FBI Suspect-Tracking Plan Draws Fire

A proposed expansion of the FBI’s nationwide computerized crime files to track suspects under investigation--but not sought for arrest--was attacked Sunday on civil liberties and technical grounds by a panel of computer scientists

The expansion would convert the FBI’s National Crime Information Center (NCIC) from a system based on information in the public record into “an unprecedented type of nationwide electronic surveillance,” according to an advisory panel to the House Judiciary subcommittee on civil and constitutional rights.

FBI Director William S. Sessions recently reached a decision on whether to go ahead with the controversial expansion, and his finding will be forwarded to Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh for “appropriate review,” said Milton Ahlerich, the FBI’s assistant director for congressional and public affairs. He declined to disclose Sessions’ decision.

Discussed Vigorously

However, Ahlerich said civil liberties and privacy concerns weighed “most heavily,” along with operational concerns, in Sessions’ decision. “It was given very vigorous discussion, and everyone weighed in on it,” he said.

At the heart of the dispute is the NCIC, which was created in 1967 as a mechanism for the interstate exchange of criminal justice information and has grown from about 300,000 individual records to about 20 million records on wanted or missing persons, stolen property and criminal histories.

In December, 1987, the NCIC advisory policy board, made up of representatives of some of the 64,000 federal, state and local agencies that draw on the system, recommended to Sessions that it be used for tracking suspects in drug, murder and kidnaping cases for whom no arrest warrants had been issued.

Would Generate Notice

Under the proposed expansion, subjects of investigations would be listed on an NCIC index, and any subsequent query to the computer on such a person would generate a notice to the investigating agency, specifying the current location of the individual.

The system includes a “silent hit” feature that is designed to help safeguard the privacy of individuals on the index. It would not tell an inquiring police officer that the subject of his inquiry is also under investigation for drug trafficking, murder or kidnaping. But the inquiry would give the agency that originally entered the subject in the NCIC tracking file the option of contacting the inquiring officer for further information.

“However, even if the silent hit proposal is implemented, officers could learn of the existence of an investigation in another agency,” said the report by Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, which worked with the American Civil Liberties Union to assess the expansion.

“By entering a query on a particular individual, an officer would trigger a contact from the investigator who created the original record,” the report noted.

Adding investigative files to the NCIC would dramatically change the system, said the report, which was requested by Rep. Don Edwards (D-San Jose), chairman of the civil and constitutional rights subcommittee.

Raise Serious Issues

“It would turn the NCIC from a public record system, which collects and disseminates information already available to the public, into a surveillance system,” the report said. “Such files are not authorized by statute and raise serious constitutional issues.”

Potential benefits to law enforcement from the tracking files “appear to be limited,” the report said. “Investigators may have difficulty locating the inquiring officer, and that officer may not remember the encounter with the subject (which may have been a routine traffic stop).”

The NCIC advisory policy board, while recommending using the system to track persons under investigation in drug, murder or kidnaping cases, opposed using it for organized crime, arson, terrorism and foreign intelligence cases. No official could be reached to explain why the group excluded these categories, but it appeared to be trying to limit the scope of the system’s expansion.

But the report contended that approving of any tracking files would serve as a precedent for further expansion.

Notes Public Concern

“Proponents of new files will select areas of crime where there is widespread public concern,” the report said. “The drug trafficking file was among the first to be proposed, precisely because of that concern. If another issue similarly captures the attention of the media and the public, there will be calls for a tracking file in that area.”

Edwards, who forwarded a copy of the report to Sessions last week, is expected to hold subcommittee hearings on the expansion next month.

Sections of the report were written by James J. Horning, Peter G. Neumann and David D. Redell, all computer scientists and members of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility; Janlori Goldman, an attorney with the ACLU’s project on privacy and technology, and Diana R. Gordon, a professor of political science at the City College of New York.