Crocodyl is a collaboration between nonprofit organizations such as Center for Corporate Policy, CorpWatch, Corporate Research Project, other contributing organizations and individual contributors from around the world.
For small activist community groups campaigning against Bechtel in Nevada or Barrick Gold in Papua New Guinea, attempting to track and hold global multinationals accountable for environmental or human rights abuse in their communities is a formidable endeavor. Crocodyl can help them challenge the public relations machines of big business by providing an easy-to-access snapshot of information about these companies, including an inventory of their misdeeds. Crocodyl also increases traffic flow in the reverse direction, drawing attention to information gathered by small watchdog groups working on the front lines of corporate accountability. In addition, Crocodyl is intended to be useful to researchers, journalists, concerned investors, consumers and the public at large.
Using network tools such as the Wiki, Crocodyl.org enables disparate groups and individuals to pool our knowledge about specific corporations in order to reduce the high cost of corporate research and ensure maximum efficiency in holding corporations accountable. Now professional researchers in Mumbai, India can team up with a citizen journalist in the Netherlands to track international companies not easily held accountable in one country.
Our information is divided by Issue and Industry and tracks the impact of corporations on public policy, health, sustainability, human rights, social justice, labor, and issues relating to corporate responsibility. We use our contributors' knowledge and experience of these industries and issues to inform the global conversation in other online communities of knowledge, such as Wikipedia, SourceWatch, OpenCongress.org and WiserEarth.
Links: http://www.crocodyl.org/
http://www.crocodyl.org/spiesforhire
Friday, December 25, 2009
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
The Innocence Project has published 27 case notes concerning wrongfully convicted people across the U. S.
The Innocence project has printed 27 cases where failed forensic science and other glaring problems have exonerated these individuals. How many wrongfully convicted people are still in prisons across the U. S.?
Link: http://www.innocenceproject.org/docs/Innocence_Network_Exonerations_2009.pdf
Link: http://www.innocenceproject.org/docs/Innocence_Network_Exonerations_2009.pdf
Friday, December 18, 2009
Free private investigator monthly podcasts.
This is a great resource for private investigators...
Link: http://www.americanprivateinvestigator.com/private-investigator-podcasts-videocasts/
Link: http://www.americanprivateinvestigator.com/private-investigator-podcasts-videocasts/
Major airline companies flying different planes across the country, what are the safety implications?
So you've booked a flight home for the holidays. The flight number on your receipt shows you're flying on one of the nation's major airlines. You check in at its terminal. You proceed to one of its gates. And when you board, the aircraft is painted with the colors and logo of the major carrier.
But if you read the fine print when you book -- or check the asterisk on your e-mailed receipt -- you could well find you're flying on a plane owned and operated by somebody else. Often, it's an obscure regional airline.
This system is known as code-sharing. Major airlines insist it presents travelers with a "seamless" experience. It also presents a truth-in-advertising problem. Imagine, for instance, how you'd feel if you bought a ticket to a Philadelphia Phillies game and, when you got to the ballpark, the Phillies' Triple A farm team, the Lehigh Valley IronPigs, took the field instead.
Link:
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/12/debate-on-air-travel-our-view-when-airlines-share-codes-truthinlabeling-suffers.html?loc=interstitialskip
But if you read the fine print when you book -- or check the asterisk on your e-mailed receipt -- you could well find you're flying on a plane owned and operated by somebody else. Often, it's an obscure regional airline.
This system is known as code-sharing. Major airlines insist it presents travelers with a "seamless" experience. It also presents a truth-in-advertising problem. Imagine, for instance, how you'd feel if you bought a ticket to a Philadelphia Phillies game and, when you got to the ballpark, the Phillies' Triple A farm team, the Lehigh Valley IronPigs, took the field instead.
Link:
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/12/debate-on-air-travel-our-view-when-airlines-share-codes-truthinlabeling-suffers.html?loc=interstitialskip
The New York State Police crime lab comes under scrutiny, are there more across the country?
The New York State Police’s supervision of a major crime laboratory was so poor that it overlooked evidence of pervasively shoddy forensics work, allowing an analyst to go undetected for 15 years as he falsified test results and compromised nearly one-third of his cases, an investigation by the state’s inspector general has found.
The analyst’s training was so substandard that at one point last year, investigators discovered he could not properly operate a microscope essential to performing his job, the report released on Thursday said.
And when the State Police became aware of the analyst’s misconduct, an internal review by superiors in the Albany lab deliberately omitted information implicating other analysts and suggesting systemic problems with the way evidence was handled, the report said. Instead, the review focused blame mostly on the analyst, Garry Veeder, who committed suicide in May 2008 during the internal inquiry.
“Cutting corners in a crime lab is serious and intolerable,” said the state’s inspector general, Joseph Fisch. “Forensic laboratories must adhere to the highest standards of competence, independence and integrity. Anything less undermines public confidence in our criminal justice system.”
“It is a wake-up call to the forensic community,” said Barry Scheck, director of the Innocence Project and a member of the New York State Commission on Forensic Science, which monitors all the state’s crime labs. “What’s alarming about this report and others that we’ve seen like it is it’s not so much the bad actors, it’s the fact that the system didn’t detect them earlier.”
Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/nyregion/18statepolice.html?_r=3&hp
The analyst’s training was so substandard that at one point last year, investigators discovered he could not properly operate a microscope essential to performing his job, the report released on Thursday said.
And when the State Police became aware of the analyst’s misconduct, an internal review by superiors in the Albany lab deliberately omitted information implicating other analysts and suggesting systemic problems with the way evidence was handled, the report said. Instead, the review focused blame mostly on the analyst, Garry Veeder, who committed suicide in May 2008 during the internal inquiry.
“Cutting corners in a crime lab is serious and intolerable,” said the state’s inspector general, Joseph Fisch. “Forensic laboratories must adhere to the highest standards of competence, independence and integrity. Anything less undermines public confidence in our criminal justice system.”
“It is a wake-up call to the forensic community,” said Barry Scheck, director of the Innocence Project and a member of the New York State Commission on Forensic Science, which monitors all the state’s crime labs. “What’s alarming about this report and others that we’ve seen like it is it’s not so much the bad actors, it’s the fact that the system didn’t detect them earlier.”
Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/nyregion/18statepolice.html?_r=3&hp
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Three dangers of posting information on social media websites.
Negative comments about your company could cost you a job.
Debt collectors use social media to glean information about debtors.
Scam artists may use personal information to set up schemes.
Andy Beal, CEO of the social media monitoring platform Trackur.com, says jobseekers should assume potential employers will do a Google search of candidates' names.
Social media profiles typically appear near the top of the search page.
Social media has become a key tool for collection agencies trying to track down debtors, says Michelle Dunn, CEO of the American Credit and Collections Association and author of "Do's and Don'ts of Online Collections Techniques."
Social media sites ask for, and often get, a large amount of personal information from users. Unfortunately, identity thieves may use that information to perpetuate scams, especially if you use personal information when creating security passwords, McCarthy says.
Link:
http://www.bankrate.com/finance/personal-finance/3-financial-dangers-of-social-media-1.aspx
Debt collectors use social media to glean information about debtors.
Scam artists may use personal information to set up schemes.
Andy Beal, CEO of the social media monitoring platform Trackur.com, says jobseekers should assume potential employers will do a Google search of candidates' names.
Social media profiles typically appear near the top of the search page.
Social media has become a key tool for collection agencies trying to track down debtors, says Michelle Dunn, CEO of the American Credit and Collections Association and author of "Do's and Don'ts of Online Collections Techniques."
Social media sites ask for, and often get, a large amount of personal information from users. Unfortunately, identity thieves may use that information to perpetuate scams, especially if you use personal information when creating security passwords, McCarthy says.
Link:
http://www.bankrate.com/finance/personal-finance/3-financial-dangers-of-social-media-1.aspx
Is the air toxic near hundreds of schools across the nation?
WASHINGTON — Government regulators have found high levels of manganese, a dangerous metal that can affect the brain, in the air outside a school in eastern Ohio.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials cautioned Monday that the results outside LaCroft Elementary in East Liverpool, Ohio, were still preliminary. Even so, the samples — taken this summer and fall — averaged well above the level that the government considers safe for long-term exposure.
The monitoring is part of a $2.25 million EPA effort to examine the air outside 63 schools in 22 states. The program was launched in response to a USA TODAY investigation that identified hundreds of schools across the nation where the air outside appeared to be rife with toxic industrial chemicals.
Links: http://content.usatoday.com/news/nation/environment/smokestack/index
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/environment/2009-12-15-epa-toxic-schools_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials cautioned Monday that the results outside LaCroft Elementary in East Liverpool, Ohio, were still preliminary. Even so, the samples — taken this summer and fall — averaged well above the level that the government considers safe for long-term exposure.
The monitoring is part of a $2.25 million EPA effort to examine the air outside 63 schools in 22 states. The program was launched in response to a USA TODAY investigation that identified hundreds of schools across the nation where the air outside appeared to be rife with toxic industrial chemicals.
Links: http://content.usatoday.com/news/nation/environment/smokestack/index
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/environment/2009-12-15-epa-toxic-schools_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip
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