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A Powerful Tool Once Only Accessible to Law Enforcement Now Available to You – Background Checks
The police are no longer the only people doing criminal background checks. Technology now allows anyone to access almost any piece of information that they need about someone.
The idea you can do a background check is no longer a secret. You can get the same information that any police officer can get. You can get any information on anyone that you want to know more about with a simple criminal background search.
Websites are everywhere that offer something new. It should not be shocking that website exist that allow you to do a background service. Unfortunately, it is getting harder and harder to trust people entirely by the impression that they give you.
Are Sobriety Checkpoints Legal
As many people know, the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States forbids the unreasonable search or seizure of U.S. citizens. Generally, there must be probable cause to arrest or search persons or their private property, which means that the officer must have a reasonable suspicion based on articulable facts that some wrongdoing has occurred. How, then, are law enforcement agents able, constitutionally, to stop motorists at sobriety checkpoints?
According to constitutional law, some stops are not considered seizures of a person. This is the case with a so called “stop and frisk” in which an officer detains a person for a very brief period of time and quickly checks their outer clothing for contraband. Sometimes, if a person is detained for less than 48 hours, it is not considered a seizure. However, this is not true for DUI roadblocks. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that stopping someone at such a roadblock does constitute a seizure of that person under the Fourth Amendment.
One “however” further and the language of the Constitution gets tangled up in the thicket of constitutional interpretation and case law. The Supreme Court could have claimed that these stops without probable cause are constitutional under the doctrine of exigent circumstances. The Court has repeatedly held that when an officer believes evidence is about to be destroyed, he can perform a search without a warrant. However, this doctrine seems only to apply to searches. Instead, it appears as though the Court used a balancing test, common in other areas of constitutional law, whereby the “minimal intrusion on individual liberties” was weighed against the need for and efficacy of roadblocks and found to be less important.
Background Checks on People – Use the Same Tools That Law Enforcement and Detectives Use
We live in a world where people are meeting other people online every day. Web users surf the net to find a new employee, to find a room mate or to find companion and love. Due to the increase in popularity in dating web sites and all the services offered in places like craigslist, now a lot of these same users are turning to the web to run background checks on people and make sure that they are not going out with a potential predator or sex offender or that the person that they are bringing in as a room mate or a new employee are not wanted felons.
To do these background searches you can either go to a local state repository of public information and records, you can hire a private detective or a cop to do it for you or you could simply find one of the multiple web directories that offer this information for a small fee.
