Private Investigator Public Records Internet Search Privacy Reporting – PI Buzz

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.

Attorney disciplinary records are organized on the state level and, if online, are usually found at the state bar or state court. The court division that is responsible for investigating attorney misconduct may be called “Office of Disciplinary Counsel”, “Disciplinary Board” or “Disciplinary Commission”. And that’s just one of the many reasons why you should subscribe to a public records directory. CourtPort is one that’s tailored for the legal community.

A directory of lawyer disciplinary agencies can be found at the American Bar Association site. Some of these links go to the bar association’s home page, because that state doesn’t have lawyer discipline records online. Or, in the case of the Alaska Bar Association, the search page is buried and the disciplinary actions are mixed with the general member directory.

The Arizona Bar separates discipline reports by year. If I knew whether the lawyer was disciplined and the year this site would be sufficient. With that annoyance in mind, I developed a Google custom search engine of disciplined attorneys. This enables you to search, for example, the Arizona Bar Association records for all years. Also, search across multiple states at once — helpful if you don’t know the state in which the disciplinary action may have occurred. I include several sites that index appellate and Supreme Court records, which may make the results too cluttered, but will catch some cases related to attorney misconduct claims that aren’t at the state sites.

Not all states are included. Many don’t have directories that could be configured to work with another search engine. Let me know if you find a way to search the excluded sites.

Is the Disciplined Attorneys search engine helpful?

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.

Computer Forensic professionals are quickly finding out that several states are now requiring them to be licensed as private investigators.

A recent article in Baseline Magazine details how legislators in South Carolina have introduced pending legislation where “digital forensic evidence gathered for use in a court in this state must be collected by a person with a PI license or through a PI licensed agency.”

The Texas Private Security Board recently made a ruling regarding the licensing regulations which effect computer security consultants and computer forensic examiners. They felt that it is important that these computer related practitioners, as well as the entities hiring their services, are familiar with the licensing regulations, as violations carry steep financial and legal penalties.

There is no doubt that these regulations will cause computer forensic experts to create strategic business alliances with private investigators to insure that evidence they collect is not thrown out of court over licensing issues.

What do you think about this? Should computer forensic experts be required to have a PI license? Do private investigators have the necessary training and expertise to conduct computer forensic examinations?

The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) is pressing the Federal Trade Commission to open an investigation into employer compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) restrictions on employment background checks of criminal records. The CDT, Teamsters Union and employee rights organizations prepared an informative petition with claims of incomplete notification and disclosure by employers in the rail transportation industry, instructive for companies taking adverse actions against employees. The consumer reports were drawn from Acxiom data – apparently not independently verified – which turned up false positives, leading to the employees being dismissed.

Petitioners also ask the Commission to examine the current practices regarding the
consent and notice provided to subjects of background checks. Individual employers,
including small business without legal teams or the knowledge to properly implement
the requirements of the FCRA, are conducting credit and criminal background checks in increasingly large numbers. In order to ensure that consumers’ rights as laid out in the FCRA are maintained, the FTC should, at the least, seek to promulgate best
practices for the obtaining of consent and the notification of adverse decisions.

A few months ago I wrote about the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control maintains License Query System. An added feature to the ABC site is daily, weekly and annual reports of new licenses, license status changes and actions taken against licenses including, revocations, suspensions, fines, and issuance or denial of licenses. The database of reports cannot be searched at the site. Search the archived reports from September 16, 2006 to the present by using this advanced search at Google. Replace “Safeway” with your company name, address or other key words.

safeway site:www.abc.ca.gov/reports/

Reporters and anyone compiling statistical data will be able to make use of the reports menu at the ABC site. Query the reports by location and license type to get a detail of all that meet that criteria. For example, find all the caterer licensees in Azusa.

Washington State law now bans employer access to the credit reports of employees or potential employees unless such information is substantially related to the individual’s current or potential job responsibilities. An exception is made if the employer has a “reasonable cause to believe” that the employee “has engaged in specific activity that constitutes a violation of law.”

Missouri private investigators are poised to receive the stamp of legitimacy with the establishment of the Board of Private Investigator Examiners, which will license and regulate private investigators. The bill is awaiting the governor’s signature, which is expected this summer. The Missouri Association of Private Investigators has worked diligently to secure state level licensing and soon they’ll be able to join the majority of states that license PIs.

New regulations for Indiana private investigators will go into effect July 1, including the replacement of the term “private detective” with “private investigator”.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court will decide whether property assessment databases created on behalf of municipalities by private companies are a public records.

Legislation introduced in Pennsylvania would make it a crime to obtain, sell or receive phone records of state residents without their authorization.

The Federal Communications Commission has issued new rules related to the disclosure of the personal telephone records of consumers. There are some specific new requirements for the carriers:

- Carriers are prohibited from releasing a customer’s phone call records when a customer calls the carrier except when the customer provides a password.

- Carriers are required to notify the customer when their password is changed

- Carriers must obtain explicit consent from a customer before disclosing a customer’s proprietary network information to a carrier’s joint venture partners or independent contractors

Read the full order and Commissioner comments.

The Federal Trade Commission has sought a permanent injunction against Action Research Group and Eye In the Sky Investigations for obtaining and selling to third parties confidential customer phone records in violation of the FTC Act prohibiting deceptive acts.
Federal Trade Commission, Plaintiff, v. Action Research Group, Inc., Joseph Depante, Matthew Depante, Bryan Wagner, Cassandra Selvage, and Eye in the Sky Investigations, Inc., Defendants. (United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida Orlando Division)

Meanwhile, the Federal Communications Commission is getting resistance from telephone companies over proposed rules requiring that customers use a password to access their account information and that the companies get a customer’s permission before they release information for telemarketing.

The Justice Department is objecting to two of the FCC proposals.

The first would tell phone companies to destroy customer records as soon as the records no longer are needed for legitimate business purposes. The government wants the records preserved for possible use in criminal investigations.

Secondly, the two departments want phone companies to notify law enforcement officials first, before customers, when customers’ private billing information has been disclosed improperly.

You would never think that a law would be needed to video tape on your own property, but an online news article reports a NH Legislator wants to make sure the law is clear.

A Nashua man was actually arrested after his home security camera made video and audio recordings of detectives who had come looking for his teenage son. Felony wiretapping charges against him were later dropped.

Rep. Dudley Dumaine and five other sponsors introduced House Bill 97, which would add an exception to the state’s wiretapping law, letting property owners record their own premises, with or without warning.

It may soon become a federal crime to obtain a person’s telephone records. The Senate made that possible Friday night when they approved legislation similar to a bill passed by the House.

The Senate bill increases the proposed fine to $500,000 and includes imprisonment up to 10 years in cases involving domestic abuse. The penalties can even be greater if classified as a special circumstance. The bill also details penalties and prison time for anyone who buys or sells the deceptively acquired phone records. The caveat is that those involved must know the records were obtained deceptively.

This legislation specifically addresses the act of ‘pretexting’ to obtain a person’s telephone records without permission.

“My main concern is that it is still not clear how the term ‘telephone records’ will be defined. Will this term mean toll records, name and address, or any other information maintained by the phone company?” Jimmie Mesis, PI Magazine Editor-in-Chief

This definition will certainly become much clearer before it heads to the Oval Office for the President’s signature.

As expected, there is an exemption for law enforcement. However, there is also an exemption for private detectives, but only if they are hired to acquire the confidential records by law enforcement.

More information on this topic will be featured in the upcoming issue of PI Magazine You can find more details on this bill by clicking here.

The National Guardianship Association is a voluntary organization of court appointed guardians and conservators.

A guardian is:

An individual or organization named by order of the court to exercise any or all powers and rights over the person and/or the estate of an individual. The term includes conservators and certified private or public fiduciaries. All guardians are accountable to the court.

A search of the database of members by state or city returns a list with names, addresses, Web sites, emails and whether the affiliation is as a professional or a volunteer.

California trustees and professional conservators and guardians are included in the Statewide Registry of Private Conservators, Guardians and Trustees, searchable by partial name or location. Some registrants list extensive biographical, educational and employment data.

This resource is a good example of the “invisible Web“, the portion of Web sites that can’t be found through search engines, no matter how many ways you formulate a search query. Various guesstimates are that 25-50 percent of the Web is beyond the reach of the search engines.

Read a brief tutorial on reaching into the deep Web.

A Concord Monitor online article is reporting that the New Hampshire State Supreme Court has upheld a Concord woman’s stalking petition against Brian Blackden, a local private investigator, partly because he refused to tell the court why he’d been hired to follow the woman.

In an unanimous decision, the justices ruled that the private investigator’s unwillingness to reveal his reasons for following the woman last year made it impossible for the trial judge, or them, to determine whether Blackden had a legitimate purpose to surveil the woman.

This ruling is very important to private investigators through out the United States. While other states do exempt private investigators, New Hampshire does not, the court ruled. To be exempt, Blackden needed to show his purpose in following the woman was lawful and legitimate.

“(Blackden) contends that he met this burden of proof by testifying that he secretly followed (Miller) in his capacity as a licensed private detective,” the court wrote. “We disagree.”

This article in the Gainesville Sun Newspaper of Gainesville, Florida details specific Florida laws that may impact private investigators in 5 categories:
• Mobile Tracking
• Telecommunications Crime
• Video Voyeurism
• Computer Crimes
• Theft of Cable

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has issued a fine against the Internet-based data broker of cell phone and telephone subscriber call logs, 1st Source Information Specialists (LocateCell). The press release only names one company but at least 40 Web sites were listed in the EPIC petition.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today found that LocateCell apparently “willfully or repeatedly” violated a Commission order by failing to provide information and documents required by a subpoena. For this failure, the Commission issued a $97,500 Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture against LocateCell.

Specifically, the subpoena required LocateCell to provide information and documents relating to its website advertisement for the sale of consumers’ private telephone records and other customer proprietary network information. The company failed to fully respond to the subpoena and a subsequent Citation. Because LocateCell’s response to the subpoena remains deficient, the Commission proposed the maximum forfeiture for a continuing violation by a non-common carrier of $97,500.

The FCC Commissioners provided a recap of the history of their investigation and statements reflecting the basis for this determination. Commissioner McDowell alludes to the possibility of further fines being levied against similar companies.

LocateCell is not the only company from which the Commission has sought information. Our Enforcement Bureau has been actively investigating a number of these data brokers, many of which have
advertised the availability of records of wireless subscribers’ incoming and outgoing telephone calls, as well as certain landline toll call records, for a fee. The Bureau is also investigating the alleged failure of
carriers to certify compliance with our CPNI rules, and is vigorously pursuing non-compliant companies.
These investigations will continue, and I thank the Bureau for its work in moving these initiatives forward.

View the Webcast of the FCC meeting.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released a report on its recommendations to Congress for creating standards for truncating Social Security Numbers. The report, Social Security Numbers: Internet Resellers Provide Few Full SSNs, but Congress Should Consider Enacting Standards for Truncating SSNs, examines the practices by information resellers that operate on the Internet and whether privacy laws apply to the release of SSNs.

We found 154 Internet information resellers with SSN-related services. Most of these resellers offered a range of personal information, such as dates of birth, drivers’ license information, and telephone records. Many offered this information in packages, such as background checks and criminal checks. Most resellers also frequently identified individuals, businesses, attorneys, and financial institutions as their typical clients, and public or nonpublic sources, or both as their sources of information.

The GAO proposes that the Social Security Administration, or another government agency, issue standards for truncating SSNs.

Data brokers, responding to subpoenas issued by the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee requesting their customer lists are delivering some surprising material. Apparently, law enforcement is among the customers of the resellers of customer phone records, depending on them to get quick background information to assist in breaking cases. The most prolific purchasers appear to be debt collectors, according to MSNBC, which got a peek at the data sellers letters.

The possibility that the Department of Homeland Security may be acquiring telephone records through the back door is not going down well with the Committee, who probably didn’t consider that they weren’t just going after nobodies.

Rob Douglas, an information security consultant who operates PrivacyToday.com, performed research for the House committee conducting the investigation. He recently quit because he said significant issues “were not being fully investigated.”

In a letter announcing his resignation, Douglas said the committee needs to look into dramatic allegations that officials from the Homeland Security Department are among the law enforcement officials purchasing the cell phone records.

“There have been allegations made by one party in the investigation that the Department of Homeland Security purchased American’s phone records from a company in Texas,” Douglas wrote. “It is not clear that this lead is being fully and aggressively explored.”

Close on the heels of the legislation, regulation and litigation over the privacy of telephone subscriber information is the examination of “caller-id spoofing”. The Florida Attorney General has issued subpoenas to a website that claims to sell “calling cards that allow parties to display fraudulent numbers on caller ID”. Reported at consumeraffairs.com, which also has an extensive set of links to prior articles on the whole telephone subscriber investigation blow up.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has been investigating businesses that advertise products and tools that will enable the caller to display a self selected number on the receiver’s caller-id. The recent Wired article cites Orin Kerr, a law professor, who suggests that the proposed regulation of telephone spoofing may interfere with the 1st Amendment right to anonymous speech.

Bestpeoplesearch operated by Intelligent eCommerce has attempted to distance itself from other cell phone telephone log resellers by posting a guide, How To Protect Your Cell Phone Records. This site is one that EPIC mentioned in its complaint to the FCC, which I wrote about in my squib on regulation. Two of the suggestions are for the account subscriber to request that the vendor remove call logs from their bill and that any telephone inquiry for information be denied, in favor of the account holder appearing in person at a company store and showing their id.

Technorati Tags: cell+phones, regulation

The Consumer Telephone Records Protection Act of 2006 was introduced by Senator Charles Schumer as pressure bears down on Congress to reign in Internet data brokers selling telephone call logs. Schumer leads his press release with rally-the-troops language.

Pretexts to telephone companies or their customers to obtain account information would be illegal. The language of the bill doesn’t seem to be available but a press report by RCR News provides some background. Needless to say, there’s no mention of exceptions for collection of judgments, child abduction, missing persons cases or other matters related to court actions or security.

Technorati Tags: cell+phone, pretext, data+brokers

News organizations, consumer watchdog groups and political bloggers have been quick to demonstrate the ease with which consumer telephone logs can be purchased from online unregulated vendors. EPIC, which details 40 websites that offer these for sale, has petitioned the Federal Communications Commission to establish more stringent security standards for phone companies, which collect sensitive information, including logs of calls that subscribers make on their phones. This week, Senator Harry Reid sent a letter to the FCC requesting they investigate this violation of privacy as a danger to national security.

The advent of the Internet, a minimally regulated environment, gives merchants access to a new, enormous audience. Increased visibility has also brought more scrutiny to investigative methods, which in the past were little known outside of a small world.

Recently the Chicago Police Department and the FBI have reported concern that they may be under threat or their investigations compromised by nefarious types gaining access to their agents’ cell phone logs. Erine Rizzo, the Illinois PI who unabashedly proclaims his frequent purchase of phone records, is hitching a ride on this super nova story. Why is it that the private investigators who freely spout about the grey market data they can secure aren’t members of their state PI organizations?

Information gathering approaches that could be ethically applied to execute court issued judgments, court mandated due diligence or the tracking of missing people are curtailed through current state and federal laws limiting access to motor vehicle, voter registration and financial records.

Topic continues to next post…
Technorati Tags: telephone+records, regulation