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Mike Brownstein's Super Screening Blog
April 01, 2013 posted by Steve Brownstein
State makes online background checks easier
Want to know if your babysitter got busted for child abuse? If police pinched a would-be employee for dealing meth? Or maybe you just want to dig up some dirt on your daughter’s new boyfriend.
Before you had to pay $15 to do a criminal background check, but starting Monday $18 allows you to do it online and, in most cases, get feedback almost instantly instead of waiting a week.
Gov. Dave Heineman and Nebraska State Patrol Col. David Sankey on Monday unveiled the state’s new online criminal background check system. Pop in a name, a date of birth and your credit card info and you can get the skinny on someone.
“We live in an electronic age. We need to provide these services online to be relevant,” Heineman said.
The State Patrol turned around more than 33,000 criminal background checks last year that came via fax or mail, Heineman said, and the governor said he expects that number to jump now that it’s easier to access the service.
State Patrol employees fulfilled those requests in 7-10 days on average, Sankey said. Now the person who requests the report can get it instantly if the person they're researching has no criminal background, like 75 percent of those checked. If someone does have a history, a State Patrol employee still has to investigate, but Heineman said he expects the new system to speed those requests up, too.
Cornhusker Bank outsourced background checks on its 22 hires last year to a third-party, but already is seeing the effect of the online service, said Sherla Post, the bank’s senior vice president of human resources.
The cost of a background check dropped from Monday morning, something Post said she attributes to the vendor trying to stay competitive.
But a criminal background check is only a part of what the vendor inspects, Post said. They also verify employment history, certifications and degrees, check out attendance at school, and make sure a prospect has a clean driving record.
“Efficiency-wise, it’s much better,” she said.
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln also uses a vendor to sniff around all potential hires, whether they’re administrators, student workers or staff, university spokesman Steve Smith said.
Heineman said moving the background checks online is just the most recent example of the state shifting its business online, and he vowed to continue the trend. The days of Nebraskans trotting down to city hall or the county courthouse are virtually over.
“We’re gonna push and continue to push more and more services online,” he said.
http://journalstar.com/business/local/state-makes-online-background-checks-easier/article_16beeee8-b20f-56f4-8192-353bc287f2ed.html
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Bill would boost college background checks on dorm residents
The anxiety over how one will get along with a new dormitory roommate is not limited to freshman. College administrators increasingly want to know whether a potential dorm resident has a record of assault, burglary or other crimes.
A bill working its way through the Texas Legislature could make that easier.
Senate Bill 146, introduced by Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, would help public colleges and universities perform better criminal background checks of students applying for on-campus housing.
The Senate approved the bill on Wednesday. A companion bill in the House, introduced by Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, was pending in the Higher Education Committee Thursday.
The impetus for the bill came from Kilgore College, where Williams' brother, Edward Williams, is director of student life.
About five years ago, Edward Williams said, the college had a wave of students who turned out to have criminal records.
After one of those students got into a fight, a campus police investigation revealed he had a long criminal history, Edward Williams said.
"We had no idea," he said.
That incident spurred Kilgore College administrators to conduct background checks on individuals applying for student housing, but state law denied them access to the best, up-to-date information, he said.
Access to information
The Texas Department of Public Safety manages a website that compiles pending charges against someone from any county in the state, but that information is not available to college administrators under existing state law. SB 146 would change that.
Under the bill, only a college police chief or housing director would have access to the DPS secure-site background information, said Gary Scharrer, spokesman for Sen. Williams. Scharrer pointed out that the bill would not require a college to conduct background checks, but would allow the school to do so.
A similar bill passed the Texas Senate two years ago but died in the House.
Checks are common
Blinn College, in Brenham, also conducts criminal background checks, using publicly available information, said Dennis Crowson, vice president of student services. The checks are performed only on those students applying for housing, he said.
The University of Texas-Austin generally does not perform checks on students, aside from those who also are employees and those who fall into special categories, such as appearing on a registry of sexual offenders, said spokeswoman Tara Doolittle.
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Bill-would-boost-college-background-checks-on-4392374.php
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Border Patrolman Faces Decades in Prison
A border patrol officer will cough up a Jaguar, five Rolex watches and faces years in prison after pleading guilty to taking bribes to let people into the United States.
Hector Rodriguez, 45, of San Diego, pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiracy, bribery and bringing in aliens for financial gain, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.
Gerardo Rodriguez, 42, of Chula Vista, pleaded guilty Thursday to similar charges.
Two other defendants also face sentencing on July 1: Vanessa Moya, 30, of San Diego, and Maria Guerrero, 39, of Chula Vista.
Hector Rodriguez admitted that he took bribes from Gerardo Rodriguez and Maria Guerrero from "around 2010" until he was arrested on July 13, 2012, the U.S. attorney said in the statement.
The bribes included "cash money, use of luxury vehicles, and use of an apartment," prosecutors said.
Hector Rodriguez told the co-defendants his lane assignment at the San Ysidro border crossing and they drove undocumented aliens into the United States.
On the day they were arrested, "Gerardo Rodriguez drove a vehicle containing eight illegal aliens and co-defendant Vanessa Moya drove a vehicle containing six illegal aliens through defendant Hector Rodriguez's inspection lane," prosecutors said.
Hector Rodriguez entered false information into the government database about who was driving and the number of occupants.
Hector Rodriguez agreed to forfeit "a 2009 Jaguar, 12 luxury watches (five Rolexes), jewelry, televisions, and computers that were obtained as a result of his criminal activity," prosecutors said.
"Codefendant Gerardo Rodriguez has agreed to forfeit a 2005 Mercedes, 2006 Harley Davidson, $60,000, televisions, and computers that were obtained as a result of his criminal activity."
There are 17 counts in the indictment, nine of them punishable by 5 years in prison and fines, eight of them by 15 years and fines.
http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/03/29/56174.htm
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Forget About the Cyberbunker Attack—Here’s How to Take an Entire Continent Offline
At its peak, Cyberbunker clogged up a mind-boggling 300 gigabits per second of the Internet in what’s being called the biggest cyber-attack in history. But what if you could switch off 1.28 terabits—four times as much bandwidth—with nothing more high-tech than an axe?
That’s what three men tried to do in an unsophisticated but effective form of sabotage in Egypt yesterday; their identities and motives are not yet known. Reuters reports the Egyptian coastguard intercepted a fishing boat off the coast of Alexandria and arrested three men trying to cut through the SEA-ME-WE 4 undersea cable. The cable is one of the main connections between Asia and Europe, running from France to Malaysia and linking Italy, north Africa, the middle east and south Asia. The men, whose pictures the navy uploaded on Facebook, are being interrogated by Egyptian authorities.
The Internet does not live in anything resembling a cloud, as Andrew Blum memorably put it in Tubes, his book about the net’s physical infrastructure. Instead it resides in hundreds of cables snaking underground and along the bottom of the sea, where it is susceptible to ship anchors, marine life, and sabotage.
http://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2013/03/forget-about-cyberbunker-attackheres-how-take-entire-continent-offline/62144/?oref=ng-channeltopstory
