Archive for the 'How to Become a Professional Private Investigator' Category

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Criminal Check Delays

Published on December 7, 2010 in Canada, How to Become a Professional Private Investigator and Identity Fraud. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Ontario Police Check Backlog Frustrates Many

Previously, the criminal database was only checked for a close match to the surname and date of birth of applicants.

If this doesn’t bring up a hit, the new system now checks for matches to the sex and birthdate of the applicant only.

If there’s a match, finger prints have to be sent to the RCMP.

“The reason behind that is because some provinces don’t link previous criminal records to a name change,” said Marc LaPorte, a spokesperson for RCMP Ontario. “It’s a more rigorous check.”

This helps identify those who have changed their name after being pardoned for a sexual offense when checking the pardoned sex offender portion of the Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC). The delays due to the new policy are country wide on all Vulnerable Sector Checks.

Effective August 4, 2010, The Minister of Public Safety’s new Ministerial Directive Concerning the Release of Criminal Record Information by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) governs the use and disclosure of criminal record information maintained by the RCMP. This new directive replaces the previous ministerial directive, which was in effect since 1987.

The new policy is located at: http://www.cpic-cipc.ca/English/crimrec.cfm.

Surveillance Tradecraft

Published on December 6, 2010 in How to Become a Professional Private Investigator, Private Investigator and Surveillance. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Early in my career I was part of a surveillance crew. Every day I would go out and follow people. Sometimes I worked alone, sometimes in a car or cab with two other guys, sometimes as part of a multi-vehicle team.

It takes a long time to integrate a new guy into a surveillance crew. If he is experienced, it will take about 6 months. I have not seen any really good training schools for this in North America. I think the reason that such schools don’t exist here is that it takes too long to teach the fundamentals and this would cost a lot of money for lodging, cars, and instruction. In Canada, learning to conduct surveillance is definitely on-the-job training.

Let’s start with some definitions. Continue reading ‘Surveillance Tradecraft’

Division of Powers – Criminal Law

Published on October 6, 2010 in Canada, Courts, How to Become a Professional Private Investigator, Legislation, Private Investigator and Sources. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Under the division of powers, the federal government has exclusive jurisdiction over criminal law and procedure (section 91(27) of the Constition Act of 1867) the provinces have jurisdiction over the administration of justice, including criminal matters (section 92(14)) and penal matters (section 92(15)) regarding any laws made within provincial jurisdiction. Thus Canada has a single Criminal Code but many provincial laws that can result in incarceration or penalty.

Criminal and Civil Courts

This means that the Administration of Justice in the Province, including the Constitution, Maintenance, and Organization of Provincial Courts, both of Civil and of Criminal Jurisdiction, and including Procedure in Civil Matters in those Courts are matters handled by the Province. It also means that the Province handles the Imposition of Punishment by Fine, Penalty, or Imprisonment for enforcing any Law of the Province made in relation to any Matter coming within any of the Classes of Subjects enumerated in  Section 92 of the Constitution Act of 1867.

For the Investigator, this means that the majority of the criminal prosecutions occur in courts administered by the provinces and that most civil actions are issued in provincial courts.

Division of Powers

Published on October 4, 2010 in Canada, How to Become a Professional Private Investigator, Legislation and Private Investigator. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

This is the first in a series about how Canada works. An Investigator must know these things about his country in order to know who is responsible for creating and maintaining the information that he may need.

The Canadian Federation

Canada is a federation with two distinct jurisdictions of political authority: the country-wide federal government and ten provincial governments.  Presently, the three territories are creations of the Federal Parliament and exercise delegated power and not sovereign power.

The federal nature of Canadian constitution was a reaction to the range of colonial diversities of the different regions of Canada. Federalism was also considered essential to the co-existence of the French and English Canada.

The division of powers between the federal and provincial governments was initially outlined in the British North America Act, 1867 (now the Constitution Act, 1867), which, with amendments to both, form the Constitution of Canada. The federal-provincial distribution of legislative powers (also known as the division of powers) defines the scope of the power of the federal parliament of Canada and the powers of each individual provincial legislature or assembly.

Eye Witness Misidentification is Common

Published on September 15, 2010 in Courts, How to Become a Professional Private Investigator and Private Investigator. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Every investigator, both private and public, needs to understand what factors cause misidenification as it occurs far too often.

Reasonable Doubt: Innocence Project Co-Founder Peter Neufeld on Being Wrong

How do most wrongful convictions come about?

The primary cause is mistaken identification. Actually, I wouldn’t call it mistaken identification; I’d call it misidentification, because you often find that there was some sort of misconduct by the police. In a lot of cases, the victim initially wasn’t so sure. And then the police say, “Oh, no, you got the right guy. In fact, we think he’s done two others that we just couldn’t get him for.” Or: “Yup, that’s who we thought it was all along, great call.”

It’s disturbing that misidentifications still play such a large role in wrongful convictions, given that we’ve known about the fallibility of eyewitness testimony for over a century.

In terms of empirical studies, that’s right. And 30 or 40 years ago, the Supreme Court acknowledged that eyewitness identification is problematic and can lead to wrongful convictions. The trouble is, it instructed lower courts to determine the validity of eyewitness testimony based on a lot of factors that are irrelevant, like the certainty of the witness. But the certainty you express [in court] a year and half later has nothing to do with how certain you felt two days after the event when you picked the photograph out of the array or picked the guy out of the lineup. You become more certain over time; that’s just the way the mind works. With the passage of time, your story becomes your reality. You get wedded to your own version.

And the police participate in this. They show the victim the same picture again and again to prepare her for the trial. So at a certain point you’re no longer remembering the event; you’re just remembering this picture that you keep seeing.

Laws You Should Read & Understand

Published on July 13, 2010 in How to Become a Professional Private Investigator and Methods. 1 Comment Tags: , .

A good Investigator needs to know more than a little law.  Many cases I work on involve subjects who legally change their names, often in contravention of the relevant law. For example, Michigan law disallows a name change if you have been convicted of a felony or have been committed to a mental institution. However, The con-man known as “Prince” von Habsburg-Lothringer (really Josef Meyers, a former Detroit mental patient) was able to change his name.

Many jurisdictions have laws that say you can’t change your name to avoid debts or prosecution, and if your are a convicted felon or on parole or probation. I have found all of these types changing their names. Nobody really checks the background of people who change their names in many jurisdictions. You can use this to your favour in some circumstances as the local authorities don’t want the public to know how lax they are in this regard. A complaint to the right bureaucrat often leads to interesting and highly useful assistance.

How to Answer a Question

Published on June 28, 2010 in How to Become a Professional Private Investigator and Methods. 1 Comment Tags: , .

I often get clients asking questions that can’t be answered. Here is my guide to how to answer questions:

  1. Decide on a single meaning for every word in the question.
  2. Decide if an answer to this question can be acted upon to improve things.

Essentially, if you can’t define it or act upon it, then ignore it.

Investigators & the Investigative Process

Published on December 23, 2009 in How to Become a Professional Private Investigator, Methods and Private Investigator. 1 Comment Tags: , , .

Sherlock Holmes with his deerstalker hat and magnifying glass is the most familiar image of the Investigator. However, this is a narrow-minded representation of the Investigator.

The investigative process does not belong to the police or private detective.  Investigation is at the heart of every human activity. Scholars investigate. Antique dealers and appraisers investigate. Investors investigate. Medical Doctors investigate. In one way or another, we all investigate something or other. To investigate is to seek a solution. It is the application of information collection skills,  logic, and analytical skills.

This is the last article of 2009.  The next article will appear on Google-Free Wednesday, 6 January 2010.

Internet Detective 105 – Paid Monitoring Services

Published on December 9, 2009 in How to Become a Professional Private Investigator, Methods, Private Investigator, Search Engines, Search Strategies and Social Sites. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Social Media Monitoring

As an Investigator, you must realise that even the Vatican uses social media. Some forms of social media are taking on some of the characteristics of email. This information rich environment is something that Investigators and Researchers must understand. To be effective, one must also understand the tools available to conduct thorough research of the social media content.

One must also be able to create accurate budgets for this type of research. To set-up, optimise, and monitor research feeds that cover multiple social media and news sites can take many hours. These services allow one to monitor the social media space for new data or derogatory content. One particular strength of these services is that they search Blog comments, and can track comments and posts of individual contributors. While these services are aimed at PR agencies, they also offer significant utility for the Investigator, but they can be very expensive tools to use.

Techrigy

Techrigy (pronounced tek-err-jee) offers a free account that gets you up to 5 Search Words/Phrases, and store up to 1000 results. This is a great way to learn how to use the system.

Radian6

Unfortunately Radian6 is expensive — you pay just to have it in your toolbox, and then pay more for each social media research project you undertake. These costs must be understood at the outset and budgeted into the costs of the Investigation.

Filtrbox

Unfortunately, at Filtrbox their annual fee for individuals appears to be $1,000USD.

Backtype

Backtype lets you search comments that mention a brand, company, or topic, but it also lets you search comments left by a particular person.

Attaain

AttaainCI costs $150 per month for unlimited searching and monitoring. It’s less sophisticated than Radian 6 and Filtrbox which rate Blog comments from positive to negative. This is aimed at the Competitive Intelligence professional rather than the PR agency.

Internet Detective 104 — Forums, Boards, & Social Sites

Published on December 7, 2009 in How to Become a Professional Private Investigator, Methods, Private Investigator, Search Engines, Search Strategies and Social Sites. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Searching Boards, Forums, and Social Media sites can be a hit and miss affair using the large search engines. Google does an excellent job, but it is not the only game in town.

BoardTracker

BoardTracker – searches across 37,000 forums representing more than 63 million threads. Set up your own custom alerts using RSS or use the site’s search function.

SocialMention

SocialMention – this will find your search term in many different blogs and social outlets.  It will tell you how many times a keyword was used, the time frame, and let you subscribe to an RSS feed for that term or export the information as a CSV file.

Internet Detective 103 – Monitoring Changes

Published on December 4, 2009 in How to Become a Professional Private Investigator, Methods, Private Investigator, Search Engines and Search Strategies. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

In Real-time Search Engine,  I looked at a Meta search engine called Colecta that is useful for real-time monitoring certain types of sites. Now I will look at monitoring changes in sites that interest you.

Copernic Tracker

Copernic Tracker – automatically looks for new content on Web pages, forums, and Social sites. When a change is detected, our Web site tracking software can notify you by sending an email, including a copy of the Web page with the changes highlighted, or by displaying a desktop alert.

WatchThatPage

WatchThatPage is a service that enables you to automatically collect new information from your favorite pages on the Internet. You select which pages to monitor, and WatchThatPage will find which pages have changed, and collect all the new content for you. The new information is presented to you in an email and/or a personal web page. You can specify when the changes will be collected, so they are fresh when you want to read them. The service is free!

Internet Detective 102 — Pipes

Published on December 2, 2009 in How to Become a Professional Private Investigator, Methods, Private Investigator, Search Engines and Search Strategies. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Yahoo Pipes  is an interactive feed aggregator and manipulator. Using Pipes, you can create feeds that are more powerful, useful and relevant.

Yahoo Pipes is a free online service that lets you remix popular feed types and create data mashups using a visual editor. A Web mashup is a Web application that combines data from more than one Web data source into a single integrated Web application. Yahoo Pipes combines several different data sources but is generally not sufficient to create a useful application, it is a data mashup tool rather than a complete mashup editor.

How-to videos abound to act as tutorials on using Pipes. The best I found was here. You might also read Working with Yahoo! Pipes, No Programming Required.

Internet Detective School 101

Published on November 4, 2009 in How to Become a Professional Private Investigator, Methods, Private Investigator, Search Engines, Search Strategies and Sources. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Google Alerts

We all know know and love Google, but how many people use its best investigative features? Investigations aren’t done in one day so why search Google on only one day?

Google Alert service is free and it allows you to create custom RSS feeds using Google search results, or you can receive the alerts by email.  Thus, if you create focused searches using phrases, site qualifiers, etc. in Google, you now can have those results as a RSS Feed.

Login to you Google account, then use the advanced query options to construct your search.  Select the Feed setting in the “Deliver to” column to activate your RSS feed.  It’s that simple; there is no need to program a Google API. Alternatively, select email to have the results sent to you by email.

Your search can be set-up to notify you as the new data appears if you select email notification. You may select as-it-happens, daily, or weekly. Simply make the selection in the “How often” column. Of course the RSS feed option doesn’t need to be told when to send you the results, it captures new data as it appears and publishes it in the feed.

To receive the feed you will have to wait until it is populated with some results. Once there are results in the feed, you may then click on the feed link for the Alert and copy the URL into your newsreader.  This takes about one day to occur in my experience.

Internet Detective School

Published on November 2, 2009 in How to Become a Professional Private Investigator, Methods, Private Investigator, Search Engines, Search Strategies and Sources. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Internet Tracking

Mantracker hunts people by following their spoor for a popular TV show.

On the Internet, Investigators have to do the same thing. However, the digital spoor may be on a computer in Singapore while your prey is in Corner Brook Newfoundland.

For this series of articles, the terms tracking, monitoring, and alerts  all mean the same thing. These terms are applied to methods of collecting new information as it appears in a variety of searches of many sources throughout the Internet.  This is a systematic way of locating information about a subject as it becomes available. These are sources and methods that monitor news reports, social media, blogs, or other open sources of information relevant to your investigation. I will illustrate how to construct the search statement and get the results in your hands on an ongoing basis.

I will start with the large search engines and move onto the lesser know sources and methods.

Quantity Over Quality

Published on August 4, 2009 in How to Become a Professional Private Investigator, News and Report Writing. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

In the past US security clearance investigations were falsified. Now we learn that they have too many background checks to do, and not enough time to do them and the solution is to produce factually correct but incomplete reports. We also see that this job is a “shredder, and agents are grist for the mill,”.

 “This job is a shredder, and agents are grist for the mill,” said K.C. Smith, an OPM investigator in Austin, Texas, with 23 years of experience. “There are people who are getting sick, under a lot of stress, their family life is suffering. They are just beat down.”

Investigators say it is common practice to spend nights, weekends and holidays writing up reports, and some don’t report the overtime they work for fear it will be held against them in their performance evaluations.

 Investigators say it is common practice to spend nights, weekends and holidays writing up reports, and some don’t report the overtime they work for fear it will be held against them in their performance evaluations.

Some say their superiors have made it clear that the priority is to close cases, and they say they have felt pressure to turn in even incomplete cases that lack crucial interviews or records if it will help them keep their numbers up. A recent Government Accountability Office report found that the Defense Department’s security clearance process is plagued by such incomplete cases: 87 percent of the 3,500 initial top-secret security clearance cases Defense approved last year were missing at least one interview or important record.

Investigators are rewarded for investigation reports, not for doing proper investigations.