John,

As I said in an earlier post, I understand the restrictions and limits that apply to private investigation work. However, since we (on this post) sometimes get into the more philosophical discussions regarding right vs. wrong, and public sector investigators are sometimes vilified for seemingly choosing to "make a case" versus doing "what is right" (and the two are certainly not mutually exclusive), I was merely pointing out that the same dilemma and burden sometimes occurs on the private side. One could argue that a private investigator should do what is right, even if it means risking his license or career, for the good of society. It sometimes comes down to a right versus right challenge. It's often easy to see the choice between right and wrong, but what happens when our desire to protect society butts up against protecting an individual's rights? Or the reverse? (For more on this, I'd recommend reading Rushworth M. Kidder's "Moral Courage") "Bending the rules", in these cases, requires placing a higher weight on one core value over another. Examples of this have occurred (no sense denying a historical fact). "Planting" evidence to get a really bad guy put away claims that the good of the many outweighs the rights of an individual (The rationale: "That bad guy will harm many innocent people. I only hurt him.") But at what cost? Can a free society that places a high value on human rights torture bad people in order to obtain information that could prevent an attack without compromising its own core identity? (For more on this, see "The Lesser Evil; Political Ethics in an Age of Terror" by Michael Ignatieff)

Just as we don't hear about the cases that private investigators don't take (because they think the guy really did it), there are cases where public sector officials "know" who did it, but do not arrest or prosecute because the proof is not beyond a reasonable doubt. This, of course, is as it should be precisely because we have a legal system that guarantees individual rights and protects the least of our citizens. This is the right way to behave. But, keep in mind that good work is being done by good people and there are far more cases of good cases than there are of bad. Perhaps on both sides. The fact that we even engage in these discussions and argue over the contents of a document such as 921, I think, shows that we are all earnestly working to better our profession.

(Boy, it's not enough to use big words; I’ve got to know what they mean, too??)

Steve