trade Commission has put a permanent halt to an operation that allegedly obtained consumers’ confidential phone records without their knowledge or consent and sold them to third parties. The defendants are barred from obtaining consumers’ telephone records without their consent and court orders impose judgments on the defendants totaling more than $600,000 – the estimated amount of their ill-gotten gains.

This is the latest in a series of FTC cases targeting telephone pretexters – individuals who use false pretenses to obtain consumers’ confidential information. Since 2006 the FTC has charged sixteen individuals and their corporations with violating federal law by pretexting to obtain phone records of third parties. All have now been barred from pretexting and all have been ordered to give up the money they made engaging in the illegal practice.

In February 2007, the FTC asked a U.S. district court to order a permanent halt to the operations of a company that sold consumers’ confidential phone records, including information on calls placed and received. The FTC also sued the individuals who had used false pretenses to obtain the records from phone companies and then supplied those records to the company for a fee. The agency alleged these practices were unfair and deceptive in violation of federal law, and could endanger consumers’ safety. The agency also asked the court to order the defendants to give up their ill-gotten gains.

According to the FTC complaint, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 provides that a customer’s phone records may only be disclosed “upon affirmative written request by the customer.” But the agency alleged that since at least 2005 Action Research Group, Inc., and its principals, Joseph and Matthew DePantes, sold confidential customer phone records, including lists of calls made and the dates, times, and duration of the calls, to third parties, without the knowledge or consent of the customers. To get the records, these defendants relied upon the other defendants, Eye in the Sky Investigations, Inc., Cassandra Selvage and Bryan Wagner, who obtained them from phone companies through “pretexting” – using “false pretenses, fraudulent statements, fraudulent or stolen documents or other misrepresentations, including posing as an account holder or as an employee” of a phone company. Selling the records constitutes an invasion of privacy that could endanger the health and safety of consumers, the agency alleged.

The DePantes and ARG agreed to settle the FTC charges. Defendants ESI, Cassandra Selvage, and Bryan Wagner are subject to default judgments entered by the court.

The settlement and default judgments permanently bar the defendants from obtaining, marketing or selling customer phone records or consumers’ personal information derived from those records. They also bar the defendants from pretexting or using others to pretext to obtain consumers’ information. The settlement order entered a judgment in the amount of $67,000 against the DePantes and ARG, the estimated amount of ill-gotten gains the defendants earned from their illegal scheme; the judgment was suspended upon a payment of $3,000 based on the defendants’ inability to pay. In the default judgments, the court ordered Wagner to give up $428,085 in ill-gotten gains and ESI and Selvage to give up $110,762.

The Commission vote to accept the settlements was 5-0. They were filed in U.S. District Court for the middle district of Florida, Orlando division.

NOTE: Stipulated final orders are for settlement purposes only and do not constitute an admission by the defendant of a law violation. Consent judgments have the force of law when signed by the judge.

What are your comments in this topic?

Jimmie Mesis, Editor-in-Chief
PI Magazine

The FTC reached an agreement on Wednesday for $600,000 in settlements and judgments against several private investigators others involved in the Hewlett-Packard Co. boardroom scandal.

The FTC settlement imposed a $67,000 penalty against Matthew DePante, his father, Joseph DePante, and their now-defunct company, Action Research Group Inc., which was based in Clearwater, Fla. All but $3,000 was suspended due to their inability to pay.

The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, Orlando division, also entered default judgments against DePante’s subcontractors, Bryan Wagner, who must pay $428,085, and Cassandra Selvage and her company, Eye in the Sky Investigations Inc., who must pay $110,762.

More details on this topic can be found at the FTC website as well as other published articles. You can read the actual FTC complaints here.

What are your comments on this topic?

Jimmie Mesis, Editor-in-Chief
PI Magazine

Selected Laws Governing the Disclosure of
Customer Phone Records by Telecommunications
Carriers, a recently released Congressional Research Service report, summarizes the laws, legislation and congressional actions related to telephone call log records. The Federation of American Scientists has a database of some of these CRS reports, which are selectively released by members of Congress.

Find companies and loans they’ve acquired through the Small Business Administration business loans approved database. Search by approval year and state to get a list of all companies receiving SBA loans, with the loan amount, approval date and city where the company is based. Or, to search across all years for which data is supplied and to get other SBA documents on a company, try this search query.

Also, search the database of the Small Business Administration certifications of businesses that are women, minority or veteran owned. Then go to USA Spending to search for any contracts the company has been awarded by government agencies and the dollar amount.

Those who research historical records - as I do for Quiet Title actions, family history and heir locates - will find the new California Voter Registrations - 1900-1968, supplied by Ancestry.com very helpful. You can search a name for free, but a subscription is required to view an image of the record.

The State of Connecticut Judicial Branch, Conviction & Bond Forfeiture Dispositions Criminal/Motor Vehicle database supplements the Pending Criminal Cases search.

The holdings and limitations are described at the site.

# Each Criminal And Motor Vehicle Charge Disposed On And After January 1, 2000 In Which The Court Disposition Was A Conviction Is Included

# Each Criminal And Motor Vehicle Charge In Which The Court Action Was Concluded By A Bond Forfeiture Order On And After January 1, 2000 Is Included

* A Motor Vehicle Matter Disposed By Way Of Bond Forfeiture Is Deemed A Conviction Pursuant To Connecticut General Statutes Section 14-1(a)(18)

# Youthful Offender And Juvenile Cases Are Not Displayed

# This Criminal History Record Information May Change Daily Due To Erasures, Corrections, Pardons, And Other Modifications To Individual Criminal History Record Information.

Identify civil surgeons who have been designated by the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services to perform medical exams on applicants. Search by state or zip code. Or search by name from a search engine with the query: name site:uscis.gov. Replace the word name with the personal name.

Find criminal and administrative actions against doctors at the Drug Enforcement Administration, Diversion Control Program site. A search by last name or year returns name, location, date of arrest, conviction result, DEA registration status and a case summary. This database goes back to 2003. Search older registrant actions from a search engine with the query: name site:www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/.

The online telephone directory, 411.com isn’t just for finding listed telephone numbers. Use it to identify current employment or to expand the employment history profile of your subject. A search on my name in California returned 40 results. Some are home listings, but other records are work contacts. These are extracted from the Internet - Web pages and Zoominfo - and may supplement the business associations found at various other people finder sites.

Google the work designation “Mt Diablo Soccer League” to find a photo, phone number and email for this Tamara Thompson.

Most of the free lookup, fee-based people finder sites - PeopleFinders, Voompeople, Privateeye, to name a few, - contain the same data, although those may list corporation and DBA records not found at 411.com.

The recent proposal by the governor of Connecticut requiring that these sites offer a blanket opt-out to residents likely won’t get legal traction. The Internet people finder databases and telephone directories already have opt-out procedures, and their information is gathered from government public records and published directories. Governor Rell has stated that this measure would address safety concerns for the elderly, who are often targeted in financial scams.

The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Access to Archival Databases (NARA AAD) maintains searchable collections of government records and indexes online. The most popular are military: World War II Army Enlistment Records, Records on Korean War Dead and Wounded Army Casualties, Records of World War II Prisoners of War and Records with Unit Information on Military Personnel Who Died During the Vietnam War. The NARA AAD also has an index of historical Securities and Exchange Commission public companies - searchable by officer and director names and company names. This supplements (although the NARA doesn’t have the documents online) the free full text search in the EDGAR system at the SEC (which is only the past 4 years) and the header information in SEC filings (which goes to 1994).

View the short tutorial on searching the holdings of:

Proposed Sale of Unregistered Securities by Individuals, created, 1/4/1972 - 9/29/2000 and

Trading of Securities by Corporate Insiders, created, 7/11/1978 - 3/12/2001

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This 1 1/2 day workshop starts at 8:30am and will be Webcast. The agenda of topics and speakers from government and commerce, and professional and advocacy groups, is prominently sprinkled with privacy activists who take absolutist positions against access by private investigators to credit bureau and government records that contain Social Security numbers. However, there are 338 comments submitted by the public, many of them are accounts by private investigators of the critical use of Social Security numbers to solve crimes, find people, break fraud rings and verify employment backgrounds.

Robert Townsend of the National Association of Legal Investigators is on the 1:45pm panel on Monday.

On December 10 and 11, 2007, the Federal Trade Commission will host a public workshop, “Security in Numbers: SSNs and ID Theft,” to explore the uses of Social Security numbers in the private sector and the role of SSNs in identity theft. This workshop continues the work of the President’s Identity Theft Task Force, and, in particular, its recommendation to explore ways to reduce unnecessary uses of the SSN. The workshop will provide a forum for public-sector, private-sector, and consumer representatives to discuss the various uses of SSNs by the private sector, the necessity of those uses, alternatives available, the challenges faced by the private sector in moving away from using SSNs, and how SSNs are obtained and used by identity thieves. The workshop will be free and open to the public.

While you’re viewing the video, read through the November 2007 Federal Trade Commission document, Staff Summary of Comments and Information Received Regarding the Private Sector’s Use of Social Security Numbers.

It will be easier to find Florida public records through a Google search without having to mine each government database, now that the Florida state government has a cooperative arrangement with Google to index their sites.

Search the name “Villalobos” within Florida government records by formulating this query:

villalobos site:state.fl.us

All of the initial results are for Senator Villalobos at the legislature’s Web site. If he’s not your target, search again, removing that site:

villalobos site:state.fl.us -site:leg.state.fl.us

One set of public records is various state license holders.

Examine the search results to uncover new types of public records. Scroll down to the link to a Florida Department of Law Enforcement document listing a “Villalobos” among those receiving an Intoxilyzer test. If you go to the public records section at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Alcohol Testing Program you’ll see a jumble of files that aren’t searchable here, but content within them can be plumbed at a search engine.

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This document image tells you that Villalobos’ arrest took place in Broward County, which is helpful because names in the Florida court case indices won’t come up in a search engine.

I previously wrote about the other state governments - Arizona, California, Utah and Virginia - whose sites Google is also indexing.