This one's going to ripple. I understand 60 Minutes might hit this hard. Good for John Aravosis, who does great hands-on blogging. He made Microsoft and Ford retreat on anti-gay manuvers and got increases in their committments to the gay community.

It's an extremely popular service. Mainly it is used for domestic affairs (no pun intended). A husband wants to see who his wife is talking to, etc. Sometimes the info can be tricky to obtain, but it can usually be accomplished.

Fitz, you must know a lot about this stuff. Do you think its OK? I can see how it could be a necessity to your job.

Necessary? Maybe not. But it is certainly profitable. I must admit that sometimes my self-awareness forces me to question the motives of some of my clients. But any objection is usually trumped by my self-interest.

I will say, though, that an unscrupulous person could certainly abuse these services. That is why I like to carefully examine my clients and their motives. I have, for instance, turned down work in the past because I didn't like the "feel" of a client.

But most of the time, it is simply a husband or wife not wanting to wait for the bill to come in the mail.

I have heard that it is illegal for a third party to obtain the financial records of someone. But not yet phone records. Funnily enough, land line phones are actually safer (as far as records go) than cell phones.

That's funny, we were told in law school that bank records are public records.

Ooooh. Now that is frightening. I decline accepting cases which require obtaining bank records. Not because of any prosecutions of others in the field, but they're just becoming too damn hard to get. Plus, it seems to me that getting banking info would be more of a risk.

Are you an independent? Or do you work for a bigger company.