(8) Finally, since its members are being injured, the California Bankers Association has standing to assert their constitutional rights (Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727 (1972)). In addition, the CBA has standing to assert the constitutional rights of its members' customers. Those rights are fundamental and the banks appear to be the only parties affected by the Act's recordkeeping requirements in a position to assert this constitutional challenge. See Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438 (1972).

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I sincerely hope that we can start a new trend in Congress. A trend that will result in our protecting American citizens' privacy instead of violating it, a trend that can only be accomplished by less Federal control and intervention.

Mr. GOLDWATER. I thank the gentleman. He is absolutely right. It is time for the farmers and the American people to review this procedure, to look where we are going. The technological age has brought many rapid advances in many areas of our lives. One of the great areas is in the multitudinous use of computer technology to record information about individuals,

It reminds me of the same situation that occurred with supersonic transportation. At one time we were building supersonic transportation at such a rate until we had to stop and say, "Where are we going? What effect does this have on human life?"

I think we have to do that in the area of computers in this technological age and stop and say, "Where are we going in our personal lives?"

This commitment by the Congress is a good one. I congratulate my colleague for his contribution in his area of expertise.

Mr. ROUSSELOT. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield further?

Mr. GOLDWATER. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. ROUSSELOT. I know the gentleman has worked long and hard on this subject. It has taken some time for all the Members to gather together the information on this sweeping matter of rights.

Mr. GOLDWATER. Mr. Speaker, if I might also mention to my friend, the gentleman from California, not only his interest in the census data, but the fine contribution of a former colleague, Mr. Jackson Betts, made many years prior to our involvement. Certainly he paved the way and aroused our interests and our concern. I think we all owe him a compliment for his contribution.

Mr. LAGOMARSINO. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. GOLDWATER. I yield to my friend and colleague, the gentleman from southern California (Mr. Lagomarsino).

(Mr. LAGOMARSINO asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. LAGOMARSINO. Mr. Speaker, I commend my very good friend and colleague from California and from my own county, Mr. Goldwater; Mr. Koch, the gentleman from New York, and others who are bringing this special order to our attention and allowing us to participate in it. I do not think there is any subject the American people are more concerned about and want us to do something about than this question.

Mr. Speaker, more than 2,400 years ago, the Greek orator Pericles noted that one of the hallmarks of a free society is "mutual toleration of private conduct." The common law precept that a man's home is his castle, finds expression in the English Magna Carta. And our own Constitution guarantees the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses papers, and effects.

Despite this admirable, and nonpartisan, historical commitment to privacy as a prerequisite of free society, we find ourselves today facing a very real threat to this right. The challenge comes not from without, but from within. Our own technology threatens to render the guarantees of our constitution useless. And unless we act now, just as our forefathers did and their fathers before them, we may find ourselves the slaves rather than the masters of our modern information systems.

Mr. Speaker, I have some Greek antecedents, but I have more Roman blood, and I remember from my history books what happened when the Roman Empire became topheavy with bureaucracy and red tape. It collapsed of its own weight. and became ripe pickings for renegades. This issue is not a partisan issue. It transcends ideologies. It goes to the root of what governments are created to do. Our Republican form of Government was created to do those things that the people find difficult to do for themselves, and no more. The people, whom we serve, have reserved to themselves all other rights and authority. And when Government. or any private group, gains such power over the private conduct of its citizens that by its very operation it threatens their security, then it is time to act.

The people of California 2 years ago enacted an amendment guaranteeing their right to privacy. I believe they did this, not because they wanted an increase in criminal activity, obviously, but because they wanted a decrease in governmental activity. In our society, where an honest man's word is his reputation, where a presumption of innocence is the law, perpetual surveillance is anathema. And when it is conducted on a pervasive scale, often without even the knowledge of the people or an opportunity for challenging an individual dossier, then the time has come to sound the alarm.

I believe the Congress should act now to renew the commitments made in the Constitution and in our laws for the right of free citizens to be secure. Secure in their persons, in their houses, papers and effects, and in their private lives. If we do not make this commitment, if we do not act now to gain control over the paper bureaucracy, public and private, which is beginning to pervade our lives, we will wake up, 2,400 years after Pericles set out the limits of Government interference in private affairs, in the year 1984. Let us pray that day never

comes.

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from California (Barry M. Goldwater, Jr.) is working steadfastly to restore rights of privacy in America. He recently spoke before a seminar sponsored by the National Bureau of Standards. I include his remarks.

[The remarks follow:]

SPEECH BY CONGRESSMAN BARRY GOLDWATER, JR. TO NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS COMPUTER SECURITY CONFERENCE

A distinguished former colleague of mine, Congressman Jackson Betts, who was one of the pathfinders in promoting legislation to protect privacy, once said: "Privacy is not simply an absence of information about us in the minds of others; rather, it is the control we have over information about ourselves. I am pleased to be a congressional participant in the conference sponsored by the Institute for Computer Sciences and Technology, here today.

Since coming to Congress almost five years ago, I have become increasingly concerned about the growing menace privacy invasion poses to the American citizen.

Early last year, I decided to initiate certain proposals to assure the American citizen that he would indeed have control, as mentioned by Congressman Betts, over information compiled and retained about him.

An initial report was to work very closely with the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare prior and after the release of the very extensive HEW study entitled "Records, Computers, and the Rights of Citizens". This report was released last July.

I am most impressed with this study, and in order to carry out its specific recommendations, I introduced two bills.

One, "The Freedom of Information Act", H.R. 11275, is basically aimed at accomplishing the following three objectives:

(1) To guarantee individuals the right to find out what information is being maintained about them in computerized systems and be able to obtain a copy of it upon demand.

(2) To allow a person to contest the accuracy, pertinence, and timeliness of any information in a computer-accessible record about him.

(3) To require record-keeping organizations to inform individuals on request of all uses made of information being kept about them in computerized files. Shortly after introducing this bill, I joined with Massachusetts Governor Francis Sargent, Senator Edward Brooke, and Congressman Michael Harrington, in an administrative petition with the Justice Department, which asked former Attorney General Elliot Richardson to terminate operation of the F.B.I. administered offender files, which are a part of the National Crime Information Center, until he has issued formal regulations to safe-guard the rights of individual citizens.

Additionally, I introduced a bill to amend the Social Security Act, that would give each individual in this country the right to refuse to disclose his or her social security number. Then too, organizations with the authority to use the number would be prohibited from disclosing the number to organizations that lack such authority.

This legislation is designed to prevent the social security number from becoming a "standard universal identifier" that can be used by computers to track all the errors, omissions, and/or sins of an individual from cradle to grave.

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