New Legislation on Background Checks

In one of the hundreds of articles I get, this nugget caught my eye. It concerns a new resource for criminal background checks. I am very familiar with this tool from my law enforcment days. I thought it might be worth sharing.

"Background check legislation introduced in Congress
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New legislation could give installers, monitoring companies access to federal criminal database
BY JOEL GRIFFIN, ASSISTANT EDITOR
SecurityInfoWatch.com
Updated: 04-10-2009 1:55 pm

According to a report issued by the National Burglar and Fire Alarm Association on Wednesday, legislation recently introduced in congress could provide installation and monitoring companies with the resources to ensure the employees they hire aren’t a threat to the homes, businesses and families they’re suppose to help protect.

The bill, the "Electronic Life Safety and Security System Federal Background Check Act of 2009" (HR 1939), was introduced by Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo.) and would give these companies the ability to check a potential employee’s criminal history against the National Crime Information Center or NCIC, a federal criminal database.

“It’s a great piece of legislation that we’re proposing… and it allows us to be able to provide a tool for our members to be able to get background checks,” said NBFAA President Michael Miller. “One of the issues that we have is (just getting) a criminal background license that’s either state only, local only or federal only and we need all three basically, because when we get employees that come to us from other states, the FBI federal background check is the one that assures us that we’ve got somebody that’s not a criminal. So it would be a fantastic tool to have for our members.”

Similar access has already been granted to banks, credit unions and private security guard firms.
Miller said that he expects to learn more about the bill’s status later this month when he other members of the alarm industry visit Capitol Hill."