PI Newswire

Please find the top 25 news stories, current events, professional opinion and insights aggregated by PI Newswire for the week ending January 22, 2012. As always there are many great articles ranging from the bizarre to educational with everything else in-between. We encourage you to comment and share your thoughts, opinions and experiences. Enjoy, have a wonderful week & stay safe!

Vote NO on HB 1006!! http://bit.ly/yJx5ic

Anonymous Goes on Megaupload Revenge Spree: DoJ, RIAA, MPAA, and Universal Music All
Offline http://bit.ly/xS7Rnx

Free Software Blocks Keyloggers by Encrypting Keystrokes http://bit.ly/xmZZ7y

Cops: Jailed man smuggled gun in rectum http://bit.ly/z626A9

Do Women Cheat As Much As Men Do? http://bit.ly/AlRlNB

Man wants a job with FBI, instead gets 80 months in jail for child pornography http://bit.ly/wHnSZd

Controversy – but no charges – for coroner, private investigator for soliciting 17 year old autistic boy http://bit.ly/xLbNIP

The ‘toys’ that let you spy on the neighbours – new ‘Wi-Spi’ helicopter and ‘Intruder’ car offer hi-tech surveillance http://bit.ly/zUPrfb

Hidden Camera Inside Houston Precinct 1 Sheds Light on Police Probe http://bit.ly/wkHIIt

Should You Be Able To Sue Your Spouse’s Lover? http://bit.ly/AuTJnb

Eight officers resign over illegal searches of dozens of people using police files http://bit.ly/yt33hq

65 Year Old Woman Gets on Plane With Handgun in Purse: Passengers Furious With TSA http://bit.ly/wcwjuj

Forensic Apps for First Responders http://bit.ly/zdHZQE

Process Server Serves Lawsuit on Lindsay Lohan for Helping Kill Osama Bin Laden http://bit.ly/yujVu7

Air bag DNA foils insurance scam http://bit.ly/xwecQR

‘Boot up the backside camp’: Training female bodyguards Chinese style http://bit.ly/A0JiQ3

Background checks encouraged for online dating http://bit.ly/A5BN2G

NSA constructs hardened Android with super-spook mobile OS, available to the world http://bit.ly/yRyVHn

JP Morgan Chase Process Server Unable to Serve OJ Simpson Foreclosure Papers http://bit.ly/x7mhjq

Pepsi Pays 3 Million: EEOC Finds Hiring Discrimination against African Americans with Background Check Policy http://bit.ly/A1xShi

Police, Private Investigator Unable to Locate Missing Saudi Chemical Engineering Student Studying in Canada http://bit.ly/zlNdlr

Sex, spies and Mounties: the poisoned culture of the RCMP’s `Special O’ surveillance squad http://bit.ly/xTvefn

Ashton Kutcher Foursquare hack witnessed by millions of Twitter users http://bit.ly/zvLN4O

Bail Bondman & ‘Beat Down Posse’ leader convicted of racketeering and more http://bit.ly/xkLh1S

Google Abandons Anonymous Accounts With New Signup Form http://bit.ly/wRTEbJ

Something didn’t seem quite right to Tyler Adams as he talked with the man who wanted to buy a gun from him.

The customer admitted he did not have a permit to carry a concealed weapon in Tennessee.

When Adams probed a bit more and asked if he could pass a background check, the guy was upfront and said no.

Adams did not sell the gun.

That’s the way the law is supposed to work for private sellers who, unlike gun dealers, aren’t required to conduct background checks.
But critics are skeptical that all private gun sellers would be that responsible, and say, in fact, the government leaves the door wide open for private sellers to sell a gun to anyone who is willing to pay for it and simply look the other way even if they are suspicious about the buyer.

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An Elementary School janitor who was arrested after a drug round up by police agencies had avoided undergoing any background checks by the Beaumont Independent School District (BISD) that may have uncovered past drug charges because he was hired prior to 2008, according to a report from KMBT 12 News in Beaumont, Texas.

12 News reports that the janitor had been previously arrested six times on misdemeanor drug charges of possession of marijuana since 2000. Officers also found marijuana on the janitor during the arrest, a violation of BISD policy that forbids any employee to possess, distribute, or use any illegal drugs on school property. Since the janitor was found with drugs in a drug-free zone, the charges could be upgraded to a felony.

12 News reports that the BISD employee handbook for 2011-2012 states any non-certified employee who is not a teacher – including janitors – hired prior to January 1, 2008 did not have to receive a background check. 12 News reports the janitor – who was hired part-time in 1998 and full-time in 2001 – has been suspended pending the results of the investigation. The 12 News story is available at: http://www.12newsnow.com/story/16551081/parents.

This case is an example why employers should run background checks on all employees and not just those hired after a certain date. It also shows why re-screening of current employees with background checks is sometimes necessary to ensure a safe, drug-free workplace.

For more information on background checks, visit Employment Screening Resources (ESR) – ‘The Background Check Authority’ and nationwide background screening firm accredited by the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS) – at http://www.esrcheck.com/ or call ESR tolls free at 888.999.4474.

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The RCMP says it is taking steps to speed up the checking of fingerprints submitted by Canadians seeking employment or volunteer positions as coaches, child care workers and caregivers for the elderly.

In an effort to speed up back-ground checks, the RCMP says it will install 32 additional fingerprint scanning devices in detachments across the country by the end of March and is ordering another 50.

The police force has come under fire for taking weeks – sometimes months – to pro-cess the checks. The waiting times reportedly have cost some people those jobs.

Under new rules that came into effect in 2010, anyone who wants to work or volunteer with vulnerable groups, such as children or the elderly, and who shares a birth date and gender with a pardoned sex offender, must submit fingerprints to Ottawa for analysis to ensure they aren’t the same person.

Following the rule change, the RCMP saw the number of so-called vulnerable sector checks it had to perform balloon from 130 a month to 8,000 a month.

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With a recent survey showing nine out of ten employers conduct criminal background checks on some or all job candidates, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) held a public meeting in July 2011 examining the use of arrest and conviction records by employers for criminal background checks to determine if the practice was an unfair and discriminatory hiring barrier to job seeking ex-offenders. The EEOC’s actions, coupled with the growing “Ban the Box” movement seeking to remove the criminal history question from job applications, shows that employer use of criminal records is under fire now more than ever. This is Trend Number 1 of the fifth annual ‘Employment Screening Resources (ESR) Top 10 Trends in Background Checks’ for 2012. To view the list of trends, visit http://www.esrcheck.com/ESR-Top-10-Trends-in-Background-Checks-for-2012.php.
EEOC Holds Meeting Examining Arrest and Conviction Records as Hiring Barrier

The EEOC – the agency of the U.S. Government that enforces federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination – held a public meeting on July 26, 2011 to ‘Examine Arrest and Conviction Records as a Hiring Barrier’ and focus on the use of criminal records by employers for employment screening background checks. The meeting was designed to identify and highlight ways in which criminal records have been used appropriately and current legal standards. For more information about the meeting – including video, transcript, testimony, and bios – see ‘EEOC to Examine Arrest and Conviction Records as a Hiring Barrier’ at: http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/meetings/7-26-11/index.cfm.

The EEOC press release ‘Striking the Balance Between Workplace Fairness and Workplace Safety’ described how the Commission was told by experts that employers refusing to hire people with arrest and conviction records even years after they have completed their sentences may cause recidivism and higher social services costs, but also that businesses face confusing and conflicting laws when using sometimes unreliable arrest and conviction records in making employment decisions. The EEOC press release about the meeting is at: http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/release/7-26-11.cfm.

The meeting was an opportunity to “learn about the practical ways employers have been able to balance business concerns with the need to ensure that employment practices are fair and non-discriminatory,” according to EEOC Chair. Some in the meeting commented that removing arbitrary bars to hiring people with arrest and conviction records improves job availability and lowers crime and social costs, and also urged employers to develop and implement a “responsible business plan” and overcome “fears, biases and hiring challenges” in order to facilitate hiring people with arrest and conviction records. Also, contrary to what some believe, having an arrest or conviction record does not automatically mean that a person is unable to work for the federal government.

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Falls Church, Virginia-based US Investigations Services, LLC (USIS), was recently awarded a contract from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to perform background investigative fieldwork services for various government agencies.

According to a release from USIS, the estimated total value of the contract is $2.45 billion over a period of five years, with the expected start date for the work being December 1, 2011. Under the terms of the agreement USIS will reportedly complete background investigations for the federal government in every state, the release noted.

“This re-competed contract award ensures that USIS will continue to provide critical support of the U.S. government,” Chris Tillery, president of Investigations Services Division at USIS, said in a statement. “Our vast experience in conducting thorough and complete background investigations combined with the second to none expertise of our field investigators resulted in USIS winning this contract.”

Through the contract award, USIS could potentially look to add professionals who have undergone a lifestyle polygraph test and obtained security clearance.

View source…

A recent investigation by WKYC-TV NBC Channel 3 News in Cleveland, Ohio found that consumers should closely check the backgrounds of home health caregivers before allowing them into their homes after reporting stories of theft by in home caregivers, including one case where $25,000 in cash was stolen from a home safe. Overall, the state of Ohio has received 470 complaints against home health agencies and their home health caregiver employees since the beginning of 2010.
WKYC News reports that one man in Sandusky, OH unknowingly invited a convicted thief into his home to care for his wife who had undergone several brain surgeries. The home health caregiver – who had previously been arrested for stealing a prescribed painkiller from a Veterans home in Sandusky – stole $25,000 in cash after discovering the combination to his home safe and she was later convicted of theft. Her employer refused to answer questions asking whether they had run a background check on the woman. In another case reported by WKYC, a home health caregiver was arrested on a probation violation by police on the first day she began working at a home in Strongsville, OH. She was convicted of stealing $700 in cash and $100 in gift cards from another person.

Convicted felons are not allowed to work as home health care workers, WKYC reports, and there are more than 100 criminal offenses that should prevent someone from becoming or remaining a caregiver provider, including theft and robbery. The news article from WKYC is available at: http://www.wkyc.com/news/article/212730/45/Investigator-Check-background-before-hiring-an-at-home-health-aide.

The need for background checks for home health caregivers is not just a problem in Ohio but across the nation. An April 2011 report from the California Senate Office of Oversight and Outcomes – ‘Caregiver Roulette: California Fails To Screen Those Who Care for the Elderly at Home’ – revealed that residents of the state may risk hiring private in-home caregivers with criminal records. The report suggests that the elderly population in California, one of six U.S. states that do not regulate private in-home caregivers, may suffer theft and abuse as a result of the lack of regulation. To view the report, visit: http://www3.senate.ca.gov/deployedfiles/vcm2007/senoversight/docs/2385.caregiver%20roulette.pdf.

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You are representing a client in a personal injury matter. During pre trial voir dire proceedings and during the trial itself, can you search for and monitor jurors’ and potential jurors’ Twitter accounts and social network Internet postings? What are your obligations should you uncover evidence of juror misconduct?

You represent a client in a wrongful discharge matter against the client’s former employer. You have reason to believe that certain high-level employees of the employer are dissatisfied and may be likely to post unfavorable comments about the employer on their private social networking pages. Can you send a “friend” request to these employees to gain access to their private social media pages?

Since the publication of the last Eye on Ethics column on Facebook, November of 2010, “Facebook: State Bar Opinions Address Information Gathering,” there have been some new state bar opinions that have addressed various issues that relate to social networking. The topics covered include monitoring jurors’ social network and Internet postings, and whether a lawyer can “friend” high-level employees of an adverse represented party.

I. Monitoring jurors’ social network and Internet postings

New York County Lawyers’ Association Committee on Professional Ethics Opinion 743 (2011) addressed the question of whether a lawyer can monitor jurors’ social network and Internet postings. Referring to Rule 3.5 Maintaining and Preserving the Impartiality of Tribunals and Jurors of the New York Rules of Professional Conduct, the committee noted that a lawyer is prohibited from any direct or indirect communication with a juror during trial and certain types of communications are also prohibited after trial. Subparts (a)4 and (a)5 of the New York Rule states as follows:

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While the perception for some sports fans is that National Football League (NFL) players cannot seem to stay out of trouble with the law, an NFL Arrests Database compiled by the San Diego Union-Tribune found an arrest rate of 1 in every 45 NFL players – or 2.2 percent – since 2000, according to a report from CBS station WCCO in Minneapolis, Minnesota that asked the question ‘Are Athletes Arrested More Than Others?’ When compared to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) statistics for 2009 that show the national arrest rate for all arrests to be 1 in 23 – or 4.3 percent – the reality may be that the fans watching NFL games are more likely to get arrested than the players on the field.

Overall, the San Diego Union-Tribune NFL Arrests Database revealed 573 NFL players arrested for crimes more serious than speeding tickets since 2000, WCCO reports, and the arrest rate was formulated by considering that the 32 NFL teams carry a roster of 53 players for a total of 1,696 players. The report from WCCO follows the recent arrest of a Minnesota Vikings player for felony domestic assault, bringing the number of Vikings players arrested since 2000 up to 36 – the most in the NFL – followed by the Cincinnati Bengals with 35 arrests and the Denver Broncos with 32 arrests. A notice on the database website states that the “list cannot be considered comprehensive in part because some incidents may not have been reported and some public records proved to be elusive.”

As reported earlier in the ESR News blog ‘NFL Teams Use Background Checks to Help Draft College Football Players as New Employees,’ NFL franchises deciding which college football players to draft consider “off the field” statistics such as arrest records along with “on the field” statistics such as touchdowns and tackles. Like many employers, NFL teams may run background checks on prospective employees who could end up as future NFL players, and employers in many other industries use pre-employment screening to help them hire new workers. A 2010 survey from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) revealed that 73 percent of employers polled – nearly three out of four – conducted criminal background checks for all job candidates.

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When Diana Young applied for a job as a teacher, the Hernando County School District did what’s called Level 2 background check.

“We work through the state to do a background check and we also include an FBI check,” according to Hernando County School Superintendent Bryan Blavatt.

Young passed all the background checks. Her fingerprint check also showed no legal problems.

What the investigations did not find was that Young is wanted in the state of Tennessee. She was arrested for selling and distributing the pain prescription killer Buprenorphine. Records also show she failed to show up for court on the drug charges.

Superintendent Blavatt is more than a little upset.

“For some reason, it was not placed on the list that would have been picked up by the FBI or any of these services that look for offenses,” he said.

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According to a report from HuffingtonPost.com, a coalition of 25 civil rights and labor advocacy groups recently petitioned TransUnion – one of the largest credit-monitoring firms in the United States along with Equifax and Experian and the only privately-held company of the so-called ‘Big Three’ – to stop making credit reports available and selling consumer credit information to employers to use for credit checks of job applicants during the hiring process.
HuffingtonPost.com reports the groups believe employment credit checks have a discriminatory impact on African American and Latino job applicants, can be inaccurate, are not valid predictors of job performance, and that many job seekers are caught in a ‘Catch-22’ situation where they cannot pay their bills because they do not have a job but cannot get a job because of bad credit since they cannot pay their bills. A full list of the groups involved may be found at http://creditcatch22.org/.

Credit checks of job applicants by employers have become more common recently. According to a 2010 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), approximately 60 percent of employers polled conducted credit checks on some job applicants. The survey found that 13 percent of employers surveyed conducted credit checks on all job candidates while 47 percent of employers surveyed considered credit history for candidates for selected jobs such as dealing with finances and personal data. The remaining 40 percent of employers surveyed did not conduct any credit checks.

However, many states have passed laws restricting the use of credit checks by employers. As reported earlier in the ESR News blog ‘California Passes AB 22 Placing Restrictions on Use of Credit Checks by Employers,’ employers or prospective employers in California – with the exception of certain financial institutions – will be prohibited from obtaining consumer credit reports for employment purposes beginning on January 1, 2012 after Governor Jerry Brown recently signed into law Assembly Bill 22 (AB 22).

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A recent story from The Arizona Republic about a convicted sex offender who passed a background check and worked as an umpire and official for youth sports reveals how database information that federal and state governments provide on sex offenders for background checks can sometimes be inconsistent and unreliable.

The Arizona Republic reports the 67-year-old Surprise, AZ man – who passed a background check in 2009 and officiated roughly 70 games – was arrested on suspicion of sexually abusing two runaway children. Authorities said the suspect had a criminal history dating back to 1973 with records in New York, Texas, Kentucky, and Alabama that included six sex-crime violations.

According to the report, the Arizona Interscholastic Association – the governing body over high-school sports in the state – employs nearly 3,300 officials a year and is considering rescreening the thousands of officials. Security experts interviewed in the story say background checks are not foolproof and finding information on sex predators can be a costly and sometimes unreliable process since there is no criminal database that covers 100 percent of the country and the information used by background screeners may be flawed or not accessible in some states.

Attorney Lester Rosen, founder and CEO of Employment Screening Resources (ESR), a San Francisco-area background check company accredited by the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS®), agrees that database searches can be unreliable and the results could give employers a false sense of security.

“Background checks based solely upon databases are subject to both false negatives and false positives and they have substantial issues in terms of timeliness, completeness, and accuracy,” explains Rosen, author of ‘The Safe Hiring Manual,’ a comprehensive guide to employment screening. “Because of the nature of databases, the appearance of a person’s name in a background check does not necessarily indicate that person is a criminal any more than the absence of a name shows that person has a clean record.”

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