Columbia University professor Sreenath Sreenivasan covers hoaxes on the Internet at the Poynter Institute site, http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=2957

Wall Street Journal Online, http://www.wsj.com
PubMed, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed
COPAFS, http://members.aol.com/copafs/
American Demographics Magazine, http://www.demographics.com

To Run a WHOIS search:
• Verisign NetSol Revised: Network Solutions,
• http://www.networksolutions.com/en_US/whois/index.jhtml
• Better-Whois, http://www.betterwhois.com
• Register.com, http://www.register.com
• SamSpade, http://www.samspade.org

To find Internet mailing list discussion groups:
• Topix, http://www.topix.net
• CataList, http://www.lsoft.com/lists/listref.html

Capital Research Center, http://www.capitalresearch.org
Center for Science in the Public Internet, http://www.cspinet.org/integrity/corp_funding.html
Guidstar, http://www.guidestar.org
Common Cause, http://www.commoncause.org
OSHA Stats and Data, http://www.osha.gov/oshstats
Office of Thrift Supervision, http://www.ots.treas.gov/pagehtml.cfm?catNumber=25
FEC Transaction Query System, http://herndon1.sdrdc.com/fecimg/query.html
Search Systems Net Public Records Locator, http://www.searchsystems.net
BRB Publications, http://www.brbpub.com/pubrecsites.asp
IRE Resource Center, http://www.ire.org/resourcecenter
IRE Tip Sheet, http://www.ire.org/resourcecenter/initial-search-tipsheets.html
Virtual Gumshoe: Investigative Resources Available on the Web, http://virtualgumshoe.com/
LLRX,
http://www.llrx.com/columns/
roundup19.htm#New%20Jersey

Impropaganda Review: PR Watch: How to Research Front Groups, http://prwatch.org/improp/research_faq.html

Other interesting sites from the Center for Media and Democracy's PR Watch:
• Spinning the Web, http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2002Q1/web.html
• Impropaganda Review, http://activistcash.com/ and http://www.prwatch.org/improp/ddam.html
• FedStats, http://www.fedstats.gov
• AlltheWeb NewsSearch, http://www.alltheweb.com (click on "news")
• Wayback Machine, http://www.archive.org

UPDATES AND ADDITIONS: NOVEMBER 2004

Public Records Web Sites

I've come across a couple of very interesting new sources of public information that are worth noting in this update. These are sites that focus in gathering substantive public documents, usually from the federal government, and then making them available directly to the public. Sometimes the documents are already in the public domain, and other times they are obtained through a special FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request.  I've also included in this section a couple of sites that permit searching for political campaign donations.

Download for Democracy, http://www.outragedmoderates.org/DownloadForDemocracy.html

This site makes large document files from the federal government available either by standard downloading on this site, or through fast file transfer over peer-to-peer (P2P) networks.

The Smoking Gun, http://www.thesmokinggun.com

While some of the primary documents posted on this flashy investigative site are more oriented to the sensational and celebrity, other documents are substantive court and legal proceedings from high profile government and business cases.

Center for Public Integrity,
http://www.publicintegrity.org/default.aspx

"Investigative journalism in the public interest" is the motto of this site. Included along with its articles and resources is a "527 Search" feature called "Silent Partners." Under the IRS regulations, 527 refers to an organization that is created to receive and disburse funds to influence or attempt to influence the nomination, election, appointment, or defeat of candidates for public office. Silent Partners permits visitors to the site to search for "527" donors to campaigns.

Campaign Contributions: Soft Money Donor Search,
http://www.opensecrets.org/softmoney/index.asp

This site allows visitors to search a database that contains all soft money contributions of $200 or more that were reported to the Federal Election Commission. Users can search by company name, organization, or personal name.

Business Filings Database, http://llrx.com/columns/roundup29.htm

Link here to find an article by lawyer Kathy Biehl, written for the very popular LLRX legal research site. This piece identifies and provides links to searchable databases in state government where businesses must submit their official filings.