For example, there are the so-called civil disturbance prevention programs of the Army and other military services which were believed to require surveillance over lawful political activities of civilians. There are all the other "counterintelligence" programs which, justified or not, the armed services believe require surveillance and compiling of dossiers on civilians. These military activities have been discussed at length as each new revelation is made by agents who conducted the surveillance.

To get to the bottom of these complaints and learn how widespread the practices are, who authorized them and why; whether or not they continue today and under what restrictions, the subcommittee will hear a number of former military intelligence employees and agents describe their surveillance of citizens. We have invited Mr. Christopher Pyle to testify on February 24. Mr. Pyle is a lawyer and political scientist who has written widely on his experiences and observations while serving in the Army Intelligence Command.

Other agents will include Ralph Stein, who served in the civil disturbance analysis division in the Counter-Intelligence Command at Fort Holabird.

John M. O'Brien, who reported his monitoring of law-abiding citizens including political figures in Illinois, will appear on February 24, 1971, and wll be accompanied by Alexander Polikoff, attorney for the plantiffs in the suit against the Army for unwarranted surveillance of citizens in Chicago.

On February 25, Prof. Morris Janowitz, chairman of the Sociology Department, University of Chicago, will discuss such issues as the impact on the military services of their involvement in activities beyond their jurisdiction.

A number of organizations and private citizens will also testify on February 25 about their experiences and reactions to such Government programs.

On March 2, 3, and 4 we shall hear representatives of the Secretary of Defense describe the programs of each of the armed services and component agencies of the Defense Department with respect to note taking and record keeping of the activities of civilians who have no dealings with the Department of Defense. In addition, they will report to us on the contents, purpose and maintenance of the Army Investigative Records Repository, a basically manual system which contains dossier and reports on over 7 million Americans who have had reason to deal with the Department of Defense for personnel, counterintelligence, criminal, or other purposes. Since this is another major information system which is significant for many Federal programs, I believe a study of the transfer, exchange, retention and use of records in it will guide the subcommittee in its analysis of other programs.

I hope the Defense Department witnesses will enlighten Congress in considerable detail on the reasons for the unprecedented reports of spying and surveillance on political figures and on political-active citizens. I hope that they will describe in considerable detail the administrative actions they have takenFirst. To prevent unconstitutional excesses of power in the future; Second. To purge completely each of their information systems of any reports they may have improperly compiled on civilians, at least over the past 20

years;

Third. To rescind in each of the services the vaguely-worded directives and memoranda issued at all levels and the regulations purporting to authorize excessive grant of surveillance powers in matters beyond the proper interests of the military.

We hope also to discover from these witnesses who else in the Federal Government received and data-banked the information compiled by the Army and other services, and what has been done to review and-where necessary, to purge-the files of those agencies.

In this aspect of the subcommittee study, the basic question at issue is the power of the executive branch to monitor the activities of individuals when there is no probable cause to believe they have committed a crime. The largest segment of such persons will be the political dissidents of all shades of political opinion who disagree intellectually and actively with Government policies or who associate with those who do. This is not a new problem in Government. We have known political blacklists before. The efficiency with which it is done now makes it a vital constitutional problem as never before.

While I find myself at loggerheads with many of these Americans, both with respect to their ideas and with respect to the means used to express those ideas, the vitality of our political system and the first amendment rights of all of us now and in the future depend on the extent to which their rights are protected. For this reason, the subcommittee has extended an invitation to the Attorney

General, as chief legal officer of the Government, to discuss for the Congress what constitutional power rests in the executive branch and its respective department heads to conduct surveillance over such persons and to enter them in Federal data banks of the Justice Department and other agencies of government. I believe these hearings will better enable the public, the press, the Congress and executive branch officials to understand the needs and purposes of government and the constitutional limits in our society to uses of the power of that government. It is my hope that the hearings will help Members of Congress respond quickly and effectively to complaints of invasion of privacy and to propose and act upon any remedial legislation which is found necessary.

[From Congressional Record, Vol. 116, No. 155, Sept. 8, 1970]

ANNOUNCEMENT OF HEARINGS: FEDERAL DATA BANKS AND THE BILL OF RIGHTS

Mr. ERVIN. Mr. President, in recent months, with the discovery of each new Federal data bank and data system, public concern has increased that some of the Federal Government's collection, storage, and use of information about citizens may raise serious questions of individual privacy and constitutional rights. The Constitutional Rights Subcommittee has received countless letters and telegrams from Members of Congress and from interested persons all over the United States, urging that hearings be scheduled to consider the total impact of some of these data programs on preservation of individual rights.

I wish to announce that, in response to these demands, the subcommittee has scheduled a new series of hearings on "Federal data banks and systems and the bill of rights." The first stage of the hearings will be held October 6, 7, and 8. The subcommittee has already undertaken a survey of Federal data banks and automated data systems to determine what statutory and administrative controls are governing their growth and what rights and remedies are provided for the citizen. The analysis of the executive branch replies to that subcommittee questionnaire, together with the hearings held in the last session on "privacy and Federal questionnaires," and the hearings which begin in October, will assist Congress in determining the need for a new independent agency to control Federal data banks on behalf of the privacy and due process rights of citizens. It has been my conviction that such an agency is needed, along with new remedies in the courts and other corrective actions. I detailed the reasons for my belief in a Senate speech in November 1969.

The purpose of the hearings is: First, to learn what Government data banks have been developed; second, how far they are already computerized or automated; third, what constitutional rights, if any, are affected by them; and, fourth, what overall legislative controls, if any, are required.

Witnesses familiar with the constitutional and legal issues, as well as the practical problems raised by some current and proposed data programs will document these for the record. The Secretary of the Army and other representatives of the Defense Department have already been invited to attend the October hearings to describe how and why the Army and other armed services have collected and stored information on civilians, and to what extent the records have been automated for easy access and retrieval.

Prof. Arthur R. Miller of the University of Michigan Law School, author of a forthcoming book, "The Dossier Society: Personal Privacy in the Computer Age," has been invited to describe the state of the law governing information flow in our society and its relationship to legal rights. Another witness will be Christopher Pyle, an attorney and former Army intelligence officer, who has investigated the Army's civil disturbance data programs, and has written widely on the subject.

In later hearings, other representatives of the executive departments and agencies will be invited to respond to the complaints and fears which have been expressed by the public. They will be afforded the opportunity to explain exactly what their data programs on people involve, and how, if at all. the privacy, confidentiality and due process rights of the individuals are respected.

The subcommittee has received enthusiastic support from specialists in the computer sciences, in both the computer industry and in the acamedic community. We hope to receive the benefit of their expertise for our hearing record.

Mr. President, our Nation is predicated on the fundamental proposition that citizens have a right to express their views on the wisdom and course of governmental policies. This involves more than the currently popular notion of a socalled right to dissent. Our system cannot survive if citizen participation is limited merely to registering disagreement with official policy; the policies themselves must be the product of the people's views. The protection and encouragement of such participation is a principal purpose of the first amendment.

More than at any other time in our history, people are actively expressing themselves on public questions and seeking to participate more directly in the formulation of policy. Mass media have made it easy for large numbers of people to organize and express their views in written and oral fashion. Rapid means of transportation have aided our mobile population to move easily to sites of central and local authority for the purpose of expressing their views more publicly. The freedom of our form of government and the richness of our economy have made it possible for individuals to move about freely and to seek their best interests as they will in vocations and avocations of their choice, or indeed, to pursue none at all for a time, if that is what they wish. If modern technology has provided citizens with more efficient means for recording their dissent, or for registering their political, economic, or social views, it has also placed in the hands of executive branch officials new methods of taking note of that expression of views and that political activity. For these reasons, those individuals who work actively for public causes are more visible than ever before. These new sciences have accorded those who control government increased power to discover and record immutably the activities, thoughts and philosophy of an individual at any given moment of his life. That picture of the person is recorded forever, no matter how the person may change as time goes on. Every person's past thus becomes an inescapable part of his present and future. The computer never forgets.

To be sure, recordkeeping is nothing new in the history of government; nor indeed, is the habit all governments and all societies have of surveillance, blacklisting and subtle reprisal for unpopular political or social views. Men have aways had to contend with the memories of other men. In the United States, however, we are blessed with a Constitution which provides for due process of law. This applies to the arbitrary use of the recordkeeping and information power of government against the individual.

Despite these guarantees, the new technology has been quietly, but steadily, endowing officials with the unprecedented political power which accompanies computers and data banks and scientific techniques of managing information. It has given Government the power to take note of anything, whether it be right or wrong, relevant to any purpose or not, and to retain it forever. Unfortunately, this revolution is coming about under outdated laws and executive orders governing the recordkeeping and the concepts of privacy and confidentiality relevant to an earlier time.

These developments are particularly significant in their effect on the first amendment to our Constitution.

No longer can a man march with a sign down Pennsylvania Avenue and then return to his hometown, his identity forgotten, if not his cause.

No longer does the memory of the authorship of a political article fade as the pages of his rhetoric yellow and crumble with time.

No longer are the flamboyant words exchanged in debate allowed to echo into the past and lose their relevance with the issue of the moment which prompted them.

No longer can a man be assured of his enjoyment of the harvest of wisdom and maturity which comes with age, when the indiscretions of youth, if noticed at all, are spread about in forgotten file cabinets in basement archives.

Instead, today, his activities are recorded in computers or data banks, or if not, they may well be a part of a great investigative index.

Some examples come readily to mind from the subcommittee survey. The Civil Service Commission maintains a "security file" in electrically powered rotary cabinets containing 2,120,000 index cards. These bear lead information relating to possible questions of suitability involving loyalty and subversive activity. The lead information contained in these files has been developed from publshed hearings of congressional committees, State legislative committees, public investigative bodies, reports of investigation, publications of subversive organizations, and various other newspapers and periodicals. This file is not new, but has been growing since World War II. The Commission has found it a reasonable, economical and invaluable tool in meeting its investigative

responsibilities. It is usful to all Federal agencies as an mportant source of information.

The Commission chairman reports:

"Investigative and intelligence officials of the various departments and agencies of the Federal Government make extensive official use of the file through their requests for searches relating to investigations they are conducting."

In its "security investigation index," the Commission maintains 10,250,000 index cards filed alphabetically covering personnel investigatons made by the Civil Service Commission and other agencies since 1939. Records in this index relate to incumbents of Federal positions, former employees, and applicants on whom investigations were made or are in process of being made.

The Commission's "investigative file" consists of approximately 625,000 file folders containing reports of investigation on cases investigated by the Commission. In addition, about 2,100,000 earlier investigative files are maintained at the Washington National Records Center in security storage. These are kept to avoid duplication of investigations or for updating previous investigations. For authorization for these data banks, the Commission cites Executive Order 10450, an order promulgated in 1953.

Another department, the Housing and Urban Development Department, is considering automation of a departmental procedure. According to the report made to the subcommittee:

"The data base would integrate records now included in FHA's Sponsor Identification File, Department of Justice's Organized Crime and Rackets File, and HUD's Adverse Information File. A data bank consisting of approximately 325,000 3x5 index cards has been prepared covering any individual or firm which was the subject of, or mentioned prominently in any investigations dating from 1954 to the present. This includes all FBI investigations of housing matters as well. In addition, HUD maintains an index file on all Department employees which reflects dates and types of personnel security investigations conducted under the provisions of Executive Order 10450."

In the interest of preparing for possible civil disturbances and for protecting the armed services from subversion, the Department of the Army and other military departments have been collecting information about civilians who have no dealing with the military services.

The Secret Service has created a computerized data bank in the pursuit of its programs to protect high Government officials from harm and Federal buildings from damage. Their guidelines for inclusion of citizens in this data bank refer to "information on professional gate crashers; information regarding civil disturbances; information regarding anti-American or anti-U.S. Government demonstrations in the United States or overseas; information on persons who insist upon personally contacting high Government officials for the purpose of redress of imaginary grievances, and so forth."

In this area of law enforcement, the Bureau of Customs has installed a central automated data processing intelligence network which is a comprehensive data bank of suspect information available on a 24-hour-a-day basis to Customs. The initial data base, according to the Secretary of the Treasury, is a "modest" one comprising some 3,000 suspect records: He states:

"These records include current information from our informer, fugitive and suspect lists that have been maintained throughout the Bureau's history as an enforcement tool and which have been available at all major ports of entry, though in much less accessible and usable form. With the coordinated efforts of the Agency's Service's intelligence activities, steady growth of the suspect files is expected."

This data bank, which is used by the Bureau to identify suspect persons and vehicles entering the United States, is an "essential tool" in performance of Customs officers' search and seizure authority, Secretary Kennedy has stated. The Department of Justice is establishing comprehensive law enforcement data systems in cooperation with State governments, and is funding State data programs for law enforcement, civil disturbance and other surveillance purposes. The National Science Foundation has created a data bank of scientists. The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare has established a data bank on migrant children to facilitate the transfer of school records.

During our subcommittee hearings last year, case after case was documented of the vast programs to coerce citizens into supplying personal information for statistical data banks in the Census Bureau and throughout other Federal agencies.

These are only a few of the data programs which have raised due process of law questions from Congress and the public.

How do these things come about? It would be unfair, perhaps, to attribute suspicious political motives, or lack of ethics to those responsible for any one program or for any group of programs for collecting and storing personal information about citizens. Frequently, they just grow over the years. Sometimes, executive department data banks are either merely good faith efforts at fulfillment of specific mandates from Congress; or they are based on what some officials think to be implied mandates to acquire information necessary for Congress to legislate. If so, then Congress has no one to blame but itself when such programs unnecessarily threaten privacy or other rights. But it then has an even greater responsibility for acting, once its own negligence is discovered. Perhaps the most such officials can be charged with is overzealousness in doing their job within narrow confines, to the exclusion of all other considerations. Sometimes the issue of threats to individual rights is presented only after a data system has developed, and only after practical problems are raised which were not envisioned on paper.

At times, due process may be threatened by the failure of the computer specialists to consider only the information on a person absolutely essential for their programing.

There are political reasons also. One is the failure of heads of executive departments and agencies to mind their own stores and stay out of the business of other agencies. Each department does not need to seize the total man when it administers a program; only those portions of him necessary for the job. Another reason is the tendency of executive branch officials in the interest of political expendiency and shortcuts to law and order goals, to seize upon the techniques of data banks, intelligence gathering, and surveillance activities as a substitute for hard-hitting, practical law enforcement work by the proper agencies, and for creative administration of the laws.

All of these excuses will not help the law-abiding citizen who, at the whim of some official, is put into an intelligence-type data bank which is part of a network of inquiry for all manner of governmental purposes.

No one would deny that the Government of such a populous and farflung country should not avail itself of the efficiency offered by computers and scientific data management techniques. Clearly, Government agencies must, as Congress has charged them, acquire, store, and process economically the information it obtains from citizens for administrative purposes. There is an ever-increasing need for information of all kinds to enable the Congress to legislate effectively and the executive branch to administer the laws properly.

Furthermore, there is an obvious need in such a complex mobile society for recording and documenting amply the official relationship between the individual and his government.

More and more frequently, misguided individuals are resorting to violence and violation of the law. Communities are faced with rising crime rates. Local, State, and Federal Government have a right and a duty to know when a person has a legal record of violation of the law which, under the law, would deny him certain rights or benefits. They should be able to ascertain these matters quickly.

There are always some problems of accuracy and confidentiality with such records, especially when automated. It is not the carefully designed individual law enforcement data banks which concern the public. Rather, the subcommittee study is revealing that data programs which have aroused the most apprehension recently are those

Which bear on the quality of first amendment freedoms by prying into those protected areas of an individual's personality, life, habits, beliefs, and legal activities which should be none of the business of Government even in good causes;

Which are unauthorized, or unwarranted for the legitimate purpose of the agency;

Which keep the information they acquire too long, and which by the very retention of unknown data may intimidate the individual subject;

Which are part of a network of data systems;

Which make little, if any provision for assuring due process for the individual in terms of accuracy, fairness, review, and proper use of data, and thereby may operate to deny the individual rights, benefits, privileges, reputation, which are within the power of government to influence, grant or deny.

There is growing concern that the zeal of computer technicians, of the systems planners, and of the political administrators in charge of the data systems threat