honored and sacred institution in this country. If it is to survive in an era of ever expanding computer technology, we must take steps to insure that frivolous and unreasonable demands for personal information are not placed upon individuals by private institutions and governments. Efforts must likewise be made to make certain that personal data, once collected, are used only for legitimate purposes made known to the individual at the time such data is furnished.

Proponents of individual privacy will be glad to know that the Subcommittee on Census and Statistics, of which I am chairman, has begun an in-depth study of laws and regulations relating to the confidentiality of statistical data collected by various Government agencies, with a view toward ascertaining whether such laws and regulations adequately protect individual privacy. Initial efforts in this study are being directed toward developing a compendium of existing confidentiality rules and regulations—something which does not exist at present. We intend to make this compendium available in the form of a House report. Should study of the compendium indicate a need for hearings and/or legislation, I shall not hesitate to take the appropriate action.

It is my sincere hope that this effort will serve to assure that personal information located in Government files will not be misused.

Mr. PODELL. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be participating in this special order. The question of privacy is one of great importance to me, not only as a legislator. speaking for my constituents, but as an individual trying to make a secure life for myself and my family. I am not for a moment deluded by the thought that I, simply because I am a Member of this distinguished body, am therefore protected from abuses of my privacy. On the contrary, it is because I hold the position in life that I do, that I know how very vulnerable this precious right is to abuse and infringement by both the Government and private industry.

I could no doubt tell you any number of horror stories about men and women whose lives were ruined by errors in reporting their past histories by firms specializing in such work. It is most difficult to accept the need for these firms in a complicated industrial society that runs on credit, because many of these firms abuse their privileges.

True, we must know if a person is credit worthy, if he can pay his bills and if he is making enough money to meet his mortgage payments. But do we really have to know about his living habits, or whether he can get along with his neighbors, or even what brand of cigarettes he smokes? What does any of this have to do with being credit worthy?

The problem is one that grows each time you write a check or use your credit card. Banks are now required to keep records of each and every transaction you make, and the Federal Government has access to these records without you ever knowing about it. This is a law that we passed not too long ago, and which the President signed, and which the Supreme Court of the United States upheld only yesterday.

Surely this violates our privacy in conducting our own business transactions, but the Supreme Court does not think so, and there is no provision in the law for protecting your right to the privacy of your own bank records.

If you belong to the Book-of-the-Month Club or hold a Bank Americard, you have unwittingly made yourself eligible for the honor of receiving hundreds of pieces of unwanted mail every year-junk mail. Your name and address have been bartered and sold, like common merchandise, to direct mail advertising companies, and you get nothing from it but higher postal rates and an invasion of your personal privacy.

Your life could be ruined, absolutely and beyond repair, by a faulty report by a firm such as Retail Credit Bureau of America, which is under no obligation whatsoever to make sure that the data it has on you in its dossier-and you can be sure that this firm, or another one just like it, does have a dossier on youis correct or up to date.

True, you have the right to request to see your record, but in getting your record you are put into a double blind situation. You must supply the company you are seeking disclosure from with your name, address, social security number, current address, past addresses for the last 5 years, and with similar information for your spouse. If they did not have much information on you before you made the request, simply by the act of making the request they will have enough to complete the rape of your privacy.

There is a distressing trend in this country to forming data banks. Such banks already exist for medical information, and are being formed for information on criminal records. These banks are being formed right now, and so far there is no

way of controlling their formation or regulating their use. There is no way of making sure that they will not be subject to abuse, and there is no way of requiring them to be accurate in their information.

In short, we are silently looking on as institutions are being set up which will throw a shadow of big brother over the land.

Privacy is a precious right, and as such must be guarded diligently. We can never be too secure in our right to privacy, and there can never be too many laws enforcing our security in this right. The great misfortune of our society is that there are not enough such laws, and as a result, the average citizen, the consumer, the wage-earner, is at the mercy of big Government and big business. They know more about him and his family than he may know himself, and everything they know can and will be used against him. They are under no obligation to make sure their information is correct, nor are they under any obligation to inform the persons involved that they are part of a statistic in a data bank, or a file in a credit bureau.

The Federal Government seems to be running to excess in ways to invade our personal privacy, and the Supreme Court does not seem to be ready or willing to curb this distressing tread. The President's Commission in Privacy is a step in the right direction, but it will be a long time before that Commission produces any concrete results, and I fear that the President will ignore the recommendations of this Commission as he has the recommendations of so many other commissions set up by him in the past.

Therefore it comes down to the Congress. The responsibility is ours. If we do not take positive action, and take it immediately, to safeguard the right of each and every citizen to be secure in the privacy of his home, and in his business transactions, there will be no right of privacy left for us to safeguard.

I am taking this opportunity to introduce a piece of legislation which I hope will serve to curb some of the abuses we have been discussing here today. It is a bill designed to control the sale of names and addresses to companies that compile mailing lists for the purpose of direct mail advertising.

It requires the written permission of any individual whose name and address is sold for use on such a list. This will be one among many bills designed to increase the degree of privacy we now enjoy, and I feel that this is an essential element in safeguarding that right. For if our right to control the use of our names and addresses is taken away from us, how can we ever be secure in our God-given right to personal privacy?

Mr. CHARLES H. WILSON of California. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate today in the special order requested by the gentleman from New York (Mr. Koon) on the subject of privacy. On December 13th of last year, I spoke in support of House Resolution 633 to establish a Select Committee on Privacy. However this jurisdictional matter is settled, whether by Select Committee or Subcommittee, I must stress the need for Congress to fully evaluate the effects of technology on the operations of government, on the democratic institutions and processes basic to the United States, and on the basic human rights of all our citizens. While technology is advancing at an unparalleled rate and influencing every aspect of American life. I feel that Congress has not taken the time to first understand and then to possibly set legislative guidelines controlling such applications of technology.

I might add that it is indeed ironic that the Nixon administration which has seen no need for an investigation of the U.S. citizen's right to privacy, now embraces this particular issue-perhaps 5 years too late.

During the previous Congress, I had the honor to chair the Census and Statistics Subcommittee of the House Post Office and Civil Service Committee. Our subcommittee explored in great deal the methods and procedures used by the Census Bureau in taking the 1970 Census. We were particularly concerned about the plethora of detailed questionnaires from the Census Bureau and other departments and agencies of the Federal Government which our citizens are required to answer. While I recognize the real need by the Government to obtain this data which will help to justify, continue, and support programs that benefit the entire community, it is doubly important to ensure that people's privacy is protected so that they do not rebel against the information gathering process and refuse to cooperate in future censuses and questionnaires.

I have therefore introduced H.R. 7762, which would amend title 13, United States Code, to assure confidentiality of information furnished in response to questionnaires and inquiries by the Census Bureau. This bill was reported out of the House Post Office and Civil Service Committee on June 4th, and has been

placed on the Union Calendar. The bill would also extend the responsibilities for confidentiality to all officers and employees of the Federal Government. H.R. 7762 is identical to a bill I introduced in the 92d Congress, and during the hearings which I chaired, it was shown time and time again by hundreds of concerned and sometimes irate citizens who communicated with us that they were anxious indeed about the preservation and protection of their personal privacy. But they were only a small sample of a much larger number of Americans who are similarly situated and similarly motivated. Recent surveys had demonstrated to the satisfaction of the subcommittee that an overwhelming number of U.S. citizens feared the regulation of their lives by computers and ancillary electronic hardware.

I believe that there is a profound need for all-encompassing review and recommendations for control of Federal prying and snooping into the private lives of American citizens. Recent abuses by Government prosecutors in the Ellsberg case are perhaps a classical case of the individual's personal rights being violated by an overzealous, all-powerful, and in this case, unlawful bureaucracy.

Mr. Speaker, the time has come for the Congress to legislate greater safeguards to protect the American's essential right to privacy. For, as perhaps the most astute of the framers of our Constitution, James Madison, warned us:

"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachment of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."

Mr. HUNGATE. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to speak today on an issue which reaches to the very fibers of our democratic system-the right to privacy. This right is both one of the most important and most pervasive rights of the citizen, and it is a right very often easily overlooked by a government pursuing one mission or another. Custody of the individual's information resources now seems to be in the hands of unseen and unknown administrators, bureaucrats, and computer operators.

The issue of privacy has been in the forefront of governmental activity for almost three decades now. Concern for individual privacy has long existed in Missouri. In 1959, Senator Tom Hennings of Missouri held hearings on the encroachment of the Federal Government into the privacy of its citizens, which stated:

"Anybody who uses a telephone does so at his own risk and in effect, anyone who engages in conversation surrenders his right of privacy to anyone else who manages to overhear what he says... This probably is sound legal doctrine in any police state. . . but neither the United States nor any of the sovereign States have yet gone totalitarian."

In 1968, his successor in the Senate, Edward V. Long, commented:

"The right of privacy encompasses the freedom of the individual to share or withhold from others, according to his own selection, his thoughts, his beliefs, his emotions, his actions, and his past. It is an affirmative claim to human dignitya claim to an inviolate personality."

His successor, Senator Tom Eagleton, has a distinguished record on behalf of individual liberties, and protection of their necessary adjunct, a free press. Last year, 1973, he introduced the News Source Protection Act, which would assert "The privilege against compulsory disclosure of sources of confidential information is not so much a privilege for the press as it is a privilege for the public." In 1970, many people were referring to the U.S. Census as the "1970 inquisition." A concerned Missouri citizen wrote to Senator Ervin concerning the census:

"In a true Republic such delving into private lives would not even be considered ... Our hope lies with a few men of common sense, such as yourself, and the overwhelming desire of the majority of the citizenry for a return to the precepts of our founding fathers."

It is high time legislation is enacted to begin to guarantee the right of privacy as it rightfully should be. When the next census is taken, for example, we should be interested in counting people and not toilets and televisions.

Recognizing the need of a government for information does not recognize a governmental right willfully and randomly to invade one's privacy and then treat such information as another computer file. On February 19, 1974, I was more than happy to cosponsor H.R. 13880, introduced by our distinguished colleague, Ed Koch. There has perhaps not been a better time in our history to begin to reassert our system's values and to once again guarantee protection for those “unalienable rights" we often treat as mere rhetoric.

Mr. BAUMAN. Mr. Speaker, much is said and written about privacy and the degree to which it is abridged in this day and age. But too little attention is given

to the root cause of the loss of so much of our individual privacy; the inexorable expansion of Federal agencies and bureaucracy.

From the Census Bureau to the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, in scores of Federal agencies and bureaus, the amount and type of personal, private information which is required of an individual by the government is enormous. Many of you will recall a controversy several years ago when the Census Bureau sent out forms to thousands of citizens across the country requiring them to inform the Federal Government, under penalty of law, about how many toilets they had in their homes, and whether they were indoor or outdoor. Many more serious disclosures of personal, private information are required of our citizens daily by Federal edict.

A great deal of legislation has been introduced in the Congress which attempts to minimize the invasions of privacy which these Federal agency requirements produce. But while I would certainly endorse many of these efforts, I believe we should come to grips with the facts that they are a natural byproduct of the size and power of big government. As government has grown, and it has grown at a staggering rate, so too has governmental invasion of privacy.

One who knows well the insatiable appetite of the Federal bureaucracy for personal data is the former Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity, Howard Phillips. Mr. Phillips now directs a project known as Public Monitor at the American Conservative Union, and he has prepared the following brief commentary on the subject of government bureaucracy and the right to privacy. [The information follows:]

BUREAUCRACY A THREAT TO PRIVACY

(By Howard Phillips)

Intrusions on the privacy of each citizen increase as the size and power of government increase. For every "benefit" we receive, there is a corresponding surrender of independence.

A bureaucracy which delivers social services is in a position to insist that the recipients of such services entrust to the agents of bureaucracy even the most personal information about their medical histories and family lives. Students whose education is underwritten with Federal dollars must respond to questionnaires which spell out their inner values and aspirations. Beneficiaries of government-backed credit must fully disclose the records of their financial history. Further, when we rely on government, whether for food stamps or aspirin or legal services, how free can we be to challenge excessive intrusions? If the outreach worker helped us get a hospital bed when we needed it, might we not lose access to future help if we declined to acquiesce in a recommended sterilization procedure?

He who pays the piper calls the tune. Whatever government "gives" in services, it takes away from our opportunity to define the course of our private lives. The government which subsidizes defines the terms on which the subsidy may be provided.

Privacy increases as bureaucratic power declines.

Mr. DELLUMS. Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the gentlemen from California (Mr. Goldwater and Mr. Edwards), the gentlemen from New York (Mr. Horton and Mr. Koch) and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Moorhead) for bringing this critical issue before the Congress.

For it is up to us here in the peoples' branch of Government to act quickly to protect the people of this Nation from the already too numerous encroachments upon their personal privacy.

It is frightening enough for a public official to realize that he is not only under constant public scrutiny, but that many aspects of our private lives are being watched-often illegally-day and night. But when I read of the lists and practices of various means of keeping tabs on millions of our constituents, then I am indeed alarmed about the future of the individual in this Nation which was founded and dedicated to individualism.

Too often we hear the claims that notions of privacy are inconsistent with the needs of a huge, technocratic, bureaucratized society. Yet it is only because we have allowed this Nation to become so huge, so technology-oriented, so bureaucratized that these assaults on privacy have increased.

And so, while I strongly endorse the need for positive legislative action to restore individual privacy, I also warn that this action cannot come within a vacuum-and that we must analyze also what caused the loss of privacy and what

ethical and institutional changes must also be accomplished before we realize this important goal.

Mr. O'BRIEN. Mr. Speaker, one of the most basic rights a citizen has, the right to personal privacy, has fallen to a deplorable state. As Senator Long so succinctly stated:

"Modern Americans are so exposed, peered at, inquired about and spied upon as to be increasingly without privacy, members of a naked society."

This speech was delivered to the Association of Federal Investigators on February 25, 1965, more than 9 years ago.

Since then, private insurance and credit agencies and such governmental agencies as the FBI, CIA, Secret Service, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, and social security have gathered together scraps of information until today, there are dossiers on more than 100 million Americans.

The widespread use of computers with their vast capacity for compiling, storing, and swiftly retrieving these records compounds the problem.

One aspect of the privacy question that has attracted high level attention is the maintenance of criminal history records.

Each year an estimated 50 million Americans are arrested for some violation of the law. In 20 to 30 percent of these cases, charges are dropped immediately. In addition, 2 million of the 8.7 million arrested for nontraffic violations are not convicted.

The arrest information is diligently filed with one or several local, State, or Federal computer data banks. However, the record rarely shows the actual disposition of the case.

This sort of inaccuracy can cost a person his reputation, job opportunities or a legitimate credit rating. Even when a file is sealed or destroyed at one data bank, there is no guarantee that the information is not available at another bank. The reason is that data banks pass information from one to another similar to the Biblical woman who spread rumors like feathers in the wind.

The same problems apply to school records and financial histories that also follow a person through life. In many cases, individuals do not even know these records are kept. Even when they do, the subjects of the files have difficulty gaining access to the file and cannot challenge the accuracy of information it contains. Ironically, anyone labeling himself a “potential employer" or "potential landlord" has easy access and can study these records at length.

Such insidious invasions of personal privacy shake the very foundation of our constitutional right "to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation and to be confronted with the witnesses against" us.

For these reasons, I introduced H.R. 11245 and cosponsored H.R. 9935, two pieces of legislation designed to correct at least some of the abuses of privacy. The first of these, entitled the Fair Information Practices Act, would: forbid the maintenance of secret personal data systems; provide a means for an individual to find out what information about him is contained in a record and how it is used; allow the subject to prevent information about him collected for one purpose to be used for another without his consent; and give the subject a means for correcting or amending records containing identifiable information about him. Furthermore, any organization creating, maintaining, using or disseminating records of identifiable personal data would have to assure the reliability of the data for its intended use and would have to take precautions against misuses of the data.

The second bill forbids inspection of income tax returns by any Federal agency except under a Presidential order expressly identifying the person who filed the return.

As my colleagues may remember, the Secretary of Agriculture was granted permission last year to authorize any departmental employee to inspect a farmer's tax returns to determine the size of his farming operation. Fortunately, President Nixon recently rescinded that permission.

This bill would reduce the possibility of such wholesale examination of tax returns in the future for purposes other than collecting taxes.

These measures would safeguard citizens against snooping practices that reduce life to a fishbowl existence. Therefore I urge your support for this legislation. Mr. BURGENER. Mr. Speaker, one of America's great champions of individual freedom and liberty is Senator Barry Goldwater, of Arizona. He is looked upon as a symbol of leadership and good judgment in Washington. Recently, he testified before the Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights on his concern over the right to privacy in America. It is an eloquent statement. This message should