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 Department of Education Web sites for Alaska, Indiana, Louisiana, Nebraska, New York, Tennessee and West Virginia are a few that have a searchable database of certified public school teachers. These databases can mostly be searched by partial name, a convenient tool to obtain a teacher’s full name, verify her certification or how long she’s been teaching. States that don’t have educator certifications online - such as Mississippi - but whose teachers are nationally certified are in the database of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Search by state, city, district or name.

If you want to identify states that have online teacher certification records go to the specific state Department of Education Web site. Not everything can be found in a search engine! As an additional measure, you can formulate a Google query. One way you might look for the Massachusetts teacher licensing:

Massachusetts “teacher certification ” “department of education” -site:.com

Some states may refer to this as an “educator certification”.

South Carolina requires the last 5 digits of the teacher’s Social Security number to verify a credential - making the site unusable for the general public. California teacher lookup is at the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing site, which won’t come up if you’re using the phrase “teacher certification”.

The California Department of Labor Standards Enforcement has 5 different personal information databases, including a studio teachers certification database. Search other State Labor Department Web sites.

I previously wrote about some school finder resources and other state educator certification lookups.

The Beaufort County criminal and civil case index is online, searchable by personal or business name. Criminal cases return date of birth and defendant address.

The South Carolina newspaper, The State, has posted an online database, searchable by name or agency, of state employees earning $50,000 or more. The data is from the state office, Budget and Control Board.

One of my pet peeves about newspaper websites is their myopic identity. If there are any newspaper publishers out there, listen up. I landed on the Aiken Standard page looking for the story of a judge who closed a public records divorce file. Excuse me, but I don’t know where the town, county or psychic space of Aiken is located. Apparently you have to know where you are to know where you are. The weather section provided the answer: South Carolina.

In an unusual move, a county clerk refused a journalist’s request to view the divorce record of a man who had recently killed himself and his children because it was “inappropriate to release that information at this time.” The judge backed her up, reasoning that the closure avoids “the premature release of information to be used in prospective law enforcement action.” What law enforcement? The guy killed himself.

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