Surveillance of civilians

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32540, 25 February 1971, Page 11

Surveillance of civilians

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

WASHINGTON, Feb. 24.

A Senate inquiry into official—and unofficial—surveillance of civilians, said to be threatening to turn the United States into a George Orwell nightmare, will concentrate today on military intelligence and Army investigators.

A Congressional panel seeking ways to curb an invasion of individual privacy will heat at least four Army agents report on their spying activities at a second day of hearings.

The sub-committee on constitutional rights is expected to sit for nine days. The hearings were called because of mounting complaints to Congress over the growth of Government and private records on individuals, said the chairman, Senator Sam Ervin.

A Michigan university law professor told the panel yesterday how a proliferation of public and private dossiers threatened to make the spectre of Orwell’s novel “1984” and its “Big Brother is watching you” philosophy a reality. Professor Arthur Miller, a specialist in legal problems

created by computers said: “In 1971 we are at 1984 minus 13 and counting Americans may well be the subject of 10 to 20 dossiers each. We are dangerously near to a record-prison psychology in this country.” Senator Ervin (Democrat North Carolina) said that people were concerned because they were “constantly being intimidated, coerced or pressured into revealing information to the wrong people, for the wrong purpose, at the wrong time.” Still fresh in the public’s mind were dislosures last year by former Army agents that they engaged tn widespread spying on anti-war and civil rights groups, prominent public personalities and members of Congress. Among those called to testify today are a former captain in Army intelligence, a former agent of the Army counter-intelligence analysis branch, and at least two former agents. The Defence Secretary (Mr Melvin Laird) who has said that he is greatly concerned about widespread surveillance of civilians by the Army, last week announced a reorganisation of military counter-in-telligence and investigatory work.

Mr Laird named a highlevel board of Pentagon civilians to oversee domestic in-

telligence activities and limited the responsibility of the joint Chiefs of Staff to foreign spying. Senator Ervin outlined the theme of today’s inquiries when he said the Army’s use of a computer in connection with its surveillance of civilians “illustrates the dangers of complacency in permitting the establishment of such an intelligence-data system without proper control to protect the individual.”

He also accused some Federal agencies of filing misleading and evasive reports in replying to a sub-committee questionnaire seeking details on how they dealt with information they gathered from members of the public. One example: An Army captain, on hearing of the panel’s planned investigation last month, issued a directive warning against the release of files, records and information to Congress, the senator said.