VR Research Blog

California Judges Required to Post Conflict of Interest Statements Online

Mike Rice — Sun, 20 May 2012 19:39:21 +0000

California’s Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) ruled this week that state judges are not exempt from the online filing of conflict of interest statements. Judges and other statewide officeholders have been required for decades to file California Form 700 but the California Judges Association has been fighting for two years to get its members exempted from a regulation requiring that the forms be filed online.

For a good (and brief) summary of the judicial Form 700 issue read the Sacramento Bee.

For a complete list of which officials file with the FPPC, access this page at the Commission.

Former Arkansas Coach Petrino and the FOIA

Mike Rice — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 01:08:34 +0000

The Associated Press broke a story on former Arkansas football coach Bobby Petrino’s cell phone records today. The AP request illustrates the reach of open records laws, in this case the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act. A good rule of thumb — if something is paid for with public money, it is likely that the records are public unless they are covered by a specific exemption. Each state handles exemptions differently so check the state statute. And, each state handles privacy concerns on cell phone records differently with some states allowing for the numbers that were called to be redacted from the bills; not the case in Arkansas, though.

Here’s a link to some of the records.

Spike Lee Twitter Mistake Raises Issue of “Subject Confusion”

Mike Rice — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 02:26:57 +0000

Filmmaker Spike Lee apologized today to a Florida couple for erroneously retweeting their address to his 240,000 Twitter followers. Lee thought he was sharing the address of the “George Zimmerman” who shot and killed Florida teen Trayvon Martin at the end of February. Instead he was sharing the address of a couple in their seventies whose son’s middle name is “George” and last name is “Zimmerman.”

Here are some steps you can take to avoid what is commonly referred to as “subject confusion”:

Determine the number of people with the same name as your research subject living in the area. You can do this by using Nexis or other databases that contain information drawn from the public portion (i.e., known addresses) of consumer credit files. Expect that there will be many people with the same name living in the vicinity of your subject. This is especially true in urban areas.
Match the known identifiers for your subject to the information available in public address records to eliminate false positives. For example, rule out false matches based on age or past known addresses.
Use other public records as a cross reference — voter registration is public in many states (check where your subject lives) and phone books are still relevant (if only to rule out subjects, i.e., if your subject is in their 20s they probably aren’t the person listed in the phone book under their name.) If your subject owns property, then use records of property ownership or property tax payments. If your subject is a licensed professional, check what address they listed on licensing forms.

Steve Jobs FBI File

Mike Rice — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 19:55:18 +0000

In response to news media requests, the FBI released Steve Jobs’ FBI file a few weeks ago. News outlets focused on Jobs’ past drug use, aspersions cast on Jobs’ character by past colleagues and a 1985 bomb threat against Apple that was investigated by the FBI.

Also of interest:

Much of the information in the file is drawn from public records. (Unlike a pure public records search, however, the findings from these searches were followed up by field agents.)

A Nexis (described as a “computerized news retrieval service”) search was conducted by FBI agents as was a canvass of court indexes. And, like many public records researchers, the FBI agents searching for a stockholder suit against Apple found that large parts of the case file were missing when they went to retrieve it at the local court.

When you read the Jobs file think about investigative reporter Seth Rosenfeld who fought a multi-year FOIA battle with the FBI. Rosenfeld’s determination focused attention on the FBI’s tendency to release records in a painfully slow manner and paved the way for the speed with which the FBI can now move.

Government Guides

Mike Rice — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 03:27:55 +0000

Government guides (usually referred to by the color of their cover — green in New York City and on the federal level plum) are wonderful resources for understanding both who holds a particular government position and what people within the government do. One key to getting a public records question answered is finding the correct person to answer it. Of course, it isn’t always obvious who knows the answer or how to reach them. Government guides fill the gap between knowing that the answer is out there “somewhere,” and knowing who to ask. A couple of tips:

Call, don’t e-mail. Many government guides provide direct telephone numbers. This means that phone calls can be handled quickly and you can be re-directed if you haven’t found the appropriate party. E-mail often gets lost on someone’s to-do list.
Decipher the titles and know the divisions. Government guides help you get under the hood on how various governments organize themselves and provide a road map to how departments meet their mandates. So, follow the map.

For a state-by-state government guide list, use this resource from the Government Documents Round Table of the American Library Association (ALA GODORT).

Also, worth a read: The New York Times on an effort to get the New York City Green Book updated and re-published.

Demi Moore’s Contribution to Public Records Law

Mike Rice — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 00:38:24 +0000

Actress Demi Moore’s recent medical emergency and the subsequent release of the 911 tape related to the incident has prompted State Assemblywoman and former 911 dispatcher Norma Torres (D-Pomona) to consider a revision to California Public Records law that will allow for 911 calls to be classified in the same manner as medical records and therefore kept private. While the current statute exempts “personnel, medical, or similar files, the disclosure of which would constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy,” from Public Records Act disclosure, Torres is calling for a specific exemption for 911 calls. Currently, portions of the call that are exempt from release under this section (PRA Code Section 6254) are redacted.

For more on PRA exemptions, read here.

For more on the Torres legislation, here.

Place this tag in your head or just before your close body tag –>

Tracking Overseas Corporate Registrations

Liz Milks — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 21:35:36 +0000

There are a number of resources available to researchers trying to determine if a company has a corporate registration in a foreign country.

Companies House is the official company registrar in the UK and has been since 1844. The Companies House site allows users to search for and download corporate records for companies registered in the UK and offers a set of links to its counterparts in a number of countries, mostly in the EU. Many of the sites on the list offer electronic search and download functionality. To access the list, go to the Companies House Links page and scroll down to the section on “Worldwide Registries.”

For company registries outside of the sphere of the UK, EU and US registry system, you’ll need to locate the registry directly and determine electronic search capability. One popular site:

The General Registry Cayman Islands offers an electronic search to those who register an account and pay the per search fee. While on the General Registry site, you can also review the benefits of a Cayman registration as advertised by the government of the Cayman Islands.

For additional information on worldwide corporate registries (including a country-by-country appendix [Appendix E] of what information each country requires on corporate documents) and some fascinating case studies on how fraudsters set up international corporations to advance corrupt business enterprises, read The Puppet Masters, How the Corrupt Use Legal Structures to Hide Stolen Assets and What to Do About It. This report continues the long line of substantive research produced by the World Bank.

FOIAing the FOIAs — Of Log Review,”Tailgating, ” and “FOIA traps”

Liz Milks — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 19:07:43 +0000

When drafting a federal Freedom of Information Act request, it is a good idea to get the log of what has already been requested from the agency you are querying. Agency FOIA logs are the best resources for determining not only what has been asked for by prior recipients but how to ask for it. These logs also document when a request was submitted and when the agency completed its request compliance process. Click here or on the image for an example FOIA log– this one from the Department of the Interior.

When reviewing an agency FOIA log, a couple of things to note — the clearer the request, the quicker the response. While many agency FOIA officers go out of their way to help fill a request, they can’t read minds or find something that isn’t adequately described.

Also note that a FOIA for an actual copy of a FOIA request and/or the materials released under the previous FOIA is allowed. Like requesting the FOIA log, “tailgating,” is widely practiced.

A variation on “tailgating,” is known as a “FOIA trap.” To set-up a “FOIA trap,” you place a standing request with an agency to be copied on requests and attachments fitting a certain description or received from a certain party. “FOIA traps” are commonly the hallmark of competitive intelligence professionals and, more recently, researchers working directly for the hedge fund industry.

Search.US.Gov for Federal, State and Local Government Site Search

Liz Milks — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 20:53:54 +0000

Researchers looking specifically for government documents should add search.usa.gov to their repertoire. This site, billed as the “U.S. Government’s official search engine,” is extremely useful when conducting a broad-based search for specific mentions inside of government records including minutes, staff reports or agency memoranda. For example, if you are interested in learning the number of places a particular contractor or service provider has been retained within a particular state, this search engine allows you to enter the contractor name and limit your search to government records in that state.

This method is not a substitute for a universal (Google) search but is a wonderful (and targeted) complement. For many researchers, this site will also provide a flavor for how the Bing search algorithm works since the site leverages Bing to produce its results.

Vogue Archive Now Online-Invaluable for Fashionistas

Liz Milks — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 19:19:09 +0000

Fashion magazine Vogue has opened it archive for (paid) public viewing. By digitizing and scanning its collection in its entirety (advertisements and photos included), Vogue has set a new high water mark for digital archives, many of which, up until this point, have omitted large parts of the printed collection from the digital archiving process.

While not inexpensive ($1575-per-year), researchers and scholars interested in fashion, photography and advertising will find this resource invaluable.

For more information, go directly to the Vogue archive (“Every Issue. Every Page. 1892 to today”) and read this piece in The Wall Street Journal.