The Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog reports that Maryland has erected new obstacles to getting police reports.

Meanwhile, a newly introduced bill in the Wisconsin legislature would create a violent offender registry.

The Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals (not a staple news source) reports that the “Michigan Court of Appeals ruled that the home addresses and telephone numbers of public employees were subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”), even when public employees requested that this information be kept confidential.”

See the recently added category - What’s New At… - in the left sidebar, which includes a link to the collection of databases assembled by the Asbury Park Press. Just online is the salary database of 2006 federal employees. Search by name or agency to find their salary. Not all government employees are included.

Employees involved in security work, FBI, CIA, defense department, nuclear materials, and other jobs essential to national security are excluded. The list contains most executive branch employees but does not cover the White House, Congress, the Postal Service and independent agencies and commissions.

Dust is being stirred up over the Michigan employees salary online database. Some folks in government have forgotten that they’re working for the rest of us, that transparency is critical for good government. Unfortunately, they don’t see the advantage of knowing the income of similarly employed co-workers.

The online Iowa State Employee Salary Book is searchable by name from 1993 to the present.

South Dakota’s governor is still claiming that government employee names and rate of pay are not public records.

An initiative on the California ballot that would require police officers “create an audio-visual recording of all contacts with or searches of citizens” is now gathering signatures. If approved by the voters, the measure would mandate that “a copy of the recording be provided to affected citizens who are arrested and charged with a crime.”

The recent closure of police disciplinary records throughout California has prompted the introduction of AB 1648, Peace officer records, which would make information in certain disciplinary records pertaining to peace officers available to the public.

The swinging legislative pendulum in Missouri would restrict the release of police internal affairs records. Michigan already has limited access to police discipline files.

Should private investigators have access to police disciplinary reports or officer activity videotapes?

UPDATE: The FirstGov site has changed its site name and URL to USA.gov. An added feature is Live Assistance, a real time Web chat service to find out about “federal agencies, programs, benefits, or services.”

The government Web portal for Georgia is announcing a name change for the federal government site Firstgov.gov, due January 11.

The official Web portal of the U.S. government is changing its name — to USA.gov. FirstGov.gov will become USA.gov and FirstGov en español.gov will become GobiernoUSA.gov.

The reason? “It is cumbersome to say and difficult to remember. On the other hand, “USA.gov” clearly describes the site.”

The New Hampshire Supreme Court has directed the state Attorney General to explain his reasoning that police investigatory files are not subject to the Right-To-Know law, New Hampshire’s public records act. [Thanks: MediaLaw]

The Michigan governor has signed into law a restriction on the release of statements given by law enforcement officers involved in internal affairs investigations.

AP reports that a new law allows Ohio reporters, but not the general public, to examine gun permits but not to copy them.

The Ohio Supreme Court decided that a publicly funded, privately run mental heath service is not subject to the public records law, even though it operates almost entirely on government funds.

Well, at least the Wisconsin Appeals Court recognizes that a government agency cannot hand off to a private company requests by the public for real property records.

It is little surprise that Governor Schwarzenegger signed SB 202, Privacy: telephone calling pattern record or list, making the acquisition of a telephone subscriber’s phone call records a crime.[Read more at Computerworld]

Any person who purchases, sells, offers to purchase or
sell, or conspires to purchase or sell any telephone calling pattern record or list, without the written consent of the subscriber, or any person who procures or obtains through fraud or deceit, or attempts to procure or obtain through fraud or deceit any telephone calling pattern record or list shall be punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand five hundred dollars ($2,500), or by imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding one year, or by both a fine and imprisonment. If the person has previously been convicted of a violation of this section, he or she is punishable by a fine not exceeding ten thousand dollars ($10,000), or by imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding one year, or by both a fine and imprisonment.

The prohibition applies to telephone numbers called by the subscriber, not reverse address or telephone information. The California Association of Licensed Investigators (CALI) supported the bill and urged the governor to sign it.

Other states have restricted access to telephone records, among them are Michigan, Maine, Oklahoma, Arizona, Washington and Florida. Other state legislation on telephone records is collected at the National Conference of State Legislatures Web site.

I’m reaching into the archives of postings I’ve done over the past 2 years, aggregating some of them by theme. All of these can be retrieved searching by keyword, using the “search” box in the upper right corner of the PI buzz page. Don’t put multiple word phrases in quotation marks.

Find airline flight landing and takeoff times in near real time. View the location of flights in progress, their speed and estimated arrival time, searching by departure and arrival points. You can also receive an email alert notifying you of departure and arrival time changes.

I explored location technology tracking and the evolving laws related to use of GPS in vehicles.

Arizona has a statewide Web database of stolen vehicles. The Michigan abandoned vehicles database is searchable by VIN or vehicle plate.

The Michigan legislature passed SB 1202, Identity Theft Protection Act, which would prohibit the sale or acquisition of phone records, including VoIP, broadband and cellular, without the customer’s permission.

Sec. 5. (1) A person shall not do any of the following:

(a) With intent to defraud or violate the law, use or attempt to use the personal identifying information of another person to do either of the following:

(i) Obtain credit, goods, services, money, property, a vital record, a confidential telephone record, medical records or information, or employment.

The legislation gives a new, broad exception to law enforcement to obtain records without a warrant. Cold comfort is offered to others who may have legitimate need for the records.

(2) A person who violates subsection (1)(b)(i) may assert 1 or more of the following as a defense in a civil action or as an affirmative defense in a criminal prosecution, and has the burden of proof on that defense by a preponderance of the evidence:

(b) That the person acted in otherwise lawful pursuit or enforcement of a person’s legal rights, including an investigation of a crime or an audit, collection, investigation, or transfer of a debt, child or spousal support obligation, tax liability, claim, receivable, account, or interest in a receivable or account.

(c) That the action taken was authorized or required by state or federal law, rule, regulation, or court order or rule.

The Ingham County Recorder of Deeds, Michigan, has announced she is removing images of recorded documents from the Web site. The Lansing State Journal reports that social security numbers will be removed from recorded documents, including tax liens, even though there are few records with SSNs. The move is a purported attempt to curb identity theft, although none has been reported.

The Michigan legislature has revised the Public Records Act to specify that criminal records in which there is not a conviction but an arrest are open to the public, according to this press release from the Michigan State Police.

Additional criminal history information, specifically arrest information pending a conviction, will be available to the public as a result of Public Act 310 of 2005, which establishes a state criminal history record information dissemination law. Previously, Michigan did not have a dissemination law so the state followed federal law which prohibits the release of non-conviction data to non-law enforcement entities.

The criminal records index can be accessed from the State Police site.
[Thanks to BRB for the tip.]