The mythical private investigator needs a well placed phone booth to make a quick costume change. But I’ll settle for a cafe with Wi-Fi and an electrical outlet for my... Read more »
Georgia lawmakers have given the Governor the okay to sign a bill requiring consumer notification by data brokers if consumer information is compromised. About 20 other states are considering similar but broader bills. Read the article [registration required] Read the... Read more »
The Oregon Court of Appeals threw in its vote on the application of the Fourth Amendment to the collection of curbside trash. Chipping away at long established Supreme Court opinions, which I wrote about in some detail first here and... Read more »
California State Senator Jackie Speier convened a panel of the concerned at a Banking, Finance And Insurance Committee informational hearing entitled, “After the Breach: How secure and accurate is consumer information held by ChoicePoint and other data aggregators?” Read the... Read more »
A Washington State U.S. Senator is requesting the U.S. Department of Justice undertake a national study on the criminal connections between identity theft and illicit drug use. Police are reporting that in one county, 90 percent of the ID theft... Read more »
Increasingly it’s the case that people, especially “young people” (My neighbor’s description of me. And it wasn’t that long ago!), use only cell phones and not landline telephones. If you’re trying to reach a witness or just want to talk... Read more »
Various Illinois police departments forgot to tell school Principals the names of the juvenile sex offenders enrolled at their schools. Some law enforcement agencies refused to give notification even though state law allows them. Some principals were not told that... Read more »
The closure of records and government regulation can’t blunt the most pervasive cause of identity theft: the sticky fingered housemate. According to a 2005 report by Javelin Strategy, working with the Better Business Bureau, in the cases where the method... Read more »
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 »