I have friends active and retired in the FBI, DEA, ICE, Massachusetts and Rhode Island state police as well as many others on city and town police forces and I can tell you that the background check on these law enforcement agents and officers is no more stringent than the ones the Massachusetts State Police conduct on private detective candidates. I can recall sitting in the Middleborough barracks having my past history read to me. These guys even knew about a videotape I lost from a rental store when I was 19! the jerk who owned the store accused me of concealing stolen property! Even though it was dismissed, and the Pink Panther movie lost but reimbursed to the litigious ass who took me to court, the statie who did my background found it. Impressive. The point to all this, is what isn't impressive; the Massachusetts Private Detective Lobby. With data banks so traceable and the character checks on PIs so thorough, how is it we are excluded from the Department of Motor Vehicle records to run license plates while on surveillance and conducting other investigations we are legally licensed to perform? We basically are left to use a private database at a cost per use charge. Sounds like a scandal to me...Somewhere in this is likely to be a former RMV bigwig who is now in the private business sector charging us PIs for the data. Leave it up to me the suspicious type. I know there are slappers out there who run plates to find 'babes' (unstable stalkers basically) in both the private and public fields but there are penalties that can be on the books to outweigh the temptations for PIs. They made the adjustment for cops and they can and should for private investigators as well. Each and every plate I run is documented with a record for authorities to see. Let's find a way to correct this.