One data broker told Congress his company relied on public databases or Internet searches to get personal information.

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These time estimates are also based on narrowly tailored requests that do not require extensive searches in multiple databases.

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The FBI conducted a standard 90-day inquiry, including searches of public databases, its own files, and those of other agencies, as well as a voluntary interview, U.S. officials said.

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One tool is PubMed, that searches National Institute of Health databases, another is Presidential Election 2012, which tracks election info in an non-partisan way.

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