10-30-2008, 05:30 PM
Dakota wrote:
[quote=JoeH]
Tax liens are public records, so is licensure and voter registration. Takes violating no laws to find out that information at all, just a very small amount of foot work. So maybe you have to go and rethink your argument? As for not finding out a single fact by itself, that is false too.
Public record, huh? OK, I want to find out about YOUR tax liens, voter registration data, child support info and whether you have received welfare. It must be straightforward then. How do I do it?
As Gutenberg already has pointed out, all you have to do is go to the local property records office. Traditionally in many areas it was located at the county court house, though in larger metropolitan areas it might be separate. In Mass. they are called Registry of Deeds. I can't even ask the current Registrar to hide my record, and I used to work with him and we are on friendly terms. One of his election promises was to get them online, the local Registry is a bit behind the times on that. But the town's Assessors office does have the property assessments for all personal and business properties online already.
As for other records that are public, if I gave you my last name you could find out what I earned last year by going to the Boston Herald web site. That is because I work for a state university and my earnings, as well as all other state employees is a matter of public record. The Herald just filed a suit to be given the records completely in machine readable form so they could show them on their site. Before that, you would have had to go to individual state departments and other offices and examine paper records in person.
There are many other public records that anyone can examine. Better than half of all information investigators, public or private, may look for about a person initially is public. In the case of hiring a private investigator, what you get is the knowledge of where to look. You could go and get the same information, it would just take some learning and time. Go ahead, take a look and see what is out there about yourself before you blather on about all this not being public. Gutenberg and I have given you some pointers towards the type of places to find this stuff, it is not that hard. It can sometimes be tedious and time consuming since the bulk of records are still not online and have to be examined in person at the offices where they are kept.