Retrieved from the archive of elitewatch.netfirms.com November 2003
Researching on the Internet
(this is a tentative start at compiling the key sites for people wishing to do research on the internet. If you know one that should be included, please e-mail me at johnehorne@hotmail.com)
Often referred to as “open secrets” there is a wealth of information out there which corporations and Governments don’t make as public as they probably should. Thankfully, a great many sites are becoming increasingly devoted to making this material easily accessible.
(note: by law all US Government sites (ie www.doj.gov) are required to have a FOIA section – often this will include an ‘electronic reading room’ where many popular documents can be found – this site gives you a link to many of these: http://www.usdoj.gov/04foia/04_2.html)
The National Security Archive
Not as scary as it sounds! Actually an amazing public organisation with a wealth of documents. Also contains instructions on how to conduct your own FOIA request (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/foia/howtofoia.html)
A wealth of news and publicly available material – this site has something about everything.
It also operates as a pseudo news service, having several top stories every day.
http://www.fas.org/irp/hotdocs.htm
Federation of American Scientists (and FAS “Hot Docs”)
Another incredible resource with a political/intelligence/military bent.
Search Systems – “Largest Public Records Database Collection”
An amazing database of FOIA website & public records – from State prison databases to military records. If you are looking for something very specific this is a good place to start. Focus mainly on US & Canada, but other countries also covered
The Smoking Gun
From the ridiculous (find out what demands rock stars have for their dressing rooms) to the incredible (read Tim McVeigh’s scrawls whilst in prison)
http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/docnews.html
Documents in the News
Combines FOIA with news making it a very accessible directory. Doesn’t host many documents itself, but will point you to exactly the right web sites to look at.
http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/index.html
US Government Printing Office
Find any law, bill, congressional record, etc. Fantastically useful.
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/law/GLINv1/GLIN.html
The Global Legal Information Network
Search for any law from almost any country. (Helps if you know exactly what you’re searching for)
http://www.corporateinformation.com/
Corporate Information
Research a corporation by name, group, etc.
Look up Boards of Directors
Flash-enabled mapping of interlocking directorates of major corporations
http://www.reportgallery.com/content/main_aak.htm
Report Gallery
Archive of corporate annual reports
Who Owns What?
Columbia Journalism Review's Web guide to what the major media companies own.
Free Edgar Search
Search and retrieve any company’s reports that they are legally obliged to produce.
Hoovers corporate info
A good starting point for getting basic info, however nothing beats the actual corporate site itself.
http://www.mediatransparency.org
Media Transparency
One of the best stops bar none. Although it hasn’t yet caught up with the 2001 financial year, the amount of information on this site is staggering.
http://www.guidestar.org/index.jsp
Guide Star
A huge database of non-profit organisations.
PR Watch
Open Secrets
Look up who (companies and individuals) donated what to whom (and vice versa). Also download any congressman’s financial statements for any year they were in office.
http://www.vote-smart.org/index.phtml
Vote Smart
Search for any member of congress and get a biography, a voting record and many, many other key facts.
http://www.politicalgraveyard.com/
The Political Graveyard
Search for any American politician who ever lived & discover who they were related to, what societies they belonged to, etc.
Contemporary politicians come with a link to their official biography and website.
Switchboard.com / SuperPages
Look up business’ and
individuals by name or location.
http://www.freeality.com/findrev.htm
Freeality reverse lookup
Know someone’s phone number but not their name? This website lets you do reverse lookup’s on a number of phone, address and email databases.
Four ‘family tree’ sites which cover the best part of US, Canada & UK – ancestry.com is probably the most thorough, although it often leads to pay sites. Again, such searches are very ‘touch and go’ but will often provide good leads. Genealogyspot.com offers some great links to more specific sites. Rootsweb.com hosts free web sites for people research their own family, although most people are generally interested in long gone history. Surnameweb.org works like a message board, where people post details about themselves based on their surnames.
http://www.edgar-online.com/people/
Edgar Online People
Search for an individuals corporate ties – the search is free but much of the material is pay-per-view; cross reference the relevant SEC filings you find here against those in www.freeedgar.com
Look up a person (connected to a company) by surname. The details are often scant & are generally nothing more than information culled from an annual report. However, it can provide a useful starting place.
http://www.brbpub.com/pubrecsites.asp
Similar to http://www.searchsystems.net/ this is a list of about 700 public record sites such as offender databases & cemetery listings.
Name Base
A database of around 500,000 names from books, reports and essay’s from the past 40 years. (It can also be downloaded as a shareware program). This is useful if you are investigating a well known person as you can often find books which discuss them.
http://www.google.com/advanced_group_search?hl=en
Google Advance Group Search
This can be hit and miss. Google has archived every usenet entry for the past 20 years. By entering a person’s name or email address (or even part of) in the “author” window you can find out what they have posted from 1982. An email address is the only certainty that you have the correct person, but when you do, you can find some fascinating things out about a person’s psyche.
http://www.friendsreunited.co.uk
A UK, US and worldwide ‘nostalgia’ site which can prove invaluable at times. They all require you to sign up (which is free) but then you can search for a name or a school. Often what people remember about their classmates can prove very interesting. For a fee, you can gain access to contact emails.
http://www.crimetime.com/online.html
Black Book online
Another good resource for links on searching people.
OTHER USEFUL RESEARCH TOOLS
US Patents Office
Search for any patent either by number or name.