A background check can consist of information from a wide variety of sources and usually includes public records maintained by local, state, and federal governments. Various levels of government keep track of such things as criminal records, driving history, vehicle registrations, workers' compensation history, military service records, property ownership, and court cases in which you may have been a party. If you have been incarcerated, whether in county jail, state prison, or a federal penitentiary, that information will probably be discovered as part of the background check process. Local government records also include the academic history of most Americans, since most of us attend public schools.

It would be a mistake, however, to assume that a personal background check is limited to information assembled by the government. Private companies and individuals can also be involved. Credit bureaus, for example, are private corporations that specialize in tracking how you meet your financial obligations. In the United States, three such companies maintain statistics about how much you owe and whether you pay your bills on time; these records also indicate bankruptcies and reveal whether you have been evicted. Unlike other kinds of records, however, your credit history typically only provides information about the past seven years. Information older than that, except for bankruptcies, which stay on your record for ten years, is discarded.

A thorough pre-employment background check for a security clearance may also include a close look into your personal life. Through such techniques as interviewing your neighbors and checking your personal and character references, employers hope to identify those individuals who are more likely to be hard-working and trustworthy. Background checks in the digital age may also include internet searches using your name or address, and sometimes encompass specific efforts to locate information about you on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace.

Since background checks have become so commonplace, it has become increasingly more practical to run a background check on yourself. Having a background check in hand can be useful in a number of different situations. When searching for a job, the applicant who can provide this information will have an advantage, appearing to be a forward-thinking, responsible individual. Purchased background checks can also be shown to loan officers when you are trying to secure a new mortgage or refinance your home. Finally, prospective renters will be more likely to be offered a lease when they have a background check in hand to show to a landlord.

People who are sick and worried trust their health care providers to help them and to do no harm. However, a recent investigation by the Indianapolis Star revealed that perhaps patients’ faith should not be blind. The investigation found licensed nurses who had previous criminal convictions that they failed to report to the licensing board, including a conviction for felony drunk driving and another for intimidation for waving a loaded gun at a driver.

Currently hospitals and nursing homes perform background checks on their unlicensed staff, but rely on licensed health care professionals, such as doctors, nurses, and dentists to voluntarily report any convictions when they apply for licenses.

Fortunately, someone is looking out for patients. A recently proposed bill by Indiana State Senator Patricia Miller, a registered nurse herself, would require federal background checks for health care workers when they apply for their licenses. It would further require prosecutors to notify the Indiana Professional Licensing Agency (IPLA) if a license holder were convicted of a crime.

A conviction would not necessarily prevent a license from being issued. That decision would be left to the IPLA, but as to whether or not a conviction would be a legitimate reason to reject an applicant or dismiss a current employee is not addressed. Presumably, it would depend on the nature of the crime for which a worker was convicted.

Health care workers come into contact with people who are often at their most vulnerable. In hospitals, nursing homes and especially in patients’ homes, doctors, nurses and other licensed health care professionals have access to their patients’ most personal and financial information. These patients should be protected from caregivers with prior convictions for negligence, stealing, drug abuse, identity theft or worse.

The loudest argument against Miller’s proposal has been that funding the mandatory background checks will cost the Indiana taxpayers too much money. Miller’s proposed bill nullifies this argument by placing the financial responsibility for the checks on the license applicants. The expense to the state for having prosecutors notify IPLA of new convictions would also be minimized by utilizing an existing system by which prosecutors notify the Bureau of Motor Vehicles of traffic violations.

The process of obtaining a background check would be relatively inexpensive and easy for health care professionals seeking licenses, costing about $75 and requiring applicants to submit their fingerprints to the Indiana State Police.

Given that the state has the final authority to issue licenses it should also accept the responsibility of ensuring that those who receive them are not threats to patients.

A biology professor charged in the killings of three faculty members at the University of Alabama in Huntsville was initially a suspect in a 1993 attempted mail bombing of a Harvard Medical School professor and killed her brother in 1986 after firing a shotgun 3 times.

Amy Bishop Anderson and her husband, Jim, were questioned after a package containing two pipe bombs was sent to the Newton, Massachusetts, home of Dr. Paul Rosenberg, a Harvard professor and a doctor at Children's Hospital Boston, the Globe said, citing a law enforcement official. At the time, Anderson was working as a postdoctoral fellow in the hospital's human biochemistry lab.

Anderson is charged with capital murder in the Friday shooting deaths, making her eligible for the death penalty in Alabama. Authorities said she was attending a faculty meeting in a university building when she brandished a gun and shot six colleagues, killing three.

The mother of four was arrested as she was leaving the building, Huntsville Police Chief Henry Reyes said Saturday. A 9 mm handgun was recovered from the second floor of the building after the shootings Friday.

On Saturday, it was revealed that in 1986, Anderson, then 19, shot her brother to death in Braintree, Massachusetts. Authorities determined after an investigation that the shooting was accidental.

But Braintree Police Chief Paul Frazier said Saturday, "It is a far different story, I believe, than what was reported back then. I cannot tell you what the thought process was behind our releasing her at the time."

Anderson's husband, Jim, told CNN on Monday that federal investigators had gathered a dozen subjects in the attempted bombing, but "there were never any suspects. Never anyone charged, never anyone arrested."

"Then five years later, we got a letter from the ATF saying, 'You are in the clear,' " he said, referring to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Sylvia Fluckiger, a lab technician who worked with Anderson at the time, told The Boston Globe on Sunday that Anderson had a dispute with Rosenberg shortly before the bomb incident.

Fluckiger told CNN affiliate WCVB-TV in Boston, "Police interviewed her, and she told me about it. I really wondered if she may have had, you know, some more knowledge, although I'm not accusing her of anything."

Rosenberg was opening a package delivered to his home while he was away on vacation, but he saw wires and a cylinder inside and called police, the Globe reported.

"She was the suspect early on," the law enforcement official, who the Globe said had knowledge of the case, told the newspaper of Anderson. She allegedly was concerned that she was going to receive a negative evaluation from Rosenberg, the official said.

Jim Anderson told The New York Times the December 1986 death of his wife's brother, Seth, was accidental. He declined to comment when CNN asked him about the shooting Monday.

Frazier, however, said Saturday that an official involved in the case and still working for Braintree police told him that the teen had shot her brother during an argument. She fired a shot in her bedroom without hitting anyone, then argued with her brother and shot him, he said.

She fled the home after the shooting and was arrested after pointing a weapon at a vehicle near the house in an unsuccessful attempt to get the driver to stop. During the booking process, then-Chief John Polio called and told the officers to release her, Frazier said. He added her mother was then a member of the Braintree Personnel Board.

Reached by CNN, Polio, now 87 and retired, denied calling in that order, saying detectives told him the shooting appeared accidental and it was determined Anderson should be released to her mother. He said any link between Anderson's release and her mother's position on the board was "laughable."

Anderson's mother, Judith, did not answer her door Monday. Reached by telephone, she told CNN, "We're very distraught," and declined further comment.

A December 8, 1986, article in The Boston Globe said Anderson asked her mother how to unload a round from a 12-gauge shotgun and accidentally shot her brother while she was handling the weapon. The article cited Polio as the source.

The state police report on the incident, released Sunday by the office of Rep. Bill Delahunt, D-Massachusetts, is similar to the Globe's account. Delahunt was district attorney at the time; staffers said he was in the Middle East on Sunday and unable to comment on the case.

The 1986 report said Braintree police told state police investigators "indications were that Amy Bishop had been attempting to manipulate the shotgun and had subsequently brought the gun downstairs in an attempt to gain assistance from her mother in disarming the weapon" when it went off, shooting her brother in the chest.

In a December 17, 1986, interview, Anderson told authorities she "thought it would be a good idea if she learned how to load the shotgun in the house," according to the state police report. The young woman told police she was concerned for her own safety after the family home was broken into, although she previously had been afraid of the gun.

She said she got the gun and loaded shells into it, but was unable to get them out. Anderson said that while she was attempting to unload the weapon on her bed, it went off. She then took it downstairs to ask for help in unloading it, where the shooting occurred.

The police report said both Anderson and her mother said the shooting was accidental. Her mother told police she did not hear the earlier shot in her daughter's bedroom and "believed the house was relatively well soundproofed and that such a discharge would not necessarily be heard on another floor of the house."

Frazier said police records of the incident are missing. But Polio said, "There was no cover-up. Absolutely no cover-up and no missing records. The records were all there when I left. Where they went in the last 22 years and two police chiefs subsequent, I don't know."

Braintree Mayor Joseph Sullivan said Sunday that a review will commence to locate all materials associated with the shooting.

Anderson, who is known to students as Dr. Bishop, had been working at the University of Alabama in Huntsville since 2003 and was up for tenure, according to spokesman Ray Garner. However, authorities wouldn't discuss possible motives or whether the issue of tenure may have played a role in the shooting.

Garner said the university gives teachers six years to get tenure. Those who do not get it are terminated, he said.

Jim Anderson told CNN on Monday that his wife had been denied tenure and had appealed that decision and won, but she was still fighting to be granted tenure. She was frustrated with "the process," he said.

He told CNN earlier his wife had an attorney but would not say who it was, and he described her as a good teacher. He said Monday his wife wrote three novels, "medical thrillers." The couple does not own a gun, he said.

He said he last saw his wife briefly on Friday morning before she left for class. He said she was "loving, got along with everybody."

The family, he said, is devastated, and in "shock, bewilderment, wondering why."

He told the Times the pipe bomb incident is "one thing from the past I hoped would not be dredged up."

Woman took 14-year-old to bed; 'for her it was all a big game,' says boy's mother according to a story in the Hamilton Spectator

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A mother whose 14-year-old son was given an inappropriate sexual education by a 28-year-old woman said she's frustrated by the winks and snickers she gets from some people.

The woman said her son was still playing with Lego building bricks and "army men" when Tanya Hussick, a mother of four children, took him into her bed and engaged the boy in sexual intercourse.

She said it pained her to think of her first born being sexually molested by an adult, but it was "almost a non-issue" for other people.

"Sometimes, I would get a reaction like, 'Oh good for him,'" referring to the social myths and stereotypes about a young boy being educated about sex by an older woman.

Ontario Court Justice Bernd Zabel yesterday handed Hussick, 29, a six-month conditional sentence and placed her on probation for two years.

A conditional sentence means Hussick will have a conviction registered against her, but can serve her sentence in the community under supervision. Terms of the supervision order will be drafted by defence lawyer Kim Edward and assistant Crown attorney Kevin McKenna and returned to the judge for approval.

Hussick, a former parent volunteer at a local elementary school, pleaded guilty to sexual assault last July, admitting to sexual intercourse with a minor during a month-long period the previous summer. She also attempted to perform oral sex on the boy.

There would have been no criminal offence had the sexual encounter occurred only a few months earlier.

Canada raised the legal age of consent to 16 from 14, effective May 1, 2008. Since then, a young person under the age of 16 cannot legally consent to any form of sexual activity, ranging from kissing to intercourse.

The mother said her son was extremely upset when the story got out and pleaded with her not to tell the police for fear that Hussick would lose her children.

"I think he had a crush on her... he honestly had feelings for her, but for her it was all a big game," said the mom.

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 According to local news source channel 9, authorities in Douglas County Colorado are looking for children who may have had contact with a former youth volunteer accused of having a sexual relationship with a child at his church.

Sheriff's deputies say William "Bill" McLaughlin, 45, was arrested in December 2009 and charged with multiple felony counts including sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust.

"It is very tragic to hear about these types of cases, especially when it involves someone who is put in a position to care for and guide our youth. It is a great reminder for parents to talk to their children about issues involving these types of cases and how important open and honest communication is," Douglas County Sheriff Dave Weaver said in a news release.

Detectives believe McLaughlin, who was a youth volunteer at Denver Church of Christ, might have taken advantage of other children. During his time with Denver Church of Christ, which has satellite churches across Colorado and the country, McLaughlin had contact with hundreds of children and traveled extensively.

John Lusk, a senior minister with Denver Church of Christ says the church has about 600 adult members and its main church is in Arvada.

Lusk says McLaughlin volunteered with the church's youth from 1999 to 2006, but was "taken out" of the youth volunteer program four years ago. Lusk says he didn't know why McLaughlin was removed, but added McLaughlin has not been involved with the youth for four years.

According to Lusk, McLaughlin volunteered with teens from the church's high school group. His job was to attend activities and serve as a mentor. The idea, Lusk says, was "to be a spiritual guide to them."

"We typically do background checks," Lusk said. He was unsure whether a background check was done on McLaughlin.

During the ongoing investigation detectives have learned that McLaughlin lived in several locations within Douglas County, where some of the crimes took place, as well as multiple places in the Denver metro area.

McLaughlin declined to talk on-camera with 9NEWS.

McLaughlin's ex-wife, Cathy Jones, who does not live in Colorado, was in disbelief over the charges.

"I'm shocked. I don't believe it, can't believe it," Jones said. "I don't think it's true. He's a good man."

Jones and McLaughlin have been divorced since 1995.

In 2006, McLaughin was charged with a misdemeanor for sexual contact without consent, but in exchange for pleading guilty to harassment, the first charge was dismissed.

Pam Russell, a spokeswoman for the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office, says in the 2006 incident, a 14-year-old son of a friend told deputies McLaughlin was constantly around. One day, in the family's kitchen, deputies say McLaughlin tried to put ice down the boy's pants. The teen repeatedly told McLaughlin no, but deputies say he persisted and eventually did put the ice down the boy's pants.

Deputies say when McLaughlin put the ice down the boy's pants, he touched the 14-year-old's private parts. The incident was reported after the fact, and McLaughlin was charged with a misdemeanor.

The Denver Church of Christ issued the following statement after McLaughlin's recent arrest:

"The leadership of Denver Church of Christ was informed in late December by the Douglas County Sheriff's Office that a former youth volunteer of the church was arrested and charged with an offense against a young man. The Church leadership is very concerned by these allegations and the harm these actions bring to all involved. The Church leadership has been cooperating with the Sheriff's investigation since the initial arrest.

"Our thoughts and prayers go out to this victim, his family, as well as all others concerned and affected by these events. As we wish to protect the privacy interests of the persons who have raised these concerns, we cannot comment any further on the case, or the investigation. We ask that all of those involved with these events and the investigation appreciate the seriousness of the claims and fully cooperate with the Sheriff's investigation."

Anyone with information about McLaughlin, additional victims or inappropriate conduct by McLaughlin should contact the Douglas County Sheriff's Office Investigations Division at 303-660-7548 or its tip line at 303-660-7579.