CHL shows up in background check

[snorri]

I would report the agency doing the background check to DPS and the Texas AG. If nothing happened within 30 days, I would start emailing newspapers and TV stations until one was interested in reporting on leaked records that are "confidential and are not subject to mandatory disclosure under the open records law" and how the AG knows about it for more than a month during an election year.

[seamusTX]

I just want to point out that newspapers and TV stations are universally opposed to secret government records. They were all against making CHL records confidential, even my favorite local newspaper.

I don't know how regulated these background check agencies are, but I would like to see someone looking into how they know information that is not supposed to be available to the general public.

BTW, Mr. Abbott's office is fairly responsive.

I have a hard-copy fax machine. Several years ago I was getting junk faxes from some clowns in the Montgomery County area every day. I sent a sheaf of them to the AG's office in Austin. The faxes stopped. A month or so later I got a letter from the AG's office saying that the matter had been resolved (probably a consent decree, but they did not give details).

- Jim

[snorri]

If the press isn't interested, there's always the internet. If someone in the government is leaking confidential records, they need to be exposed. If others are covering for them, they share culpability, and should share the consequences.

[TXlaw1]

NCIC is very protective of their data, all states must sign an agreement with the feds, and each agency within the state must sign an agreement with their state provider (a local PD/SO/School/Airport police must sign a user agreement with DPS Austin, DPS Austin must sign a user agreement with the FBI...

NCIC and TCIC require all users of their information - all LEOs and other employees of a LE agency who can access such criminal history and related information - to have special training and take a test regarding access to and use of such info. Violations could jeopardize the LE agency's access to NCIC and TCIC. Violations could result in the individual violator being terminated.

[srothstein]

I thought I would point out two things to everyone under the law. The first, and most important, is that the law on confidentiality only applies to government employees. When government records are considered confidential, it means government employees cannot reveal them. Anyone else who manages to get the information, either legally or illegally, may make it public without suffering a penalty. Think of the recent uproar about the pentagon papers being posted on the internet on wikileaks. The private who leaked the papers to wikileaks is in jail pending charges related to espionage. The owner of wikileaks is free and clear. If this applies to military secrets, it certainly applies to CHLs.

Second, and important more for comfort to some people, is that leaking CHL data is a crime in Texas. And yes, it does have a specified punishment. You have to know how to cross reference different codes to find it, but the Public Information Act is in chapter 552 of the Government Code. Section 552.101 says that any information considered confidential under the law is excepted from public disclosure. Section 552.352 says that releasing confidential information is a crime punishable by six months in jail, a $1000, fine, or both. This makes it a class B misdemeanor and it could be a different count for each person's information that is released.

[BrianSW99]

Maybe they get their information from the private security company that operates the gates at the State Fair? I hear they have a pretty good list of chl'ers.

[Dragonfighter]

Maybe they get their information from the private security company that operates the gates at the State Fair? I hear they have a pretty good list of chl'ers.

We all had to be CJIS certified because of "incidental" access to criminal information...what a pain. But they are dead serious and not just the state but DHS get involved with violations.

[The Annoyed Man]

Part of the problem may be that so much information has gotten out there via identity theft, that is hard to contain.

A few years ago, when I still lived in California, I had a woman who lived in the projects in New Orleans somehow get my name and SSN, and she started creating accounts in my name, telling people she was my wife.

She got into me for something over $40,000, the largest account balance being $24,500. That one account was to Bell South, for a cellphone account. $24,500 for a cellphone account???? Are they crazy? She had 4 numbers on the account, and had purchased a bunch of accessories, and had not paid the bill for 6 months. Now, I don't know about y'all, but if I get 30 days past due, Verizon will cut me off pretty soon. What the hades is wrong with Bell South's A/R procedures? How did they keep that account going for six months and let the balance get almost to $25K before shutting it down and trying to collect from me?

Anyway, long story short, I didn't have to pay for any of those accounts, and I (sort of) got them off my credit history by having my history flagged as a victime of ID theft (see below). I filed a police report with the Pasadena PD. They said they would forward it to the New Orleans PD. I called the New Orleans PD to follow up, and to let them know that I would gladly fly down there to testify against this woman. I mean, they had her name, her NO address, everything they needed to go over there and pick her up. You wanna know what I was told? I was told that it wasn't enough money to go arrest her. Apparently, the fraud has to exceed $150K or so before the PD thinks its a big enough deal to arrest someone for. So she got off scott free, and I had to live with the detritus of cleaning up my credit status after her depredations. I would have liked to see one of her hands cut off.

In any case, ever since then, I have had to jump through hoops to prove that I am who I say I am in order to legitimately open up an account in my own name because of the ID theft flags on my credit history. I hope her privates whither up and fall off.

So, the point is that, however the information originally got out there, you can't put the cat back in the bag. So if your CHL status got out at some point, legally or illegally, now it is out there, and it is in some database somewhere. So I guess if a PI knows what databases to query, he doesn't necessarily have to obtain the info from the state.