You know I live a life of danger for the FBI.
Keepin' tabs on our nation on the land on the sea in the sky.
But every single night, I'm gonna be a stranger to the world.
Keepin' tabs on our nation on the land on the sea in the sky.
But every single night, before I go to bed, I get down on my knees and thank God I'm a secret agent man.
Secret agent man, secret agent man.
They never made me a number, but they take away my name.
I got one hell of a job to perform for the USA.
Got the responsibility of our nation for security.
But every night and day, I salute the flag and say,
I'm a secret agent man.
Secret agent man, secret agent man.
They never made me a number, but they take away my name.
Greetings. I will be reading this evening on privacy.
Privacy is generally that right which allows a person to be left alone.
It finds his authority in the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution,
which prohibits the government from engaging in unreasonable searches and seizures,
and in the First Amendment, right to free speech.
The connotation being you have a right to speak and not to speak.
My first paper I will be reading from NEXUS, the publication of the Public Interest Computer Association,
the headline, Privacy and Technology.
It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time.
But at any rate, they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to.
You have to live, did live from habit that became instinct
in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard
and accept in darkness every moment scrutinized.
That's from George Orwell, 1984.
Next, I'll read from an editorial which appeared in Info World, April 30th, 1984,
entitled New Privacy Issues.
On the TV show Hawaii 5.0, Steve McGarrett was the tough, hard-driving chief of the Hawaiian state police.
At least once every episode, he barked to his lieutenant,
Dan Oh, give me the name and whereabouts of every man, woman and child in the United States.
We've come to expect large police departments in cooperation with the FBI and other police agencies
to have this kind of information at their fingertips.
The fact that the authorities have access to information about private citizens
is considered an invasion of privacy by some.
Social commentators have taken their cracks at the potential problems.
Books have been written about the dangers.
Laws have been passed to safeguard individuals from an all-knowing bureaucracy.
But few people realize that the issue is being radically changed
by developments that make our previous fears seem mild and comparison.
Our earlier apprehensions were based on computer technologies that are now outdated.
Cheaper and more powerful computer devices will soon put into the hands of small groups and individuals
enough storage capacity for them to stockpile mountains of information on their neighbors,
enough information to rival yesterday's data banks of large institutions.
Soon we will all be capable of storing enough mailing lists on our computers
to bury each other in a blizzard of junk mail.
The potential for pirating information is also being increased by this new technology.
Organizations such as credit bureaus are busy assembling and keeping track
of personal information about private citizens.
Once this information has been assembled, unscrupulous pirates can get into the system and download it.
All they need is the storage capacity to absorb the data.
Hard disks can then hold up to 380 megabytes of information
and can fit into almost any desktop computer now available to handle the job.
That's enough storage space to swallow the name and address of every man, woman, and child in the state of Alabama.
3.89 million people.
If this list were to be printed on 8.5 by 11 inch square space pages,
it would produce a stack roughly 24 feet high.
And that's only the tip of the iceberg.
Storage devices are now being developed that use vertical recording techniques.
These will boost desktop data storage capacity to 3 gigabytes within 3 to 5 years.
3 gigabytes of data can store the equivalent of a paper stack 189 feet high,
the height of a 19-story building.
It's enough to keep tabs on 30.2 million people, more than the population of Canada.
A few years further down the road, new optical recording techniques that employ lasers
will let us store from 2 to 10 times that amount.
And we're talking about computer systems that individuals and small organizations will be able to afford.
With such technological capacity headed inexorably our way,
legislative guidelines on the use of information will be knocked over like a bunch of flimsy sandcastles at high tide.
We may have to abandon the whole idea of protecting our rights to privacy.
At the very least, we will be forced to make compromises in our handling of privacy issues.
It's likely that the new ethic regarding the sharing of information will have to be structured.
It's now 1984.
We all feared Big Brother and his computer.
Instead, we are about to welcome a swarm of little brothers and sisters,
each of us with a vast capacity to store and manipulate information.
What that means for our future is worth examining now.
The next article is from Computer Living, New York, Volume 1, Number 13, June 1984.
It's entitled, Big Brother, Alive, Well at the IRS.
The IRS would be required to share some information in its computer banks with other federal and state agencies
and some large cities under a bill adopted in the U.S. Senate,
but the same safeguards that apply to confidential IRS information
would have to be followed by the other agencies that get the data.
The growing use of computers in government has long sparked fears that their ability to store and remember information
would lead to the misuse of government authority.
Before the computer matching amendments were added to the deficit reduction bill being considered by the Senate in May,
much of the confidential information citizens gave to the IRS went no further.
But under the amendment, state and federal agencies could use the computers to match up income data and IRS data banks
with income information supplied by applicants to various government aid programs.
The computer matching program is expected to save the agencies involved as much as $660 million over the next three years.
Senator Daniel Patrick Monahan of New York tacked several provisions unto the legislation before it was reported out of the Senate
financing committee.
It was his amendment that authorized the IRS to supply income information not only to the state and federal agencies,
but cities of more than $2 million that impose an income or wage tax.
That provision is expected to raise $25 million for New York City over the next two years according to Monahan's office.
Monahan also insisted, according to an aid, that disclosure will be permitted only for the purposes of
and only to the extent necessary in the administration of local jurisdiction income or wage tax.
The next publication comes from the New York Times, dated December 19, 1983.
It's entitled, Loop Hose and Law Raises Concern About Privacy and Computer Age.
Telecommunications experts are expressing concern that the federal wiretap law does not make it a crime for anyone,
whether private citizen, law enforcement officer, or foreign spy, to intercept the millions of messages transmitted
around the United States each day by computer.
The experts who are in Congress, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, and the American Civil Liberties Union,
say that the importance of the loophole in the 1968 law has been greatly magnified in recent years with the increasing use
of computers restoring and transmitting personal business and government information.
Three congressional panels are considering whether the law should be written to reflect the computer age.
A major concern, both in Congress and among the experts, is whether the loophole gives local, state,
and federal law enforcement officers an opportunity to conduct computerized electronic surveillance
without the court approval required for wiretaps.
There's no evidence of widespread exploitation of the law by officers, but John Shattuck,
director of the National Office of the Civil Liberties Union, said, quote,
the issue here is the privacy of communications against secret government surveillance.
The threat here truly is Big Brother, not a group of little kids, unquote.
Some fear that any change in the current law, unless it is done carefully,
could inadvertently increase or decrease the power of law enforcement officers.
The wiretap laws forbid the monitoring of conversations except for law enforcement officers who have obtained a warrant from a judge.
In the age of the computer, however, more and more messages, including those expressed by human voice,
are broken down into digital bits in their transmission, in other words, digitized.
But because of the way the 1968 law is written, the interception of these bits is not a crime
and the police are free to intercept them without warrants.
Most electronic surveillance is passive, making it impossible to measure how much the loophole is being exploited,
whether by the authorities, by industrial spies, by organized crime figures trying to make a killing in the stock market,
by international spies seeking government data, or by curious individuals with a personal computer.
But in recent months, a number of computerized data banks and government and industry
have become the targets of long-distance telephone attacks by amateur computer experts working from their home computers.
In addition, indictments have charged foreign computer concerns with attempting to purchase sensitive details about the products of American companies.
More seriously, perhaps several years ago, the Carter administration announced that it believed the Soviet Union
was using antennas believed to have been set up on its grounds in Washington, New York, San Francisco
to intercept digital information being transmitted in microwaves by business and government agencies.
The Carter administration took limited technical steps to prevent the Russians from obtaining sensitive government data
and ordered the National Security Agency to help private corporations improve their security,
but it never took any formal legal action against the Russians or formally asked Congress to amend the law.
H.W. William Kamming observes, Privacy and Corporate Security Matters at AT&T,
overseer of the Privacy and Corporate Security Matters at AT&T, quote,
as we entered the year made famous by George Orwell's book 1984, Computer Crime is on the rise
and may well constitute a major crime threat of the 1980s.
We therefore are encouraged by the vigorous support current efforts to Congress and the states to enact suitable legislation
concerning computer crime.
We believe that such legislation should include provisions making it a crime to secretly intercept non-voice communications.
We are fighting together with the people of the United States for peace in Nicaragua.
We, the Nicaraguans, want peace. We are already tired of so much suffering.
We are already tired of so much aggression.
Live Nicaragua free.
We are today, on behalf of the coalition,
We are today, on behalf of the coalition, issuing a criminal indictment charging Reagan and other high government officials
with committing war crimes in Central America and in Korea.
These are crimes that were committed by the United States, similar crimes, and never after the war with Germany.
Count one of the indictment charges that Reagan and other high administration officials are planning and waging an aggressive war against the peoples of Central America and the Caribbean.
That the American values that mean most to us should triumph. That the tremendous resources of this nation should be used to provide economic assistance and technical assistance to the people of Latin America and not military aid to bulletin.
I am a member of artists called, I have been involved in the struggle of my whole life.
This is the people of Central America, all the colors, all the ages. We love our country. We will fight to be free. These are the heroes of the revolution.
We are invited to do this. Thank you. You are listening because you are enjoying the struggle to live a long life. Thank you very much.
Can you tell me what this is all about?
The next article was taken from the Washington Post, dated Wednesday, April 25th, 1984.
It was written by Pete Early. It's entitled, Government to Share Deadbeat List with Private Credit Rating Bureaus.
The Office of Management and Budget is putting the finishing touches on a debt collection system that will let federal agencies for the first time turn over to private credit bureaus the names of individuals and companies that owe the government money.
OMB officials aren't sure how many Americans have unpaid debts to federal agencies, but they believe that many of the deadbeats will be eager to pay once they learn that their credit rating could be affected.
At stake is an estimate of $18 billion in outstanding debts. 80% of it is unpaid loans owed to the Small Business Administration and the Departments of Agriculture, Education and Housing and Urban Development.
Individuals who received overpayments from various federal entitlements and assistance programs owe an additional $3 billion.
The OMB project also will give about 100 federal agencies direct computer access to credit bureau records where financial information about more than 100 million individuals and companies is stored.
According to Joseph R. Wright, WOMB director, agencies will use the information to identify individuals and companies that have poor credit histories and to track persons who borrow from more than one agency.
In the past, some borrowers have obtained new federal loans at the same time they were in default on a loan granted by a different agency.
Although the government has had access to credit records for several years, the new system will let agencies tap the records almost instantly 24 hours a day, the OMB said.
The credit program is the culmination of three years of efforts by the Reagan administration, which first had to persuade Congress to amend the federal privacy laws to let the government and the private sector share financial information.
OMB expects the General Services Administration to furnace negotiations negotiating contracts with seven national credit reporting firms within a few months so that the information exchange can begin in October.
Five of the credit firms collect computerized information about individuals. The other two collect credit data about companies.
When Wright first mentioned the project several months ago at a news briefing, he described it as a major example of how the administration will improve the government's debt collection process by using techniques that have been used successfully by private business for years.
But OMB officials recently have been reluctant to discuss the project, saying any publicity would be premature.
Quote, this is just not something that we want to talk about right now, unquote, and OMB spokesman explained last week.
The low-key approach is an abrupt shift from OMB, which has used such gimmicks as a five-foot long check and trash bags filled with hundreds of federal reports to dramatize its campaign against federal fraud, waste, and abuse.
Sources in the agency said the shift occurred in part because some administration officials are worried that the project might be misunderstood and many Americans might become unduly worried at the idea of federal agencies gaining access to large amounts of sensitive financial data.
Most credit bureaus records include information about a person's income and the current status of bank loans, liens, and credit card accounts. Some also include information about divorce records.
Marvin B. Kaplan, a spokesman for the Associated Credit Bureaus Incorporated, a trade association, said the Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act of 1968 prevents such information from being misused.
That law would prohibit the government from reviewing an individual's credit record unless that person was under consideration of a federal loan, contract, or job, Kaplan said.
Law enforcement agencies can examine credit records for other reasons, but they must obtain a court warrant to review anything from the files other than names, addresses, former addresses, and places of employment, Kaplan said.
In addition, anyone denied credit because of a credit bureau report also has a right to review the record and challenge it, Kaplan said.
Despite those protections, the OMB information swap is a source of concern for some.
Credit bureaus have had a reputation for not being the best at keeping these files current and accurate, said Evan Hendricks, editor of the Washington-based Privacy Times Newsletter.
It's the old garbage-in-garbage-out process. Only if the government puts in poor data, it could hurt and haunt a lot of people.
An OMB spokesman said federal agencies will be required to notify delinquent debtors 60 days before they report any debt to a credit bureau, a process that is expected to reduce errors.
The government, meanwhile, will not be allowed to report the person responsible for its biggest uncollected debt, an estimated $26 billion in unpaid federal income taxes.
The next article also deals with the IRS that appeared in the Washington Post, Monday, May 7, 1984.
Also written by Pete Early, under the caption, IRS uses marketing data to find non-fielers.
The Internal Revenue Service, in a controversial test, is using information collected by a private marketing firm to identify persons in three states and the New York City area who failed to pay their income taxes in 1982.
The firm's list estimates that the income of an individual based on such factors as the location and value of his house and the type of car he drives.
IRS officials will use those income estimates to try to find people who didn't file a federal tax return but whose standard of living would seem to require a large enough income to require paying taxes.
The $700,000 test could provide the agency with a much needed method of collecting non-fielers whose failure to pay taxes is estimated to have cost the government $3 billion in 1981,
explained Walter Bergman, Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the IRS for Planning, Finance and Research.
But the test also has upset some direct marketing companies and raises concern among members of Congress.
This could have a damaging effect on the direct marketing industry, said Jonah Gitlis, a spokesman for the Direct Marketing Association, which represents 2,600 firms and has lobbied Congress to stop the test.
The companies are afraid that many Americans will stop allowing their names to be exchanged by magazines and other companies once they realize the list might be turned over to law enforcement agencies.
The three major companies that compile commercial lists announced late last year that they wouldn't sell the IRS any of their lists because they opposed the test, but the agency recently bought a national list from an undisclosed company by going through a third party.
These lists are based on public information and they are sold to virtually anyone willing to pay the price, Bergman said. We are using this information for a public interest. We certainly feel that this test is proper.
The agency is going through tax records from those areas and identifying taxpayers by their names rather than by their social security numbers, which is how the files generally are organized.
Once the IRS has this list of taxpayers, it will use a computer to compare the list with the income estimates. If the list of potential non-filers is extensive, the agency will limit its investigation to 1,200 for each of the regional offices.
Most marketing companies compile lists by loading a computer with such public information as telephone directories, motor vehicle registrations, and real estate sales reports.
They also include information from the Census Bureau, which doesn't identify individuals, but will provide such statistics as the average incomes of families in a particular census tract.
To catch non-filers, the IRS currently uses W-2 forms, which employers file to report their employees' earnings and interest and dividend reports filed by banks and other institutions.
But those documents do not detect persons who don't use banks, are self-employed, or are usually paid in cash.
What I think that these readings show is that while the new and emerging communications technologies, computers included, present a lot of promises, some of which may be fulfilled, some of which may be unfulfilled,
they also pose a threat to everyone's privacy and that the public at large should become involved in the policy process as to what our future privacy laws will look like.
As a man going round taking names, as a man going round taking names, he taking my sister's name and he lived my heart in vain.
As a man going round taking names, as a man going round taking names, as a man going round taking names, he taking my brother's name and he lived my heart in vain.
As a man going round taking names, as a man going round taking names, he taking my brother's name and he lived my heart in vain.
As a man going round taking names, as a man going round taking names, as a man going round taking names, he taking my sister's name and he lived my heart in vain.
As a man going round taking names, as a man going round taking names, as a man going round taking names, he taking my brother's name and he lived my heart in vain.
