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and Monopoly, Senate Judiciary Committee, initiated a probe into the growing consolidation of private data banks. A new inquiry began on May 19, 1969, when Senator William Proxmire, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions, Senate Committee on Banking and Currency, opened hearings to determine how credit bureaus operate, handling of credit information on individuals and how a citizen may correct erroneous reports in credit bureau files.

Thus far, several influential Congressmen and Senators, including Congressmen Patman, Zablocki, Reuss, Friedel, and Thompson (N.J.); Senators Proxmire, Javits, McGee, Magnuson, Nelson and Williams (N.J.) have sponsored bills which would subject commercial credit bureaus to regulation by the Federal Trade Commission and/or the Federal Reserve System. On the basis of early congressional findings it seems reasonable to suggest that unless and until the practices of credit bureaus and similar personal intelligence centers are expurgated from improper collection and use of sensitive data on individuals, federal agencies and their contractors should be barred from purchasing such reports and basing decisions on such materials.

(3) Computerized data systems in the Government within a few years will have the capability of consolidating sizable groups of files into agency or department level statistical centers. Additionally, the resources of privately contracted ADP services lend technical assistance and computer equipment to augment agency efforts. Congress should prohibit (a) any government-wide data bank until privacy safeguards are enacted, (b) the transfer of personal data to government contractors to establish or perfect consolidated information centers, and (c) any department or agency from centralizing automatically retrievable data for use in an integrated system. Certain security agencies could be exempted from such legislation as Congress saw fit.

(4) The protection of personal files in all data systems deserves intensive expert investigation. The National Bureau of Standards' Center for Computer Sciences is an appropriate agency to assist Congress in this project. To date, the inadequacies of privacy protection in a National Data Center are generally accepted by both proponents and adversaries of such an installation. It is disappointing that with all the resources Congress has allocated to the National Bureau of Standards for research into automated data processing, privacy has received such scant attention. A related undertaking for

82. Letter of May 24, 1968, supra note 53:

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We have had no opportunity to testify or otherwise contribute to the problems of database privacy or data communications security. Unofficially, we are aware of classified

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the NBS would be the development of methods to insure accuracy in personal intelligence files, purging irrelevant or erroneous information before it is integrated with other personal data. The Bureau of the Budget could easily exercise leadership through its Office of Statistical Standards as could the Office of Science and Technology, Executive Office of the President which is concerned with the impact of technology on the Government.

(5) "The regulation of technology may be considered the most important intellectual and political task on the American agenda."83 Congress desperately needs technical expertise for oversight of existing government computer activities, to properly review annual requests for expansion of these systems, and to stimulate innovation by the House and Senate for the imposition of limitations on data handling programs. The academic community and private business have important roles in planning public policy for technology. When hearings are held by various committees looking into computer privacy, statistical collection and use, data centers and the like, Government witnesses abound and independent expert testimony is scarce. Neither Members of Congress nor their staffs can claim more than modest technical accomplishments, therefore professors and businessmen must be available to present objective views and counter arguments which are in dire need of airing.

The status of the skirmish to preserve personal privacy in America. can be characterized as in gradual but mounting advance although few tangible results and no legislative outputs exist. Currently, the Census Bureau is undergoing a vigorous attack on plans for the 1970 decennial census. Arthur R. Miller succinctly registered several reservations toward the upcoming population census when he stated:

Id.

These and many other questions must be asked and investigated before the Congress blithely acquiesces in the administrative convenience and necessity arguments of the Census Bureau. Of course it is easier and cheaper to let the Census Bureau proceed according to its proposed plan. But in our country ease and cheapness have never been an adequate justification for circumventing or compromising American liberties and freedoms. If they were, we would have adopted universal fingerprinting work going on elsewhere with respect to the latter problem, with funding supplied by the military and intelligence communities. The Center would welcome an opportunity to involve itself in both problems, but is not currently able to do so on its own initiative because of lack of money.

83. Ferry. Must We Rewrite the Constitution to Control Technology?. SATURDAY REVIEW (March 2, 1968).