U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) are sponsoring a Senate bill to create an advisory Commission on Freedom of Information Act Processing Delays, which would recommend procedures to reduce the excessive lag in response time...
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PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records), the online index of Federal court filings, is redacting personal identifiers, in accordance with the privacy policy of the Judicial Conference of 2001. Social Security Numbers in civil, criminal and bankruptcy filings are...
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An extensive investigation by the Contra Costa Times (subscription) reveals that most California Bay Area public agencies do not respond to requests for their records according to established state law. During a six-week period beginning in April, the Times sent...
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The 1988 Supreme Court case California v. Greenwood found that garbage placed at the curbside was public property. The 1998 U.S. Supreme Court opinion in Redmon (US DOJ brief), a case that originated in Illinois, affirms the Court’s earlier finding...
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The breaches of the information databases and the reaction in legislation is recounted here. A series of security break-ins is kick-starting a political drive to reshape federal laws that dictate how companies protect personal information–and what they have to do...
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An Ohio legislator is seeking to remove the names of weapon permit holders from the public record, one year after the law went into effect. Representative William Seitz wants to strip the ability of journalists to find the names of...
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More on the removal of criminal records from the public sphere… A new law may help former criminal offenders obtain employment by preventing employers from having access to their records. Gov. Rod Blagojevich recently signed Senate Bill 3007, which seals...
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The Ohio Attorney General, Jim Petro, is making a case before the Ohio legislature for strengthening the training for agencies responding to public records act requests. Under the bill, a public office could not require a person to give identification...
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ChoicePoint is now under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission and account holders may not be able to access some of portions of previously available data. Read the article. ChoicePoint to close access to small businesses. Another article here....
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The Lawyer’s Guide to Fact Finding on the Internet is now in a second edition and is an essential resource for any private investigator or researcher serious about making full use of the Internet. The authors also produce a monthly...
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