The Sound of Pursuit
This is the official podcast of Pursuit Magazine, an online community of private investigators, journalists, and truth-seekers of all stripes. In the podcast, we explore information sources, share tradecraft tips, and discuss ways to integrate new technology with old-school gumshoe know-how. We dig into myths about PI work and hear hard-won lessons from the field. And for the spy-curious outsider, we offer a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the lives of real spies and PIs. We CAN handle the truth.
The Sound of Pursuit
Legislation & the PI Industry: What Investigators Need to Know
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Some of the laws shaping how investigators work today were written decades before anyone had a smartphone. And right now, a new round of legislation is moving through state capitals and Congress that could change how PIs track people, pull records, and use the tools they depend on every day.
My guest Edward Ajaeb is president of the National Council of Investigation and Security Services (NCISS). He watches for new laws and regulations that are relevant to our profession. And often, he's been in the room when some of it was written, making sure the PI industry has a voice at the table.
If you've ever been caught off guard by a law that changed how you could do your job, don't miss this episode. With big thanks to our sponsor, TLOxp®.
Nighthawk Strategies: https://nighthawkstrategies.com/edward-ajaeb/
NCISS: https://www.nciss.org/
Edward Ajaeb's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edwardajaeb/
Host: Hal Humphreys
Guest: Edward Ajaeb
Sponsord by: TLOxp®
Music provided by Jason White, who composed our theme.
Special thanks to Kim Green, who produced this episode.
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Pursuit Magazine and PI Education are part of StoryboardEMP, a media and education company in Nashville, TN. Pursuit, a free online magazine for private investigators, explores all things investigative, from gumshoe techniques and surveillance tech to industry news and crime in media. PI Education, its sister brand, provides online continuing education for licensed PIs. Pursuit and PIed are owned and edited by husband-wife team Hal Humphreys, a PI, and Kim Green, a writer and radio producer.
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Some of the laws shaping how investigators work today were written decades before anyone had a smartphone. And right now, a new round of legislation is moving through state capitals and Congress that could change how we PIs track people, pull records, and use tools that we depend on every day. My guest has been watching all of it closely. More than that, he's been in the room when some of it was written, making sure the PI industry has a voice at the table. If you've ever been caught off guard by a law that changed how you could do your job, you'll want to stick around for this. We'll be back in a minute.
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SPEAKER_02Welcome back, everybody, listening to the Sound of Pursuit. I'm Hal Humphreys, your host, and my guest today is Ed Ajab. Ed is a licensed investigator, certified legal investigator, and founder and president of Nighthawk Strategies based in Washington, D.C. Nighthawk serves law firms, Fortune 500 companies, government agencies worldwide. And Ed is a guy who seems to be everywhere. He's a member of many investigative societies, a frequent conference speaker. You may have even seen him in Forbes or on NBC and CBS. But before starting his law firm, he worked at the U.S. Department of Justice investigating for antitrust litigation cases. And I'm guessing his time at DOJ helped prepare him for his current role as president of the National Council of Investigation and Security Services, advocating for the industry and watching out for legislation that affects investigators. That's what we're talking about today. Ed, good to have you on the show. Thank you for taking the time to be with us.
SPEAKER_01Thanks, Al, great to be here.
SPEAKER_02Tell us a little bit about how you got this business. What's your story?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so uh I actually had a very uh brief uh uh desk career or cubicle career. Um I was a paralegal for the DOJ in uh in DC for a couple of years, and then I worked for a uh nonprofit think tank in DC, doing um a lot of uh the type of research that you would do uh for a like a due diligence case, um looking at financial backgrounds and digging into people's backgrounds and things like that. Um and then about 10 years ago, the uh organization I worked for decided to dissolve the research team entirely, and that's when I decided to kind of hang uh my shingle and get my PI license and the rest is history from there. Okay, okay.
SPEAKER_02Well, before we get into what's new, let's review the three federal laws you think every investigator needs to know. Take us through them, starting with Graham Leach Blyley.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the Graham Leach Bliley Act or the GLBA uh is probably uh then an accurate acronym that many investigators see quite frequently. Uh this has to deal with financial privacy and non-public personal information. So for PIs, this comes up when doing asset investigations, looking at financial records, uh, and especially dictating the type of access that we have to our databases and the permissible uses under the GLBA. So uh the key issue for GLBA, and all of these uh laws that we're gonna talk about today are hundreds of hundreds of pages long, but there are very specific paragraphs, sometimes even just one sentence, that is really what uh makes or breaks uh the case for private investigators. But for the GLBA, um the issue is permissible purposes. So just because the information is there, just because it exists, doesn't always mean that we have uh a right to access it or right to query that information. So uh the GLBA uh sort of dictates the permissible purposes behind why and how we can access some of the information that we get through our databases.
SPEAKER_02Okay, and then um, you know, again, all of these are things that we investigators see on a regular basis as specifically as we're logging into our databases to do our searches, but um DPPA, Drivers Privacy and Protection Act.
SPEAKER_01Yep, uh similarly the DPPA um protects access to uh DMV records. So even though this is a uh a federal law, um it does um incorporate some privacy restrictions to uh what people or institutions or users can access DMV, uh state-based DMV data. So again, there are permissible purposes like litigation, insurance, um, certain business and government needs um that protects the uh the information that's available um with a DPPA specific purpose. So um when you are doing uh an investigation for uh in anticipation of litigation or for a civil proceeding, um, those are some of the criteria that the DPPA introduces that allow you access to those certain records. Some of this we kind of take for granted because when we have databases, the the uh aggregation databases that we have at our fingertips, uh, we are selecting these permissible purposes. On the back end, the database is determining what information can then be revealed and what information cannot. So there's a little bit more automation going on now than uh than there is, you know, looking at each piece of data in the manual way. But uh when a report is populated with certain data, it's made sure the databases make sure that you have selected a uh a permissible purpose for them to be able to retrieve and provide you with that with that data.
SPEAKER_02Okay, and then the last one, and again, these three are ones that we deal with on a regular basis. FCRA Fair Credit Reporting Act. What does that mean for us?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the Fair Credit Reporting Act is another huge law, and there are really just a couple of uh paragraphs uh in in this law that uh that really PIs need to pay attention to. Uh the most important thing is that FCRA governs consumer reports. So if you are uh doing if if anybody, if a financial institution or a background check agency is pulling some pulling or compiling some type of report for employment, housing credit, or some other eligibility decision that is protected by or defined by the Fair Credit Reporting Act, you have to be extra careful that you are um only looking at information that you're allowed to look at, that you're only reporting information that you're allowed to uh to use in that decision-making process. So um, you know, not all not all background checks are created equal. If it's a background check for the purpose of employment or extending credit or housing or something like that, there are very, very strict rules under the Fair Credit Reporting Act of the type of information that you can obtain and then provide to that end user. So what PIs need to know is um is uh making yourself a consumer reporting agency, a CRA under the FCRA is very, very uh uh critical. Either you want to do that or you don't want to do that, because if you're defining yourself as a consumer reporting agency, you have to follow the FCRA. If you are doing non-fCRA background checks, litigation and and so forth, um, then you're you you uh don't have to um compile the information the way the FCRA does this as if it's a plea pre-employment screening or a tenant screening application. So it's very important to understand those distinctions that the FCRA brings.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and at the end of the day, Ed, you know, most of us PIs aren't just out here running credit reports. Why do we care about these laws as private investigators?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and they may seem sort of like these really huge bills that that uh you know um may not make a huge difference, but really a lot of the access that we have as investigators is not because we have a license as an investigator, but because we have a permissible purpose to the data. So when I was a paralegal at the DOJ, I wasn't a licensed investigator. I was not a licensed attorney, but I still had access to LexusNexis and Westlaw and TLO because as a government agency or as a law firm or as a paralegal, we have a permissible purpose, several permissible purposes, uh, the most frequent, of course, being litigation, uh government investigations that allowed us to have access to that data. So uh the license doesn't automatically grant you, it's not some sort of trump card to be able to access the information. It's the laws that allow you to access the information because you have a permissible purpose under that law. So PI should really um uh pay attention and take them seriously because the risk really is uh uh not just liability for you and and your business, but it really could cause a ripple effect across the industry if uh there is uh legislation introduced that just takes away a lot of those, a lot of the access that we've been given.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and you know, at the end of the day, uh, you know, look, we talk amongst our investigator friends. Um I have heard investigators in the past say, I always pick the one that allows me the most access. And I'm thinking, Yeah, but do you really have the permissible purpose? Because if you don't, what are we doing if if we just click it every time without really thinking through, do I have a permissible purpose? What are we exposing ourselves to potentially?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we're exposing ourselves to uh liability personally. Um, you know, you could have your access taken away, we could have your uh license taken away, um, you could or or have you know your license sanctioned or something like that. Um, it also is uh we talk about personal liability too. So you if you have um uh you know knowingly obtained information by selecting a permissible purpose that didn't apply to you, then you access the information, you know, it's violating this federal law, federal regulations, then you there you provide that information to your client so they could potentially get in trouble. So it really impacts not just your uh you know, bottom line as an investigator and potentially some sanctions against your license, but also your relationship with your clients, the professional credibility. So um uh really it's important to make sure that you can back up everything with documentation. So if you have a case from an attorney and the attorney is requesting this type of investigation, um, you know, keep documentation of that so you can show uh this is what the case was about, and therefore that that that was my permissible purpose for accessing uh this information. Um so it so that just you know you're making sure that you're keeping your own logs and your own accountability for um for how you've accessed that information.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I think um from my perspective, you know, if I'm a private investigator and I'm working for an attorney, there's a very strong argument. I think a lot of people agree with it. Some have argued against it, but I'm acting as that attorney's agent in a lot of cases. And if I do something that could get my license in trouble, it very well might impact my client's license. That'd be a really bad situation to get yourself in as a private investigator.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Yeah, and especially because we have we never really know where the evidence is gonna lead, if it's gonna go to trial, is it going to come up in a deposition? So, really, something that you do today may seem insignificant, just a small part of the case, but then that information is or evidence is relied upon, and then the rest of the case over the next six months is built on that. And somebody goes, the opposing side really wants to dig and how you know, reverse engineer how that information was obtained. Uh, and then they find to them the the smoking gun of, oh, well, this this they shouldn't have been able to uh get this in the first place, you know, the the fruit of the poison tree.
SPEAKER_02I was gonna I was gonna suggest, I was gonna suggest we just do start off with a mixed metaphor and say the smoking fruit of the poisonous tree.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. It's yeah, that's exactly right. So you could be, it may seem like a small thing now, but then when cases are built on that, um, you know, you like you said, hell, it's really going to jeopardize the uh the client's uh uh professional standing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Okay, so those are kind of the basics that that we investigators deal with on a regular basis. Um let's get into what's coming up. Um, clean slate legislation keeps being tossed about out there. What is it and why does it matter for us investigators?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so clean slate laws are something that a lot of states are introducing or passing now. I think California has had one on the books for many years. New York has uh just uh one or two years ago just gone into effect, Michigan as well. And what these laws do is they automatically seal or expunge criminal records. So historically, people would have to apply for expungement of an arrest or a conviction or something like that. These clean slate laws, what they're doing is after a certain number of years, these uh convictions are automatically sealed. They're automatically expunged. So the intent is to help people move forward if they've made a mistake uh you know 10, 15, 20 years ago and it's still hanging over their head and it's still hanging on on their record. Uh, but it does create some some concern. Um the first is is uh that it's it's essentially erasing or you know, sealing what was and what still is a public record. So you have to be very careful when saying uh we did a background check and uh he or she has never had any arrests, or never been arrested, or never been convicted, uh, or has no arrests. You have to really kind of qualify it now and say, you know, according to the records available, such uh and so on, because there are circumstances where someone may have been arrested and convicted, and it was it fell into the time criteria of these clean slate laws where after a certain number of years it was automatically sealed. So um the concern for PIs there is um uh you know, the access to public records, courthouse records. Uh there are still some caveats that we do need to keep in mind based on legislation that uh that automatically seals or expunges uh convictions.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I, you know, look, when I'm reporting information to my clients, I try to avoid absolutes at all costs. I'm I'm I just don't like to say this is everything there is, it's everything I could find. Um, I think that's kind of important to think about. The other thing along these lines, so you got data, you got information that may be expunged, maybe a criminal record or something like that. But then there's the the question of are the aggregators then required to strip that information out of their database? Because that's kind of equivalent to putting toothback toothpaste back into a tube. Once that record is out there in the aggregated system, it's awful hard to clean it out.
SPEAKER_01That's true. And and uh what a lot of these uh laws are doing is they are requiring a um a conviction to be sealed, but that you know, you still have other ways to determine what happened. So um I'll like I'll give you a good example. Let's say there is a uh case where somebody uh uh committed a crime and and was convicted of it and and uh sentenced and everything. Even though that court case is sealed, you still have records from the county sheriff, you have uh police reports, you have records from the district attorney or the public defender, you have records from, you know, perhaps the jail or detention facility where that person was, and then you have news reports, you have social media. So even though that court case itself has had now a padlock put on it, there are still uh artifacts and remnants of information out there just because that that that person passed through multiple arms of the of the system of government. So with public record requests and things like that, there are chances that you know not every component of that conviction is now going to be deleted. And that's you know, that's sort of a double-edged sword. The intent of these laws is to give people a second chance. And so when you're doing a background check, these things will not come up to prevent somebody from you know being able to get a job. But you know, you do have other resources that will allow you to see um maybe parts of the story that aren't there without the full court case.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so for instance, if someone is arrested, they may have an inmate record at the county lockup, right? If someone is convicted, and in Tennessee, they're sent to the Tennessee Department of Corrections facility, um they serve their sentence, they pay their debt to society, a certain amount of time passes, that conviction is expunged. Um there's probably still a record of them being an inmate in the Tennessee Department of Corrections. And if that's the case, you can kind of safely assume there was a correct uh um a conviction somewhere in the past. You may not know what it is, but yeah, there are my grandfather would have said there's more than one way to skin a cat.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Yeah, there are many uh many different ways to to sort of uh backtrack and find out what happened, um, even if those court cases themselves are are sealed.
SPEAKER_02Sure. Now this this kind of leads into another question that that's on. So for the folks that listen, um our producer Kim Green puts together a list of potential questions that and she sends it to to guest Ed uh and host Hal to kind of keep us on track. But I'm gonna skip ahead, um, Edward, so you know where I'm going with this. So this is a really good spot to talk about um what people are calling deletion legislation or delete legislation. The idea that people can demand their data be removed. How likely is that number one? And number two, what does it mean for us as investigators?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so this uh delete legislation, um, and the way it's different from clean slate is that clean slate is automatically expunging or sealing court records. Delete legislation uh is uh legislation that allows individuals, it doesn't have it really have anything to do with crime necessarily, but you as a consumer, as a person, could uh uh request that data brokers delete any information they have on you. And there are certain you know exemptions, they don't they don't delete what's public record data and things like that. But we're talking about credit header data, your phone numbers, email addresses, maybe your address history. And uh what these laws allow consumers to do is just go onto a website that either the state or the federal government will run and uh just type in their information, fill out a form and saying, yep, I'm this is automatically being sent to all the data brokers. Data brokers have a certain number of days to comply, delete your information, whatever they have on you, and then confirm to you uh in writing that they've done that. So uh this is definitely concerning because um although it's entirely separate from clean slate legislation, it has the same effect. You basically are going to see uh a black hole when you're looing a uh database query on a person, you're going to be missing addresses, potentially phone numbers. Um you're going to, it's really going to strip away a lot of the information that is uh that's made accessible there. So that's something to definitely keep an eye on. Some states have have already started experimenting with this. Um, and if it goes into a federal law, we could be in uh in big trouble. Uh because uh because it is it's not just criminal records that any consumer can can uh take advantage of by submitting a request. And then uh we're um we'll be really um uh stripping away a lot of that uh data that we have access to.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and uh here's the thing I mean, yes, that would be absolutely devastating. To us as private investigators. Because we'd have to just go back and do the work the old school way by pounding the pavement and going to public record sources, you know, finding what we can that way. But I agree. I think it would be very difficult for us to go back. And if we didn't have our aggregating databases, it's awful hard to even start the process. This is totally doable, totally possible, but it certainly makes our time more expedient. And here's the thing I think you'll agree with this. When we're working on cases, the resources we're dealing with are primarily primarily time and money. And loss of the database access for us means more time and therefore more money. Um, so you know, those are things to think about. Now, it's interesting that you talk about these requests are going straight to the data brokers. There is other data broker regulation spreading across the states pretty quickly. How should we as private investigators be thinking about that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, this is uh this is really just one of the many things that are being targeted toward uh data brokers. Uh data, uh the phrase data broker is uh a really dirty word when it comes to state and federal uh legislatures. Um, not many consumers, not much of the general public has a very favorable, favorable opinion when they hear the term data broker. Um so it is definitely capturing the attention of state and federal lawmakers. And they are defining data brokers are uh essentially um companies that either collect, organize, or sell uh information uh for commercial purposes. And there are uh thousands of data brokers in many of the companies we've never even heard of. So when you log into a data, a PI database, uh yeah, yes, they are a data broker, but they're actually sort of at the end of the chain. They have purchased the data and licensed the data from thousands and thousands of different sources and these companies that take just one little piece of data here, one little piece of data here, and then sell it to all of the aggregators. So um it's it's really a huge network of uh of data uh companies that are really putting everything together when you see it come on your screen. So it's it's uh something that could really change the industry uh as a whole if we see regul uh regulations like delete legislation um or other type of regulations about what data brokers can collect, what can they sell, how long do they have to keep it, uh, how long until they have to delete it or refresh it. Um so those are the things that could really impact and make it quite shaky when using uh data aggregators.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I think uh in the PI community, you and I have been involved in conversations with other private investigators about this issue. Like some data brokers live in this kind of um gray area, sometimes not even gray. They're just selling stuff they're not allowed to sell, but they're somehow getting away with it out of Florida for some reason. Um but there, you know, data brokers, not all data brokers are created equally. There are some that are legitimate gathering good information, there are others that are selling stuff that they might not have to be selling. So I think it's I think it's important for our listeners, us as private investigators, to pay attention to this legislation and and you know, just just so the listeners understand Ed is out there kind of keeping on top of these issues. And when he presents to um PI organizations, um, other organizations around people that do this kind of research, he's very knowledgeable in what's going on out there in the world of legislation. So um I got a call from a client last week, Ed, asking me, Hey, I got a cousin. She's she's back on the sauce or she's back on the crystallized methamphetamine, whatever her drug of choice is. We think she's leaving her job at noon and going to turn tricks on a certain street in Nashville that everybody knows is a place where people turn tricks. Um she's driving her father-in-law's car. Can we put a GPS tracker on that? And I was like, I don't know. Um, I would suggest you talk to your attorney. Uh, I think there might be an argument that the car is owned by her father-in-law. It belongs to him. He should be able to track his car. But these laws vary by state. Um, they seem to be created sometimes on a whim. Um, maybe like in Tennessee, there was a legislator who found a GPS tracker on his car, put there by um an angry spouse because he was apparently, she thought, catting around with other women. And he got very upset and created a law that said you can't do that. So talk to us about GPS tracking laws around the country and and how we need to pay about pay attention about those.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and in fact, a lot of state GPS laws came into effect that way. Is it just they put a tracker on the wrong guy or the wrong gal. And now, you know, the good example is the the mayor of Reno, Nevada. I think a year or two ago it's now uh, you know, has become quite a spectacle of um uh in the news of uh uh you know somebody who has influence just happened to get caught, and the the uh the linchpin of that investigation happened to be some tracking device or GPS tracking. So we've had two things sort of brewing over the last few years. If we we've had instances where um you know a somebody in politics or business or somebody big was tracked with a GPS device, and along this and a parallel to that, as we've now have uh consumer-friendly tracking devices like like the AirTags and and so forth. So with all these things happening and all of these, all of this technology becoming more accessible to the average person, um, it's become a big point for legislators to talk about. So uh, like you said, Hel, every state is sort of enacting their own rules and parameters around GPS tracking. Um, you know, it's so it's important to uh look at what is uh lawful in your state. Uh in some states it's uh uh all but prohibited. I mean, it the some of the restrictions are are quite uh serious, and in some states it's a little bit more lax, but definitely there's uh there's considerations to be made about who owns a vehicle, who's who has the title and registration to the vehicle. It could be title to somebody different than it's registered to. It could be somebody different who's operating it that who actually owns the title to the car. So those are sort of the fine lines that you uh need to look at with your own state laws, is as part of what does it say about uh the ownership, who can give that consent to have the GPS tracking um placed on uh the vehicle. So it's not really just a matter of the technical possibility, like, yeah, I can slap a tracker on this vehicle. It's more of can you do it legally? Can you do it within the parameters of what the law says?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and you know, look, I've I've said this a thousand times. I think GPS trackers are pretty neat, but if we're talking about surveillance work from private investigators, I think having boots on the ground and a surveillance operative following the person is the absolute gold standard because at that point I can testify I was at this location, I saw this person going to this address and whatever. If I'm just tracking a GPS, all I can say is the GPS tracker was at this location at this time. I mean, I don't even know if the car was there. I got I found it I found a GPS tracker on a client's vehicle several years ago, and we took it off the vehicle, plugged it into a battery power supply, gave it to a friend of mine who is a pilot, and just let him fly it around the country a couple of times. And you can imagine whoever's on the other side watching this thing going, oh my gosh. So I think I think GAPS is a really neat tool, but as a private investigator, my my suggestion is always if if be very careful about the laws in your state, follow those laws, think them through, talk to an attorney. Um, number one, and number two, the best work is done by a human being following people and seeing what they're doing. Um now, along these lines, Ed, you know, every time I go into a parking um lot here in Nashville, I scan the code, type in my license plate and all that business. If I happen to forget to scan the code and type it in and I go over the 30-minute limit, I get an immediate bill from parking company A with my license plate photo attached to the bill saying you were at this location at this time. License plate readers are everywhere now. Um they've got a lot of traction and surveillance work. I know some investigators that use um LPR databases for creating geofences around an area, that kind of business. Are those things at risk right now for us?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, potentially. Uh, this is another thing that has really perked the interest uh of a lot of legislators, just like GPS tracking has, as we have had uh as new technology is introduced, and as this technology um, you know, surprises the general public, it always it's always going to make its way to the desk of legislators. So um there is um maybe to a less severe extent for now, but we'll what uh it is something that is coming up and it is something that it's raising some concern because uh licensed plate reader technology, the especially the the LPR uh and vehicle sightings uh databases that we have access to, is populated by private companies who are collecting this information. So there is uh you know concern among the public and among consumers that uh this is also information that could be abused. Uh, it's information that uh should be regulated and so forth. So um I think for investigators, there's uh a couple of concerns. Really, the first is is this something we can entirely lose access to? Is this something that's just going to be banned? And if not, uh the other concern is uh there could be regulations on uh permissible purposes for this data and um you know how long the data can be retained, it might have to be deleted after a certain number of months or years or something like that. So just like uh some of this other legislation we were talking about, this also raises some questions about access and the expiration date sort of of this data. Is it gonna is that LPR data gonna last forever or is it going to be automatically deleted or something after a certain amount of time and and therefore it could affect uh our investigations?
SPEAKER_02Yep, yep. Okay. Um I love getting these updates, it's really useful. Um, and I think our listeners are gonna enjoy this as well. Now, this doesn't seem like a sexy topic, it's not GPS tracking or license plate readers or any of that stuff, but it does very much impact us, a lot of us private investigators, because a lot of us are small companies. We're maybe a solo operator doing our business, um, and maybe we work for other investigators um on a contract basis. The question of business law, independent contractor, not independent contractor, this could be an issue for a lot of us out in the PR world. Talk about that.
SPEAKER_01Yes, a lot of um uh, especially in our industry, as um solo or small firms, we uh employ the help of other investigators to whether they're in a different geographic region or they have a different specialty than us. Um so uh not many professions have a structure where it seems like two competitors are are working together on one project, but that is the case in our industry. So we are trying to educate legislators um about that. And uh with independent contractors, I know it sort of seems like the definition hasn't really changed in decades, but it is starting to shift in some states. And just uh a couple years ago in 2024, the US Department of Labor uh issued a proposed rule on reclassifying and redefining what's an independent contractor and what's an employee. Um, and that is kind of you know making, I believe, still making its way through the courts, and it's gonna be a legal battle. But um uh the important thing for private investigators to know is that a lot of states and even the federal government are looking at redefining what an independent contractor is, since we now have this remote virtual workforce with tens of millions of people basically working from home, working for themselves. What is a freelancer versus business owner? Um, so when we use uh as investigators, when we use another investigator as an independent contractor or as a subcontractor, um, we just have to make sure we carefully follow the current Department of Labor regulations about what that means is are they being treated like an employee? Are they being provided the equipment? Are they given a time schedule and things like that? Um, or are do they have more of that autonomy that makes them an independent contractor? So um just make sure you again make uh it's it's hard to speak for all 50 states at once, so just make sure that you're following the guidance of uh your state's Department of Labor or uh Department of Employment to um to make sure that you're following those rules carefully.
SPEAKER_02Um, Ed, you're not just paying attention to this stuff. You're out there trying to influence and make changes. Talk to me about how that works.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so um I am uh currently the chair of the board of uh NCISS, the National Council of Investigation Security Services. Uh, this organization monitors federal legislation uh and regulations and tries to step in when we see something of concern. And also year-round, we also just try to have meetings with legislators uh and different uh congressional committees to make sure that they're aware that we exist as a profession and also that we can be a resource if they are drafting any laws about this and they're looking for expertise. So um it's important that we just don't uh try to play whack-a-mole and try to get rid of the bad bills when they come up, but also have those relationships so that we uh we have that voice going on year-round and we can be a resource for legislators when they are drafting these bills. So it really is just about informing the legislators on what we do as a profession and how we make a difference in society.
SPEAKER_02And you know, here's the thing that sounds that sounds like a really good idea, but like I'm just a private investigator out here doing my work. How do I even get in front of lawmakers? It sounds like a pretty big ask. Um, where do you even start with that? If I'm just a private investigator and I want to, I want to maybe help out, have my voice heard, be an expert, what does it look like?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, you can always start uh local. So, you know, um, even though NCISS works on a federal level, it's just as important for uh investigators to be involved in their state associations and on a local level. A lot of the laws that we see in Congress that on a federal level that are affecting our industry start when two or three or ten states have an idea for this law and pass the law, and then before you know it, it's it's makes its way up to the federal level. So starting local is actually uh critically important. Um, it's always a huge uh uh you know battle and everything is on the floor of Congress. So if we can make sure that our voices are heard in state legislators, talking to your state representative, it's a if it's a state senator or a state assembly person, uh state state legislatures are very important to start there. And a lot of times they um are really uh very they have an ear to the ground of what local uh people and local businesses are dealing with. So if you start there and you can get involved on on a state level, that's a great place to start. Um, and then of course, always on a federal level, all help is is is welcome too. But um there's always that state, state and local front, too, that I think uh deserves it, deserves attention.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think um what does it say? All politics is local.
SPEAKER_01That's right.
SPEAKER_02All right, so when a bill pops its head up that could hurt private investigators, what's the play? How do you translate our work to staffers in terms they can understand? And what does a curve carve out for our industry um look like or an exemption look like?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so there have been um many bills before that uh uh that uh investigators were successful at getting exemptions for. And uh the key is to find some common ground and some compromise. So understanding what the what what's the intent of this law? What are the uh lawmakers really trying to do? Because sometimes the way laws are written, it's kind of unintentional. That maybe with the GPS, it's it is more intentional. They the law basically says you can't be private investor, you can't have GPS trackers. But with some other laws, it it's a really sometimes it can be an over, I don't want to say oversight, but sometimes it could be unintentionally harming our profession. So the first step is to really understand what the law says, educating legislators on what we do and why it matters, and working with them to find a way where A, they can accomplish what they want with this law, and B, they can still preserve the access that we need to our job. So everybody's happy. Um, sometimes it's not always that simple, but a good um uh you know, it uh a good example would be the permissible purposes that we talked about earlier. Those are that that's what that's an example of a carve out or an exemption. It's like this data is restricted, this data is protected, unless it is there's one of these purposes that apply.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And so those sorts of things can really help us. Uh it's a win-win situation when the lawmakers get to uh pass a law that really means something to them and they really are trying to have an effect, but also they're preserving uh access that we need to uh play an the important role that we do in the justice system.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So, Ed, I've got a question for you. This is, you know, we're talking about federal laws, we're talking about state laws. There are 50 of those to deal with, not to mention territories and other things. Um how do you keep up with it? How do you how do you keep up with all of it? And kind of you have a system in place to see what's going on.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we um uh it it we're we're lucky to have sort of this uh small world profession, I think, because everyone across the country, you know, for the most part, has good relation relationships with state associations, with our uh with NCISS, um, other national associations like NALI. So we have sort of a close-knit community, and that means that uh we're able to hear about things and really jump on them quickly uh because there isn't so much noise uh around it. And and uh when we uh hear about something in one of the states from one of our state association partners, uh we as a national association try to help them and vice versa. So um there's like you said, 50 states. You have the federal government and you have uh um federal regulatory bodies, state regulatory bodies, state licensing agencies. So uh really it's kind of a hand-in-hand cooperation between the state associations and the national associations, making sure that uh we're keeping an ear to the ground when we hear of something, how could we help? And then states communicating with each other. Uh one state has a GPS bill um on the floor of their legislature, they can talk to a state that just dealt with that issue a year or two ago and see what strategies work for them and how that helps. So it's important to be a to be a team nationwide.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, no doubt. Let me ask you this, Ed. If you could change one thing about how PI licensing works or regulation works in this country, what would it be?
SPEAKER_01Um I would probably I would like to see um uh probably more consistency across states or licensing licensing standards being uh uh standardized in some way. I know there has been talk. About possibly having a national licensing. Not many professions have national licensing unless you, you know, you have like medical providers have a DEA license, or, you know, if you're a stock broker, you have a FINRA profile, things like that. But I'd like to see something that really protects us as a profession in a consistent way, because a lot of not all 50 states, even though the vast majority of them do, but not all 50 states have licensing. And then in uh every state is different based on the licensing requirements that they have. So I'd like to see something that's really strong, brings together the profession in a really strong and robust way, where um uh you know it doesn't seem like you have 50 different categories of private investigators, that it really seems like one unified profession, one step one set of standards. Um, but that that would be uh that would be something I think would um would take a while to accomplish, but I think something that uh it if I could change something about the way licensing currently works.
SPEAKER_02Have a uniform standard for professional investigators. I like it. I like it. Last question for the folks listening to this episode today, what can they do today to get more involved and become advocates themselves, even in small ways?
SPEAKER_01Um well, what I recommend is definitely start by um joining your state association, joining NCISS and NALI and other national associations. Um, you know, that way you can at least get involved and start learning about um how legislation works. It's also just kind of as, you know, I wouldn't even say as a side note, as a another huge benefit, is that you get to learn about other things in the profession, um professional standards, training, ongoing education. So not just legislation, but as a way to network professionally and read as much as you can, educate yourself as much as you can about the profession, about new technologies, about new laws, new techniques, because um, you know, we won't even get started about AI, but that that's going to probably be another thing that ends up in legislative uh on the legis legislators' desks pretty soon. But when it comes to just getting involved and, you know, where do you start to get more involved is uh is to really start with the associations and soak up as much knowledge as you can to educate yourself uh about legislation, but also just generally how the profession works.
SPEAKER_02Very good. Um Ed AJab, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us today. Um I personally appreciate your time and your expertise and the work you do on behalf of all of us as investigators. If folks want to find you or follow um what NCISS is doing on the policy side, where can they find that information?
SPEAKER_01Uh yeah, if they want to learn more about NCISS, uh they can visit nciss.org. And uh I personally am on uh on uh LinkedIn and uh I'm pretty active on LinkedIn, so anyone can uh can reach out to me there.
SPEAKER_02Very good. Uh Ed Ajab, thank you again for being here. Um and for the folks listening, I just want to say thank you for tuning in. I've really enjoyed this chat with Ed today. It's always nice to know that someone is out there paying attention to the things that impact us as investigators. Um we have nothing else, so that is uh your sound of pursuit this week. I'm Hal Humphreys. We'll see you next time.
SPEAKER_00You've been listening to the Sound of Pursuit, a podcast by Pursuit Magazine and PI Education.