FEDERAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND PLANS-FEDERAL USE AND DEVELOPMENT OF ADVANCED INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

(Part 2)

TUESDAY, JUNE 19, 1973

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

FOREIGN OPERATIONS AND

GOVERNMENT INFORMATION SUBCOMMITTEE

OF THE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS,

Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to recess, at 10 a.m., in room 2203, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. William S. Moorhead (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatíves William S. Moorhead and John N. Erlenborn.

Also present: William G. Phillips, staff director; Norman G. Cornish, deputy staff director; and Stephen M. Daniels, minority professional staff, Committee on Government Operations.

Mr. MOORHEAD. The Subcommittee on Foreign Operations and Government Information today begins the second phase of its hearings on Federal use of information and communications technology to meet the needs of society.

Initially we will hear witnesses from four different agencies: The Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Defense Civil Preparedness Agency, the General Services Administration, and the Social Security Administration. The first three have been invited to testify today and the latter on Tuesday, June 26.

Our purpose is to examine four quite different information and/or communications systems in some detail. These systems are not similar in primary functions, in size, or in the amount of sophisticated technology they employ. What the subcommittee wants to do, in fact, is to examine a variety of Federal systems which demonstrate how advanced technology can be utilized to improve different kinds of Federal information activities.

At the same time, we will examine what kinds of safeguards are needed in each case to protect against misuses. We want to know how each system guarantees the privacy of individual case files. We want to know what prohibitions there are to protect the public from propaganda.

Each witness has been asked to describe a particular system in brief detail, to explain what kinds of information this system provides to the public, and to describe what safeguards there are to prevent misuse.

In addition, each witness has been invited to comment on the need for interconnecting their system with other Federal, State, municipal, or private systems to achieve greater cost efficiency, to share information, or for any other reason.

Next week and next month the subcommittee will hear another group of witnesses from agencies which provide assistance and/or guidance in the development of Federal information and communications systems. The focus will be on how utilization of these technologies by Federal offices should be planned and how policies should be formulated. Therefore, today's witnesses are asked to address those questions as well.

Before we proceed, I have two brief comments to make:

First, it is important to point out that questions about Federal responsibility with respect to the development and utilization of fast-developing information and communications are not new.

In the past decade there have been any number of studies and reports touching on one aspect of the problem or another. They included three different reports by the House Government Operations Committee in 1965, 1966, and 1967. In 1968, the President's Task Force on Communications Policy published a thorough study.

One other study which has been of special interest to the subcommittee was prepared for the President's Domestic Council in 1971. That study and report concluded that a new Federal initiative is necessary if information and communications services are to be developed to meet urgent national problems. In describing some of those problems, and the systems that might be built to solve them, the domestic council study also raised a number of difficult and even alarming questions in my mind and in the minds of others members of the subcommittee.

The new technology offers great opportunities to serve society; it also offers new opportunities for abuse of the public-for invasion of privacy and for propagandizing.

Finally, I would like to explain again, for purposes of clarification, that the subcommittee is primarily concerned with those Federal systems which serve the information needs of the public.

By this we do not mean just those traditional "public information" services usually provided by agency public information offices. Nor do we mean that information that is provided to the press and media for distribution to the pubilc.

Our definition is much broader. We understand "public information" to be all information communicated by the Federal Governfor distribution to the public.

Now, without further delay, we will proceed.

Our first witness today will be Mr. Robert A. Knisely, Director, Division of Community Management Systems, Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Mr. Knisely will discuss the integrated municipal information system.

Mr. Knisely, will you come forward, sir.

STATEMENT OF ROBERT A. KNISELY, DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS, DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT; ACCOMPANIED BY ANDREW BOOTS, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR FOR HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT SYSTEMS

Mr. KNISELY. I would like to introduce Mr. Andrew Boots, who is my Assistant Director for Human Resources Development Systems. Mr. MOORHEAD. We are happy to welcome both of you to the subcommittee.

I must say, this is an investigatory committee. When we have a quorum present, the oath will be administered to you, as we do always if both of you testify. That is not supposed to be an unfriendly welcome; it is just a practice of the subcommittee. We do welcome you and look forward very much to your testimony.

Mr. KNISELY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. It is indeed a privilege and a pleasure to appear before your committee. While attending the first World Conference on Informatics in Government last October, I was asked by the representative from Cameroon whether computers could, in my opinion, be of use to his government. After some discussion, we came to the conclusion that there was really very little information available to his government and that automating its flow and arranging its sorting would not be useful. For decisionmakers in business and government in our country, the situation is very much improved, but far from perfect.

Genius has been defined as the ability to come to correct conclusions on insufficient information; I do not believe that the complex problems of American society can be solved without automation of information collection, storage, and retrieval. There simply are not enough geniuses to go around.

Government in the United States primarily provides services; it does not build things. Service provision is necessarily informationintensive, as is obvious to anyone upon arrival in Washington, or upon examination of the history of the Xerox Corp. We live in an age of information, and it is choking all levels of government. During the period 1965-70 alone, the number of State and local employees increased 23 percent, a rise which even exceeded the rise in Federal employees-U.S. Department of Commerce.

I have been told that the costs of information handling, both manual and automated, account for at least 10 percent of the formula grant moneys disbursed by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. In fiscal year 1971, this cost was $1.67 billion. There is no estimating the total costs of information handling within American Government; it is almost all we do.

I have a list of the reports which the State of Pennsylvania requires from the local units of government within its borders, and I am assured that although quite comprehensive, it is not complete. There are 193 entries. To my knowledge, it is the only list of its kind in the country.

When the Urban Information Systems Inter-Agency CommitteeUSAC-team asked the chief of the Long Beach, Calif. Police Department how many forms he would estimate were in use in his department, he said he believed there were 250, but would guess 300 to be "on the safe side." The team uncovered 1,089, of which 10-less than 1 percent accounted for one half of the data processing budget.

In Wichita Falls, Tex., a city of less than 95,000 people, the USAC team thoroughly analyzed the information flow within their municipal government, and wrote a report totaling 6,400 pages. I offer you these examples of the "information problem" in American Government at all levels to provide some substance as a backdrop to a part of a sonnet written by Edna St. Vincent Millay in the early 1950's, during the vacuum tube era in computer technology:

Upon this gifted age, in its dark hour,

Rains from the sky a meteoric shower of facts ** they lie unquestioned, uncombined.

"Wisdom enough to leech us of our ill

Is daily spun; but there exists no loom to weave it into fabric * *”

In the USAC program we are confident that we are building that loom. An early model, perhaps, and far from perfect; but the vision is there.

The Urban Information Systems Inter-Agency CommitteeUSAC was formed in 1968 by representatives of several Federal departments concerned with the fact that the Federal Government was paying almost no attention to information technology at the local general purpose government level. They felt that information flows are the sinews of Government and that the individual attempts on the part of cities across the Nation were not utilizing to the fullest the information technologies developed in defense and space work.

The spearhead of this committee was Roderick O. Symmes, then, as now, an employee of HUD. It was agreed that building the capacity of local general purpose government was essential, and that funds should be made available for a research and development program which would assist selected cities to develop full or partial integrated municipal information systems.

In 1969, a very detailed request for proposals-RFP H-2-70—was issued, and 79 cities responded. It was early decided that the best chance for success lay in cities between 50,000 and 500,000 in population. In early 1970, work began in six sites. The USAC, chaired first by Mr. Symmes, continued meeting as needed. Other subcommittees were formed, and Inter-Consortium Panels-ICP's-were established, at which all the people involved in the six projects came together to discuss their progress.

The Federal Government sent out site visit teams, composed of Federal employees and consultants from the various USAC departments, to the cities to observe the projects firsthand. We continue to hold committee meetings, ICP's, and site visits. HUD is the lead agency; the others are Departments of Health, Education, and Welfare; Justice-Law Enforcement Assistance Administration; Transportation; Labor; Commerce, Defense-Defense Civil Preparedness Agency; Office of Management and Budget; Office of Economic Opportunity; and National Science Foundation.

The program operates at an annual level of about $5 million at present. There is a staff of four located at HUD, plus management support contracts with Claremont University, Long Island University, Public Technology, Inc., and the National Bureau of Standards. The USAC has proved to be an interesting experiment in administration. Although sometimes unwieldy, it provides access to the wealth of information and expert help available from 10 important Federal agencies. The representatives on the committee at present are: Department of Housing and Urban Development is represented by Michael H. Moskow, Assistant Secretary for Policy Development and Research.

Department of Health, Education, and Welfare is represented by William Morrill, Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation. Department of Transportation is represented by William Goodman, Director of the Office of Urban Transportation Systems.

Department of Labor is represented by Theron J. Williams, Director of the Office of Management Information Systems.

Department of Commerce is represented by William T. Knox, Director, National Technical Information Service.

Law Enforcement Assistance Administration is represented by Gerald R. Emmer, Chairman, Office of Inspection and Review. Office of Management and Budget is represented by Thomas Snyder, Director, Regional Management Information Systems.

Office of Economic Opportunity is represented by former Lt. Gov. John Crutcher, now listed as a task force member.

National Science Foundation is represented by Harvey Averch, Director, Division of Social Systems and Human Resources.

Defense Civil Preparedness Agency is represented by Gov. John E. Davis, Director, who will later appear before this subcommittee.

The USAC structure has been the subject of study: Dr. Kenneth L. Kraemer of the University of California, Irvine, Calif., describes its functioning in an article in Public Administration Review, September/October 1971 issue. The USAC program was the subject of a lengthy article in the January 1972 issue of Nation's Cities, a publication of the League of Cities and Conference of Mayors. Attached is a table of the Federal agencies and their contributions to date.

Mr. MOORHEAD. Without objection, the various tables will be made a part of the record.

[The tables follow:]