Comments on: Citronix Tech Services and the Institute for Justice sue Texas

By: soegemaskineoptimering

soegemaskineoptimering — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 11:36:04 +0000

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By: Steve G

Steve G — Sat, 09 May 2009 12:19:59 +0000

I don’t like how these laws get so dangerously near passage but then again who has time to keep up with all the red tape these bureaucratic politicians produce. They’ll never know what running a business is like. They’ve never cared about profit or sustaining growth, their only creation is misery for us overburdened taxpayers.

By: Steve

Steve — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 04:51:32 +0000

Wow, this law is so broad that it would effect even journalists, air conditioner repairmen, search and rescue operators, etc, etc, etc. You can’t be paid to look into the identity, knowledge, or efficiency of a person? What? I hope the person who verifies your driver’s license at the PSB has a license to do that! As a PC repair tech, you wouldn’t even be able to do basic data recovery operations if the data is defined as “lost property”, it doesn’t say “lost physical property”.

Relevant section — license is needed for anyone who:

(1) engages in the business of obtaining or
furnishing, or accepts employment to obtain or furnish, information
related to:
(A) crime or wrongs done or threatened against a
state or the United States;
(B) the identity, habits, business, occupation,
knowledge, efficiency, loyalty, movement, location, affiliations,
associations, transactions, acts, reputation, or character of a
person;
(C) the location, disposition, or recovery of
lost or stolen property; or
(D) the cause or responsibility for a fire,
libel, loss, accident, damage, or injury to a person or to property;

By: Chuck

Chuck — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 15:39:55 +0000

Texas had better start building more prisons/jails, as all of us ‘Non Geeks” will be crashing our computers and need them fixed. I will take mine to the guy next door for repair (he is still in high school), hasn’t had time to get his PI certificate, so I guess we both will be going to jail.

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:40:55 +0000

By the way, I’d love to know how the lawsuit against the state of Texas is developing.

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:40:00 +0000

I’m a Computer Forensics engineer and I find this law utterly ridiculous. This law’s objective must be to attempt to provide customer security. But more often than not, people who request computer repair service willingly give up their sytems to be worked on knowing that personal information might flash across the screen during the repair process.

I’ve been in the IT field for over 10 years now and have been in the Computer Forensics arena for over half of that time. In my time in the CF field, I’ve seen IT professionals create ridiculous mistakes in their media analysis. Granted we all are prone to make mistakes once in a while, but the questions I have are 1) How error prone will a Private Investigator when computer knowledge is not a requirement to conduct an analysis on electronic media? and 2) Does this attempt at protecting personal information justify decreasing the quality of service a client expects from a computer forensics examiner?

Now I guess we all COULD just get a PI license, but after reviewing the requirements online for an independent consultant, I think getting my CISSP and MCSE certifications were much easier.

Now I will say that I would support a move to require a Computer Forensics PI license that has requirements that are much more realistic. This CF PI license could be used to acquire and analyze electronic media and could be obtained by an individual rather than having to work under a PI licensed company for three years. Unfortunately, I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

Then again maybe this is a way for the younger, more tech-savvy generation to push the old PI’s out of the business

In the end it appears as if the state of Texas has decided to generate more income for the state by requiring professionals to obtain a license that does nothing to promote a higher quality of service to the public.

By: John

John — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 22:10:13 +0000

With 3 stores and 19 years in business, this would cause a lot of our customers to be down for a vey long time and would put a lot of people out of work!! Are we trying to increase our unemployment rate in Texas?!?!? This is very, very wrong!! And I agree with a previous response that a PI, in order to work on a computer either needs to get a degree in computer science or work for a computer repair shop for 3 years.

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 01:09:43 +0000

I don’t know but this seems to violate the Texas Right To Work laws.

This is absurd.

By: Private Investigator License needed to repair computers in Texas | BSteng---- Tech and Computers Discussed Daily

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 23:19:33 +0000

[...] Citronix is filing the lawsuit Leave a Comment [...]

By: Guy Tanzer

Guy Tanzer — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:57:44 +0000

I propose a law for the Texas legislature to consider where anyone who wants to be a private investigator in Texas must have a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science from an accredited university. It seems only fair. And after all, one can’t have under-qualified PIs trying to do computer investigative work, now, can we?