Spike Mencer in Open Forum of SF Chronicle 1/31/06
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	Click here to link to article on SF Chronicle's website or paste the following on your web browser: www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/01/31/EDGDMGVT8Q1.DTL Or just take my word for it and read the article here:
		Bully for Congress for trying to stop the sale of phone records, but it won't do much good. The proposed law from Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., comes in a long line of well-intentioned legislation, the pattern of which grows tedious: News story emerges, usually several years behind trend; public gnashes and wails; self-important legislator beats breast and "promises to do something"; law passes; Congress pats self on back, yet public not much better off before whole episode started. Move on to next cause.   The information brokers advertising cell-phone records online do need to be shut down, not so much for what they do but for their stupidity and greed. Could they be any more blatant? It would be like money launderers, fences or cocaine dealers taking to the Internet to advertise. It was only a matter of time before the privacy hounds attacked. I have a confession: I have used data brokers with fantastic results. I don't know how my middlemen got the information and I don't want to know. They were usually in Florida with employees who called me "doll" or "hon." Shortly after I became a licensed private investigator 10 years ago, I learned about this gray market. There were rumors that the trick the data brokers used was to impersonate the person, say the phone bill had gotten wet in the mailbox and then get a copy of the phone bill. Such "pretexting" to get bank-account information was outlawed several years ago, yet several data brokers can still, supposedly, get some of the same information, especially if there is a court judgment. It seems strange that there is a fuss to make a federal law against people using pretexts and stealing cell-phone records, yet the federal executive branch can apparently help itself to these records and much more without oversight. Before you call me a dirt-bag or a reprobate, let me point out facts and situations that need to be considered. I don't claim to speak for all private investigators, but most I know are credible, ethical and professional folks. California has demanding licensing requirements. Any sleuth who purports not to use a network of brokers is either naive or holier than thou. Most of us screen potential clients and don't want to risk our livelihood to make a quick buck. It is just that all it takes to hurt our reputation is another tragedy a la Rebecca Schaeffer, the actress killed by a stalker who obtained her address from a private investigator using information obtained from the California Department of Motor Vehicles. I use information brokers when speed is of the essence, and it is usually not for such domestic matters as a jealous partner wanting to see with whom his or her lover might be cavorting. I have turned to phone records to locate fraud suspects, runaway children and adults and, in one case, a physically abusive boyfriend. In a perfect world, police would pounce to investigate all alleged crimes and the courts would blaze through civil dockets. The reality is most police are overworked handling the most serious of crimes and courts are in no hurry to do anything. Their jobs will be there the next day. In one domestic-violence case I worked on about seven years ago in Daly City, a woman's ex-husband had beaten her and run off with their infant child. (This man was not the type to list himself in the White Pages.) All she had was a phone number for him. In a little more than 24 hours, my data broker produced a physical address for the suspect, which I gave to police. Lawmen soon arrested the batterer and found the child at the precise location in the East Bay, but it would have taken a long time for the police to go through the channels to get a subpoena for the information. The suspect would have been in the wind. I have also tracked runaway teens and missing adults by looking at phone records. I once used cell records to confirm that fraud suspects in Berkeley had been contacting several elderly people whom they had preyed upon. I shared this information with law enforcement. Eventually, the suspects were arrested and convicted for taking nearly $5 million from about a dozen victims. In a not-so-noble case, I used cell-phone records to discover a client's stockbroker boyfriend was a phone-sex addict who got his fix from providers scattered from Vancouver, B.C., to Miami. I suppose he did have his right to privacy, but for some reason I don't feel too badly for the freak. I hope he gets help and that she kicked him to the curb. As with the current phone-records flap, battles still rage about who can use Social Security numbers and for what purposes. Many of the database companies who were selling Social Security numbers took it upon themselves to stop selling full SSNs. PIs have fought vigorously to create exceptions to these laws, because we often locate cheats, deadbeats, identity thieves, defendants and crucial witnesses in criminal and civil cases through tracing these identifiers. Legislation in the privacy arena is often simplistic, fueled by politicians' desires to look proactive -- which is why we shouldn't lump private investigators in with information brokers. There are responsible investigators and then there are brokers and private eyes who advertise cell-phone records for sale on the Internet. Demand for these records will continue and ways around laws will be found. Sen. Schumer's bill needs to explicitly prohibit pretexting and stealing phone records for sale to the general public. There should be an exception in the bill for licensed private investigators working on cases involving missing or runaway juveniles and in documented criminal defense and civil investigations to review such information. But any law will only put a temporary damper on sales. In the end, laws of supply and demand will take effect and black-market business in phone records will continue, albeit in a pricier marketplace. Mike Spencer is the licensed owner of Spencer Investigations in Oakland. Page B - 7
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