Page Four THE MICHIGAN DAILY Sunday, Februcry 17, 1974 Pae ou TE ICIANDALYSudaFerury17.17 i i i 1u1 GEO GRADUATE EMPLOYEES ORGANIZATION BOOKS MASS MEETING CHEW REPORT Privacy: Beware, with all these computers, you hae't got much AGENDA: FEBRUARY 18-MONDAY 8 P.M.-UNION BALLROOM 1. REPORT AND RECOMMENDATIONS FROM EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 2. AMENDMENTS TO CONTRACT PACKAGE 3. BEGINNING OF STRIKE VOTE Strike Vote Will Continue the Next Day Tuesday, February 19 at the following locations: Fishbowl (in Mason-Haven Hall) Medical Science Complex Lobby MLB North Campus Commons WHEN POSSIBLE, YELLOW ACADEMIC APPOINTMENT CARD WILL BE USED FOR IDENTIFICATION .-t r .. 7 4' "LET US ENTERTAIN YOU..." SUNDAY MATINEE and SUNDAY NIGHT 2:00 p.m. 8:00 p.m. Tickets on sale at Power Center Box Office Feb. 11-17 (763-3333) Information 763-1107 MUSKET '74 R E C O R D S, COMPUTERS, AND THE RIGHTS OF CITI- ZENS: REPORT OF THE SEC- RETARY'S ADVISORY COM- MITTEE ON AUTOMATED PERSONAL DATA SYSTEMS, U. S. DEPT. OF HEALTH, EDUCATION AND WELFARE. Cambridge: The MIT Press. 344 pages, $2.45. By ERIC SCHOCH IN A COMPUTERIZED society, the right of individual pri- vacy must be measured by the ability of an individual to control the circulation of information re- lating to him/her. Unfortunately, in the rush to create and store personal infor- mation on individual Americans for nearly every conceivable purpose, concern for the inevit' able problems of privacy inva- sion has been left far behind. Files and dossiers containing personal information on specific individuals have existed for thousands of years, but now the vast storage and retrieval capa- bilities of computers have chang- ed the face of such record-keep- ing. As a result, automated per- sonal data systems may well pose the greatest threat to per- sonal freedom yet encountered. Records, Computers, and the Rights of Citizens represents a belated governmental attempt, in the form of an advisory com- mittee study for the Depart- ment of Health, Education and Welfare, to balance the rights of private citizens against the abilities of governmental and private institutions to store and disseminate vast amounts of personal information. THE REPORT recommends the enactment of a federal "Code of Fair Information Practice" for all automated personal data systems, based on the following five basic prin- ciples: " There must be no personal data record - keeping system whose very existence is secret. * There must be a way for an individual to find out what information about her or him is in a record and how it is used. " There must be a way for an individual to prevent infor- mation about him/her that was obtained for one purpose from 603 E. Liberty E DIAL 665-6290 PG Open 12:45 Showsoat 1, 3, 5, 7, & 9p m. i~r r ff7.{\Y. ' . . 1 Se 231 S. State fi Dial 662-6264 Open Daily 12:45 Shows at 1, 3, 5, 7 & 9 p.m. L~II O being used or made available for other purposes without his/her consent., e There must be a way for an individual to correct or amend a record of identifiable informa- tion about him/her. Any organization creating, maintaining, using or dissemi- nating records of identifiable personal data must assure the reliability of the data for their intended use and must take pre- cautions to prevent misuse of the data. In addition, the advisory com- mittee strongly opposed the cre- ation of a Standard Utiiversial Identifier, a system of assigning a unique multipurpose number for life to each citizen, and re- commends that the continual drift of the Social Security num- ber to a status of a de-facto stan- dard universial identifier be halted and reversed. QUCH RECOMMENDATIONS for specific protective legisla- tion come none too soon, for it seems everyone is getting in on the automated data systems act. As former University law pro- fessor Arthur Miller pointed out in his excellent book, The As- sault on Privacy, "in one short time span the existence of the Department of Housing and Ur- ban development's Adverse In- formation File, the National Sci- Countless other governmental agencies and private consumer credit and investigatory corpor- ence Foundation's data bank on scientists, the Customs Bureau's computerized data bank on "sus- security files, the Secret Serv- ice's dossiers on "undesirables," the National Migrant Workers Children Data Bank, the Nation- al Driver Registration Service, and the surveillance activities of the United States Army came to light." provide better services may de- pend on their access to such in- formation. R ETAIL CREDIT companies, which supposedly provide financial data on individuals ap- plying for credit, are notorious for disseminating harmful, inac- curate and irrelevant data glean- ed from anonymous rel~tives, neighbors and "friends" whose reliability and motives are ques- tionable. Yet such cryptic com- ments as "drinks a lot" or "scatterbrained" may contribute heavily to a person's economic standing. Desnite the federal Fair Credit Renorting Act of 1970, it is still extremely difficult for individ- u-Is to ascertain the contents of files on them and effect correc- tinns on misinformation contain- ed therein. An eTen greater threat arises from the national 'criminal his- ers and the Rights of Citizens gives little thought to. the con- sideration that such widespread surveilince activities deny fun- damentd rights while serving little or no function except re- pression. As the advisory committee seems to realize, it is impera- tive that we avoid the possibility of a "womnb to tomb" centraliz- ed data system which would provide a lifetime dossier for ev- ery citizen. Any such proposal will no doubt be couched in terms of the need for efficiency and other noble aspirations. Such argu- ments may well be sincere, but the dangers of abuse far out- weigh the benefits. In terms of protection of privacy, there is a considerable amount to be said for inefficient decentraliza- tion of automated data banks. A 'CENTRALIZED automated personal data system could easily become a "record prison" for countless Americans. The basic American assumption that a person can begin life anew, leaving the past behind, is not shared byhcomputer files. T he recommendations s e t down in Records, Computers and the Rights of Citizens are the standards. by which any protec- tive legislation passed by Con- gress should be measured, and as such deservebthe attention of the general public. Automated personal data sys- tems have become a permanent part of. our society, and can be put to uses that are functional and perhaps even humanitarian. The chances are great, though, that they will lead us straight to an Orwellian future of total citi- zen maniuplation if we leave it to chance and the "good inten- tions" of information managers. With the vast storage and retrieval Ca pa- bilities of computers, automated personal data systems may well pose the greatest threat to personal freedom yet encountered. ma~~~~ . ". rFs.is" 4 " rrmasaemniam a *1smsssam mm a ations keep voluminous comput- er files containing identifiable personal information. The Retail Credit Co. of Atlanta, for ex- ample, holds dossiers on at least 45 million Americans. There are, in some instances, valid uses for such data. Com- panies would seem to have the right of reducing the risk of ex- tending credit to applicants through access to information on their past financial activities. In many cases the ability of var- ious government agencies to tory data bank incorporating the files of the 50 states and the FBI. WHILE THE recommendations in this book, if enacted into strong legislation, may minimize the threats posed above, the ad- visory committee chose to play down a problem of greater im- port: Computerized dossiers on "dissidents" and other supposed "threats to national security". The committee has made a few minor suggestions regarding such files, but Records, Comput- 'GIVE 'EM HELL' Truman: Remember honesty?* PLAIN SPEAKING: AN ORAL BIOGRAPHY OF HARRY S. TRUMAN. By Merle Miller. New York: Berkley/G. P. Putnam's Sons. $8.95. 432 pages. HARRY S. TRUMAN. By Mar- garet Truman. New York: Pock- et Books (paper). $1.95. 634 pag- es. By ADAM SIMMS "He not only doesn't give a damn about the people; he doesn't know how to tell the truth. I don't think the son of a bitch knows the difference between telling the truth and lying." "GIVE 'EM Hell Harry" Tru- man is the author of that blunt judgment of Richard Nixon, and thanks must be given to Merle Miller, who resurrected it in Plain Speaking: An Oral Bi- ography of Harry S. Truman. Certainly it is gratifying to see a former President strip our Em- peror of his pretensions. But it is also sad and frightening to pon- der the ways in which a fickle public so easily embraces a spurned lover after the latest ob- ject of national affection proves unfaithful. Harry Truman, at the height of his public career, was leader of a party that has held the strongest claim to liberal sympathy and affections. His reward while in office was to be reviled as a hack politician and ridiculed as some monstrous accident of Fate when he succeeded FDR in 1945. He was, liberals said, pointing to his unadorned rhetoric and Miami Beach sport shirts, a man with- out style, without imagination. In 1948, liberals either bolted for Henry Wallace's Stalinist-tainted Progressive Party, or held their noses and voted against Dewey. In the 1950s, they opted for Adlai Stevenson, a man of style and sensitivity who lacked decisive- ness. In the 1960s, they swooned over John Kennedy's graceful oratory, and ecstatically joined Lyndon Johnson's Great Society -a road right into the sink-hole of Vietnam. And all the while they beat Harry Truman over the head: for dropping the Bomb; for starting the Cold War; for bog- ging down in Korea. Richard Nix- on has changed all that: Distaste for him makes Harry Truman seem so mellow, so warm, so hu- man. Contrast him with what af- flicts us now-Ron Ziegler's ob- fuscatory fog of "Misspoke", for example - and instinctively one pines for the flat, clipped voice that spoke so plainly. MERLE MILLER is to be cre- dited for bringing Harry Tru- man back into the limelight. If venom and gall you desire, just check the index of his book un- d e r "Nixon", "Eisenhower", "Dulles", "Stalin'", etc.; find the appropriate pages, and read on. Some comments will leave you cackling aloud. It's all good, clean, nasty fun. The problem with Miller's book is that it is unenlightening biography. Mil- ler's original purpose in record-' ing the interviews that make up the book, was to lay the ground- work for an aborted television series. During the year and more that he devoted to the project, Miller seems to have interviewed not only the former president, but also his relatives and most of the populace of Independence, Mis- souri. No one, it seems, had an unkind memory or comment about the man or his work. It is good to know that Truman was so well loved, but a steady diet of instinted acclaim makes for te- dious reading. And, as Miller ac- knowlelges in his introduction, Plain Speaking was never meant to appear in printed form. Only after protracted badgering by friends and publishers did he consent to have his copious notes and transcripts edited; even then, the editing was done by others. DEFORE LIBERALS begin a mass pilgrimage to do pen- nance at Truman's grave, let them read Margaret Truman's long andhrather'disappointing gloss of her father's life, simply titled Harry S. Truman. There is little that is intimate in it, and its critical stance is as thorough- lv adoring as only a loving daughter's life of a father can be. But if one political judgment can be extruded from Ms. Tru- man's book, it is that Harry Tru- man's distaste for Richard Nixon was equalled only by his distaste for liberal politicians and intel- lectuals. Truman was a man who saw no use in agonizing over deci- sions once they were made; a man whose political values were defined -simply as loyalty to friends, country, and party. From the perspective of one who rose to the height of the American po- litical system through the ranks of border-state machine -politics, liberals were nothing but indeci- sive, scheming, deceitful fakers who swaddled personal ambition in webs of airy abstraction. All this sounds like so much midwestern anti-intellectualism, it -..I Tr-T i i but it is not. One surprising and delightful facet of Truman's per- son'ality, which both of these books illuminate, is his life-long penchant for reading, especially about history and politics. His formal education ended when he finished high school, and he was never particularly at home in matters of abstruse ideas and speculation. But wide reading and intimate experience in local and national politics provided him with both a secure percep- tion of American national char- acter and institutions, and an aps preciation for his own limitations. Truman was thus able to ap- point such men as Atcheson, and Marshall to posts of responsibil- ity in foreign policy-an area in which he was not an expert-and to resist and defy the dangers posed by MacArthur7s hubris and McCarthy's witch-hunting in do- mestic politics-the realm which he knew best. PLAIN-SPEAKING, widely read, intellectually humble, person- ally assured: in these days of Watergate and Nixon we need a Chief Executilve like Harry Tru- man-now, more than ever. MARGARET MEAD A warm remembrance by a 'grande dame' BLACKBERRY WINTER by Margaret Mead. Simon a n d Schuster; 296 pages, $2.95. By MARNIE HEYN T READ Margaret Mead's Blackberry Winter: My Ear- liest Years is to be part of a trusting relationship. Her open- ness and insight in examining her life and her values, prompt the reader to make a similar eval- ua tion. Mead's long study of the com- plex interaction of person, val- ues, and culture have given her uncommon insight into the na- ture of ethics and personality. Her well-honed skills of observa- tion make her autobiography a revealing examination of the so- ciety to which she belongs, and' on which she has made an enor- mous and therapeutic impact. In light of the common Amer- ican malaise of feeling without a culture, of feeling apart from history, Margaret Mead's Under- coming into its own. But, in truth, I have to answer, 'No, I belong to my own generation. Because we are now seeing many of the same things, this does not mean that I belong to your gen- eration, as you can never be- long to mine. But I can try to explain, I can try to lay my life on the line, as you speak of lay- ing your bodies on the line.' This is what this book is about and why I have written it." TN PART one she recalls her formative years, from t h ,e earliest memories of people and places through her first m a r- riage and graduate school. Her family moved frequently when she was a child, according to the dictates of her parents' academ- ic lives, and so she learned to make her home wherever she was. "For me," she writes, moving and staying at aiome, traveling and arriving, are all of a piece." unfailing and ungrudging gener- osity. In my life I realized every one of her unrealized ambitions, and she was unambivalently de- lighted. The other was that she was absolutely trustworthy. Mead writes with great sen- sitivity about her relationship with her father - that relation- ship which is especially difficult when both father and daughter are independent, willful, and tal- ented. She acknowledges his de- votion to his family, his work and his colleagues, and grans him his rights as a person, but recognizes her own need not to be dominated by his whims. Mead credits her paternal grandmother, Martha Ramsey, with being the most decisive in- fluence in her life. A college- trained teacher whi was widow- ed early, Ramsev was loirg. feisty, active, and above all er'i cal: "And if the question, 'Wno then is neighbo- i'nto him?" had not been part of my grand- mother's r1iious exerienc it old friends. Although I am not familiar with antirpology or its vernfacular, she communicates her concern for the people she x was studying and her passinn with understanding and apprecia- ting tpeople; the thing which makes her continue her work in the face of ministerial disapp-,v- al and scholarly sneers. And in part three, Mead dis- cusses her own family - h e r daughter and granddaughter. She describes her part in raising these children, irnluding a con- versation with Benjamin S'vk. The section conluaes with an eloquent analysis of loviig a grandchild, and art explanauon of the human unit of time. At a time when many young women are grapplir g with t h e questions involved in trying to be- cam.ect ie naininant in sn- i + ":f 1 i. Dial 668-6416 1214 S. University, Double Feature "DELIVERANCE" with JON VOIGHT, BURT REYNOLDS & THE DUELING BANJOS --- - IQ