Archive for the ‘Criminal’ Category

A new feature has been introduced at the most popular social networking site, Facebook — which it’s calling Truescoop –, a name search that identifies people by their state of residence and date of birth and, for some, criminal record history. Get more tailored results by qualifying your name search with the person’s year of birth or full date of birth. Nothing at the site spells out the source of the data, but Facebook warns that this is an application merely for fun.

TrueScoop is for entertainment only. TrueScoop is not a substitute for a background check that you would pay money for.

TrueScoop should not be used to make any employment decisions. TrueScoop is not to be used for any reason covered by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) or any state or Federal laws related to the FCRA.

TrueScoop is a criminal history check similar to that at Criminal Searches. Both aggregate criminal records index information that is available for free online from state and county government court sites. Each display their data differently so you might find one format more usable. The data varies between individual records on each site; sometimes only one site will list AKAs, but then the other site will do so for other records. Sometimes Facebook identifies the local court in which the charge was filed but not the court docket number, and Criminal Searches gives the court number but not the local jurisdiction, but it’s not consistent within or between the sites. Comprende? Mix and match, if you can! The best advise might be to head to the court Web site once you find a lead from either of these other applications. Locate courts and lots of other public records through a fee-based service, this free-trial site or at the free sites offered by BRB Publications or Online Searches.

TrueScoop also shows names that have been searched by others and the number of times. Select the name link to populate the search field and get record results. A name search may also return records of unclaimed money and sex offenders (with photos), in addition to the state locator showing date of birth.

A Facebook account is required to use TrueScoop, but this application is separate from Facebook and there’s no link between it and Facebook profiles.

Mashable writes, TrueScoop Offers Free Public Record Search on Facebook.

A California appellate court has settled a public records case — the right of access to a Santa Clara County GIS parcel mapping database — in favor of the plaintiffs, the California First Amendment Coalition. The county alternately demanded an exorbitant fee to access the database, then claimed that it was protected for national security reasons, even though they had already sold it to some private parties. Huh? Unbelievably, Santa Clara County argued that release of the digital maps might make the water supply a target for terrorists? Pleeease…

Support the CFAC’s efforts to keep government records open and express your appreciation for their free legal hotline.

In another, but unfortunate court decision, the Third Appellate District court exempted from disclosure crime-related autopsy records, claiming they are encompassed under the California Public Records Act exception for police “investigatory files”.

The Iowa legislature is chewing over the notion that open government records may be responsible for identity theft and should be restricted. The Identity Theft Prevention Study Committee met last month and developed a collection of recommendations, including redacting certain “personal information” — that fuzzy term has yet to be defined — in public records. One of the panelists, Dan Combs of The Coalition for Sensible Public Records Access , a consortium of commercial public records aggregators, argued that redaction of public records is ineffectual and misses the supposed objective of curtailing “identity theft”, another fuzzy term. The Coalition site has position papers and summaries on public records access, such as this one on the important uses of the Social Security number by businesses and government.

What other constructive uses of the SSN identifier would you add?

Now, head down to Arizona where the Phoenix City Attorney has advised the police department to restrict disclosure of police records on the handy claim that thieves are scouring public records for personal information. The police department will start redacting victim names, birth dates of suspects AND those who are convicted and sitting in jail, and the addresses where crimes are committed. The dictum is being unevenly enforced, different types of data being excised, or not at all. Phoenix may expand this scattered policy to include code enforcement records. Which state law is this suppose to comport with?

Who would have thought that creating a fake profile on MySpace (a violation of their user agreement) could lead to a criminal conviction? The recent verdict in the case of Lori Drew concluded that she was guilty of computer fraud for doing just that. Of course the verdict was influenced by the belief that the email messages sent under the false identity contributed to a girl’s suicide, and certainly gave the impetus for the criminal charge.

Let this be a warning to information researchers and investigators who are collecting data on subjects through their social networking sites.

As part of my investigations I do passive information gathering on the Internet, like monitoring MySpace sites. Other investigators have asked me if they should create a profile to become a “friend” of someone who has a private MySpace page in order to get access to the full site. Before you do it you better be tech savvy so you can cover your footsteps.

Like with any other investigative action keep in mind: Is this legal and ethical? How would it be perceived by a jury? Will this be detrimental to the overall case? Are there unintended consequences that may reflect badly on my client?

A database of convicted drunk drivers is slated to go online by the end of 2008, hosted by the Ohio Department of Public Safety. Ohio’s SB 17 mandates the creation of an Internet registry listing personal information on repeat offenders. Read the press release that details the characteristics of the Habitual OVI/OMWI Offender Registry.

All offenders having 5 or more OVI/OMWI convictions (or equivalent offenses) in the past 20 years must be listed on the Registry, to include:
• Offender’s name
• Date of birth
• Residential address including street address, municipal corporation or township, county and zip code
• Number of times within the preceding 20 years the offender has been convicted of an OVI/OMWI violation
• Dates of OVI/OMWI violation

The Registry must be made available to the public online, to be searchable by the offender’s name, county or zip code.

Add this to the growing collection of boutique criminal registries.

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.