Other actions included the introduction of legislation to require consumer reporting agencies to allow a consumer to inspect credit records, legislation to protect individuals from statistical reporting systems, and a bill to establish a Select Committee on Privacy in the House of Representatives.

Recent events indicate that more and more people are becoming concerned about privacy invasion. This is a good sign, because I have always maintained that the worst enemy of privacy is not the computer-its worst enemy is apathy and ignorance.

I am pleased that the President addressed himself to privacy in his recent state of the union address. Just a few days ago, he announced the formation of a commission on the issue of privacy and data banks in our country.

Suffice to say, it does us little good to attack the computer-it is only an instrument of man. What must be attacked is the computer mentality-the kind of faceless bureaucracy in and out of government that seeks to make the computer a supreme being.

The potential of privacy invasion is always present in a sophisticated computer operation. Remarkably, the misuse of information held about individuals in computer systems has been held to a minimum. But the potential for misuse is still there, and certainly data surveillance has grown to very menacing proportions due to the technological advances which alter such information to be given multiple use and consolidation through automated systems.

Substantial increases in demand for personal reports by government agencies. private systems, and social science researchers have intensified the severity of the problem.

As you know, it is not enough for us to discuss the technology of the computer and speak of privacy in an abstract fashion. We must resolve, at this conference, and in every other private and public forum to do what is necessary to protect our constitutional right to privacy.

Let us make no mistake about it, the computer already knows more about most of us than we know about ourselves. The amount of data held in computer systems is enormous. Think about it for a moment. The list includes tax returns, census responses, social security data, military records, security files, finger prints, FHA and VA mortgage guarantees, credit records, health data. and social research involving individuals. Such examples are barely the tip of the iceberg.

I say tip of the iceberg because everytime Congress passes legislation giving the Federal Government added responsibilities and power, more paperwork is created and consequently more information is known about the individual citizen.

Of course, this is a sobering thought, but what can we do about it?

Initially, we must understand our right to privacy and how important it is to protect this right. Secondly, we must rely on wise laws that protect our privacy rights.

We must remember that our citizens give the government personal information on what should be on a confidential basis and for a specific purpose. Americans deserve the assurance that this information will not be used for any other purpose in the future. But, do we have this assurance? Not necessarily, I fear.

Several years ago a House Congressional Committee discovered that the confidentiality of Government files is a myth. Such files sometimes float from agency to agency. Federal investigators in some instances are given access to information far removed from the subject of their inquiry. Folders sit open for inspection on desks and in the "in" and "out" baskets of many government offices. Outright "leaks" of information occasionally come a light.

Of course, this is interesting, you say. But, then you add that the government has never mis-used the information about you, so why worry? But, I submit that this may not be the case in the future unless we begin to embark on a course to make certain that it will not be misused.

It is always possible for unscrupulous men in high places to apply unethical standards to the use of confidential information. One of history's leading examples is the detailed European census that was in effect long before the advent of Hitler. Tragically, this census provided a convenient and efficient tool for Nazi use in many European nations. In some countries like Czechoslovakia, statistical data already available facilitated the Nazi takeover.

Impossible here? Not necessarily. Erroneous data or information, whether computer-stored or not, can lead to bizarre occurrences that constitute a blatant invasion of privacy.

Two years ago 15 men wearing beards and dirty clothes took a battering ram and knocked down the door of a suspected violator of a Federal gun law. Did this happen in Soviet Russia? No, it happened near Washington, D.C. The suspect was a law-abiding citizen, who only collected harmless antique weapons. He is now totally paralyzed his life is in shambles. The ruffians who perpetrated this crime? They were officials of the U.S. Treasury Department, and they broke into the victim's home on faulty information that he was in violation of the 1968 Gun Control Act.

This is not a remote example. Earlier this year, the same thing happened to a family in Winthrop, Massachusetts. A couple and their daughter, who was ill, were awakened in the middle of the night when state and Federal lawmen broke down two doors to their home on a narcotics raid. The policemen had entered the wrong home.

Of course these are clear-cut examples of private invasion. There should be no question that they also violated the fourth amendment to the constitution. But, there are other examples almost as sinister in nature. I have received numerous letters from American citizens describing examples of data bank and Social Security number abuse. Each letter seems to detail a new horror story worse than the one before. Some of the letters have actually come from computer systems analysts in the field of data processing.

The protection of personal files in all data systems deserves immediate attention on the part of both the government and the private sector. I would like to challenge this conference to not only exchange ideas and make recommendations to assure the privacy of individual data subjects in computer operations, but I would like to see a definitive statement emanate from this conference calling for a restoration of freedom of privacy.

It is not difficult to determine the adverse potential of today's technology on our right to privacy. What is difficult is making certain our traditional liberties and beliefs can be secure against growing technological onslaughts against privacy.

Mr. GOLDWATER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from California (Mr. Lagomarsino) and recognize him for the contributions he has made to this issue and his concern while he served in the State House in California.

Mr. EDWARDS of California. Mr. Speaker, the day of Big Brother and constant surveillance is already upon us. Regularly we read or hear about a new Government program that necessitates the gathering of some new information on certain individuals or class of individuals. One's social security number is not longer just used in the administration of social security benefits as it was originally intended. It has become the identifier for almost every citizen in this country: it is used on driver's licenses, banking applications, school applications-in some schools grades are dispensed by social security number-all credit applications, and a host of other documents that one signs in their daily lives. Only this past Sunday in the Parade section of the Washington Post was the reading public informed about the extent of unsubstantiated information that goes into school records. We were also informed by that same article that law enforcement agencies, military agencies or other agencies of authority are given unfettered access to these records upon request.

The intrusion upon privacy of the citizens of this country has been slow and unobtrusive for the most part to this point. The agencies collect a little more information today, a little more information tomorrow, and pretty soon there is a complete dossier on every individual in this country. The irony of this situation is that the individual on whom this information is collected is not allowed to review the records and to challenge the information. The files are transmitted freely throughout the country and very important decisions affecting the future of these individuals are made with unblinking eye and unquavering hand. It is too easy to deny a person an education because he was arrested when he was 16 years old. It is too easy to stop one's insurance coverage on his car because he keeps a dirty house. It is too easy to deny housing to someone because his previous neighbor said that he had loud parties. It is too easy to make a decision without checking on the facts. And as each day passes more and more people are being caught in a record prison unable to free themselves even with the truth.

The situation now becomes even more insidious with the dawning of the age of the computer. Proliferation of computer data banks, investigatory agency upon investigatory agency is almost a seamless web of Government intrusion upon the individual. The problem is becoming acute. The technological advances in computer science develop not only an ease in obtaining information but also an in

satiable appetite by public and private industries to collect every possible piece of knowledge on every possible citizen. The abuses to our right of privacy are excessive. Unfortunately the practice of collecting extensive information on our citizens has gone unquestioned by the American public. It has been only in recent years that some of our citizens have become appalled by this massive collection mania for information. The problem will not be alleviated by the waving of some magic wand in Congress. We cannot correct all the abuses with one piece of legislation. Each individual kind and type of abuse will have to be found and dealt with by a separate piece of legislation. In this manner, we begin to seal the loopholes through which public and private agencies spy on the citizens of this country.

The Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Constitutional Rights of the House Committee on the Judiciary, of which I am chairman, have spent over 2 years studying the abuses caused by the dissemination of arrest records and other criminal justice information. In 1971 I introduced H.R. 13315, a bill that proposed to regulate the dissemination and use of criminal arrest records. An arrest record or "rap sheet" is simply a sheet on which notations of arrests are made and most frequently do not even carry the disposition of the charge. According to FBI statistics, law enforcement agencies make some 8.6 million arrests per year for all criminal acts, excluding traffic offenses. Of these arrested, approximately 4 million are never prosecuted, or have the charges dismissed. Yet, these 4 million arrests annually are inserted on individuals "rap sheets" and become a part of what is considered criminal records. Unfortunately, these arrest records when circulated are treated much the same as a conviction record. There is no evidence yet presented that a person arrested and never convicted is any more of a job risk, credit risk, tenant risk or student risk than any other citizen. Yet every police agency, school, credit corporation, prospective empolyer and all other public and private agencies want desperately to have knowledge on arrest records as though it provides a certain and revealing insight into a person's character. These raw criminal arrest records time and time again reach out and injure people who have never been involved in any illegal or criminal act and their use is widespread.

During our extensive hearings on arrest records we became aware of the existence of the National Crime Information Center maintained at the national level by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Members of the subcommittee toured the National Crime Information Center's facilities and viewed its operation. The NCIC is part of a telecommunications system throughout the country that connects potentially all law enforcement agencies with each other. This system permits the rapid exchange of criminal information with any inquiring law enforcement agency. The NCIC itself began by collecting information on stolen items and wanted persons. But since its inception that part of the NCIC that deals with active criminal offender records has grown and is continuing to grow. These computerized criminal histories are searched as a part of identification service that the FBI provides for agencies of Federal and State governments and other authorized institutions, including savings and loan associations and national banks, which seek information on an individual's arrest record for the purpose of empolyment clearances and licensing. I personally was somewhat shocked at the time of my viewing these installations to find that there were no statutory parameters that guide the operations of the dissemination of criminal information; they were operating on a statement of principle promulgated by its advisory policy board. As if this was not frightening enough, I became aware that the advisory policy board is made up entirely of criminal justice officials. This dramatically points up the inherent confict of interest in allowing this massive system that affects the lives of every citizen of the United States to regulate itself. We have always maintained and our Constitution requires civilian control over the military-this constitutional analogy should not be lost here.

With the knowledge of this massive national computerized system exchanging information throughout the country, I introduced in August of 1973 H.R. 9783 that would provide for the protection of the right of privacy in the dissemination of criminal justice information. Earlier this year our subcommittee added to its consideration Senator Ervin's comprehensive bill on criminal justice information systems and the Department of Justice bill dealing with the same subject. We have since held several days of hearings on these three bills. Our witnesses have included the Attorney General of the United States, William Saxbe, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Clarence M. Kelley, Mr. Arnold Rosenfeld, the Director of the Massachusetts Criminal Histories Systems Board and representatives of the Department of Defense, the Civil Service. Much knowledge

has been imparted to the members of our subcommittee in this very complex and threatening area. It has become apparent with each passing day that congressional regulation and oversight in this area is mandated. We can no longer wait for self regulation by these agencies, public and private, nor for the system to work itself out. We must move on every front to shore up the rights of privacy of the citizens of this country against the ever encroaching threat of the massive accumulation of unrestricted information.

Justice Brandeis noted many years ago that the makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness. They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions, and sensations. They conferred as against the Government the right to be left alone the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized man. To protect that right, every unjustified intrusion by the Government upon the privacy of the individual, whatever means empolyed, must be deemed a violation of turning the tide against Big Brother and constant Government surveillance and perhaps even the Constitution itself, we now have the awesome obligation of turning the tide against Big Brother and constant Government surveillance which is already upon us.

Mr. BROWN of California. Mr. Speaker, poetry can often bring the levity required to see the deeply sensitive human situation we are talking about when we speak of rights of privacy. Under the all-knowing hand of a technocratic state, our cemeteries may well be lined with headstones with personal identification numbers rather than names chisled on them. A message from such an era comes in the form of this poem by W. H. Auden.

[The poem follows :]

THE UNKNOWN CITIZEN

(To JS/07/M/378 this marble monument is erected by the State)

He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be

One against whom there was no official complaint,

And all the reports on his conduct agree

That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned world, he was a saint,
For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.

Except for the War until the day he retired

He worked in a factory and never got fired,

But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors, Inc.

Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views,

For his Union reports that he paid his dues,

(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)

And our Social Psychology workers found

That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.

The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day

And that his reaction to advertisements were normal in every way.
Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured.
And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured.
Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare

He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Instalment Plan
And had everything necessary to the Modern Man

A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.

Our researchers into Public Opinion are content

That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;

When there was peace, he was for peace;

when there was war, he went.

He was married and added five children to the population,

Which our Eugenicist says was the right number for a parent of his generation,
And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education.
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:

Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

Mr. GIAIMO. Mr. Speaker, the right to be left alone the right to privacyis one of our most fundamental and cherished rights. Yet this right is constantly being eroded by computer data banks, copying devices and other products of a refined technology. In short, invasion of privacy has become another word for efficiency, as Government and business seek to learn more about individual citizens than they have a need or right to know.

We are all familiar with wire-tapping, official eavesdropping and political spying. But let us not forget the more subtle forms of invading someone's pri

vacy. Unauthorized financial disclosure by banks and other institutions, the release of telephone and business records, the denial of rights of access to information collected on an individual, the selling of mailing lists, the abuse of credit ratings, the expanded use of social security numbers as an identification reference, the use of mandatory census questions, unsolicited commercial telephone calls-all these practices are an infringement of the right of privacy.

Congress must compose a legislative response to this wholesale invasion of individual privacy, at the same time balancing the right to be left alone against the proper needs of society. Nineteen eighty-four, only a decade away, must not be a target date for fulfilling George Orwell's chilling prophecy of an all-regulated society. Private lives are private affairs. Public freedoms have little meaning when personal liberties are diminished.

We need legal safeguards to eliminate indiscriminate public use of an individual's telephone, school, army and bank records, to name a few. The privacy of these records must be guaranteed to prevent the unscrupulous from misusing the information they hold. Individuals must have the right to inspect records concerning them to held by federal agencies and private businesses. A means must also be devised to allow individuals to correct these records if they contain erroneous or misleading information. I am one of the original sponsors of H.R. $375, legislation that would do precisely this, and I am pleased to note that the Government Operations Committee has held 2 days of hearings on this and similar bills. I urge my colleagues to act favorably on this measure when it is reported to the House floor.

This legislation is only the beginning of what we need to do. The task is enormous, for ultimately we must inspect the inspectors. But it is a task worth pursuing, and necessary to pursue. We must stop Big Brother.

Mr. MELCHER. Mr. Speaker, the late author George Bernard Shaw, in a speech in New York in 1933 said:

"An American has no sense of privacy.

"He does not know what it is.

"There is no such thing as privacy in this country."

We have come a long way since then. It is hard for me to imagine what Mr. Shaw would be saying if he were alive today and could see the mistrust and the indignation of our citizens that have developed in the last few years as computers have recorded and stored information on every facet of our private lives for any one of a hundred purposes. It is clear to me that the American people have a very real sense of privacy which they now see as being threatened as never before whether by businesses wanting to know whether a person deserves a credit card, or by Government officials wanting the Internal Revenue Service to become more "politically responsive" by taking a closer look at tax returns of those on "enemy" lists.

I am pleased to speak today in support of a renewed congressional effort to protect the rights of our citizens to the privacy they want and deserve.

The greatest potential for invasion of privacy is that of Government, whether through conscious policy decisions or by actions of overzealous individuals. A shocking example of this is Executive Order 11697 issued by President Nixon in January of 1973. That order, which the administration refused to rescind until a few days ago when it bowed to congressional pressure, would have granted broad authority for the opening up of Internal Revenue Service taxpayer returns and files on 3 million farmers to the Department of Agriculture, supposedly for statistical purposes. The sinister part of the order is that it was drafted by the Treasury Department, over objections of the Internal Revenue Service, to serve as a model for allowing other Government agencies to have access to private income tax information.

In view of recent exposure of attempts to use the IRS politically, the implications are frightening. For this reason I have joined with Mr. Litton and other concerned Members in sponsoring legislation (H.R. 12349) to strictly limit disclosure of information gathered by the Internal Revenue Service. That disclosure would be allowed only to appropriate Government representatives for tax administration and law enforcement purposes. Legislation such as this is vitally needed to prevent abuses of power by Government and to protect our right to privacy-to make sure we have no future fights over Executive orders such as 11697.

Another less sinister, but perhaps as far-reaching threat to our privacy is that of the credit reporting companies and systems. Here the problem is probably more a matter of mistakes and information misinterpretations stored in a computer that come back to haunt a citizen applying for credit or even a job. When