Just who owns the garbage at the curb is an issue in flux. In a prior posting I highlighted the U.S. Supreme Court and some state court opinions on the matter, showing that a few states contravene (“have a higher...
Read more »

The Michigan Department of Corrections had a good idea when it placed a criminal convictions database on the Internet. Now they want to block access by the public because it has been used to conduct background checks. Now, what exactly...
Read more »

Police personnel records many be available in Arizona under state...
Read more »

An Illinois state law prohibits activity that monitors its government. In preparation for his documentary film, which was broadcast on public television, Patrick Thompson was filming police as they made traffic stops. The police seized his film and the District...
Read more »

The legal periodicals index, LegalTrac, is free through some libraries. This extensive index is searchable by keyword or periodical and returns citations, and sometimes an abstract. I wrote about this tool in January and mentioned other valuable library sources. A...
Read more »

A DNA sample of a suspect cleared him of any crime but the man was not told why he was considered a suspect. Society and individual liberties are better served by making government records and activity more transparent. If the...
Read more »

A search on bankruptcy filings through PACER (the Federal Courts online index) is possible using only the last four digits of a social security number. But if you obtain a SSN through a database provider only the first five numbers...
Read more »

The free search engine, Clusty, creates some order in the Internet chaos by grouping Websites with your search terms into named folders. Search on the term “privacy”, limited to gov domains, and a column of expandable folders appears named, “privacy...
Read more »

Do you want to influence the outcome of the “Information Protection and Security Act” (H.R.1080), sponsored by Rep. Edward Markey? His largest contributor is the law firm Piper Rudnick LLP, which contributed $30,000 to Markey. H.R. 1080 defines information broker....
Read more »

The fine details on the Federal “Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004” are yet to be etched but will be fought over because of long-standing fears of a national identification card. The bill requires states to establish national...
Read more »