PRIVACY ADVOCATES RESIST EXPANDED FBI DATA BANK PALO ALTO, Calif.

For the first time in more that a decade, civil libertarians and
computer professionals are banding together to stop what many
consider a Big Brotherish attempt by the FBI to keep track of
peoples lives.   A Palo Alto-based group, Computer Professionals
for Social Responsibility, has been instrumental in preventing
the  FBI from expanding its data base to include information such
as credit card transactions, telephone calls and airline
passengers  list.

"We need computer professionals acting like public interest
lawyers  to make sure the FBI is acting responsibly" said Jerry
Berman, chief  legislative counsel for the American Civil
Liberties Union.

Mr Berman was part of a panel Saturday at Stanford University
that  went head-to-head with the FBI's assistant director for
technical  services, William Bayse, over expansion of the
National Crime  Information Center (NCIC).    Law enforcement
officials use the NCIC  system's 19.4 million files about 700,000
times a day for routine  checks on everyone from traffic
violators to Peace Corps applicants.

"The FBI would like us to believe that they are protecting us
from the  hick Alabama Sheriff who wants to misuse the system, "
said Brian  Harvey, a computer expert at the University of
California, Berkeley,  "The FBI is the problem."    Not since the
fight to pass the Privacy  Act of 1974 have computer experts,
civil libertarians and legislators  come together on the issue of
citizen rights and access to information.

In the early 1970s, the government's efforts to monitor more than
125,000 war protesters sparked concerns about privacy.  The 1974
law  limited the movement of information exchanged by federal
agencies.

But computers were not so sophisticated then, and the privacy act
has  several exceptions for law enforcement agencies, said Marc
Rotenberg,  one of the computer group's experts on the data base.
Two years ago,  the FBI announced its plan to expand the data
base, and came up with  240 features to include a sort of "wish
list" culled from the kinds of  information law enforcement
officials who use the system would like to  have.

Rep. Don Edwards (D-Calif.) balked at moving ahead with the plan
without suggestions from an independent group, and put together a
panel  that includes members of the Palo Alto computer
organization.

Working with Mr. Bayse, FBI officials eventually agreed to
recommend  a triuncated redesign of the data base.  It drops the
most  controversial features, such as plans to connect the data
base to  records of other government agencies - including the
Securities and  Exchange Commission, the Internal Revenue
Service, the Immigration  and Naturalization Service, the Social
Security Administration and the  State Department's passport
office.

FBI director William S. Sessions could reject those
recommendations,  however, and include all or part of the wish
list in the redesign.  he  is expected to decide soon just how
much to expand the system.

Based in the Hoover Building in Washington, D.C., the computer
system  already fills a room half the size of a football field.
The $20 million  to $40 million redesign will "establish record-
keeping at the FBI for the  next 10 years," said Mr. Rotenberg.
The 20-year-old system has 12 main files containing information
on stolen vehicles, missing people, criminal  arrests and
convictions, people who are suspected of plotting against  top-
level government officials and people for whom arrest warrants
have  been issued.

In Los Angeles, police squad cars have computer terminals
connected to  NCIC data that allow them to check a person's
fingerprints on the scene.     But the system is far from
infallible - and that's what worries civil  libertarians.

One Michigan man, Terry Dean Rogan, was arrested five times for
crimes he  did not commit.  His wallet had been stolen and he was
repeatedly confused with a murder suspect who had used Mr.
Rogan's identification.  Mr. Rogan  sued, and eventually received
a $55,000 settlement from Los Angelesbecause the city had failed
to remove his name from the data base.

"If the informationis inaccurate or incomplete, it creates a
stigmatizing  effect,"  Mr. Rotenberg said.  "If you're recorded
in the NCIC, there's a  presumption of criminal activity."

Mr. Bayse told the audience Saturday that the system is
inefficient and  outdated, and that the FBI wants to improve the
technology to prohibit  occurrences such as the Rogan case.

"We need a new system, if nothing else, to implement internal
security and  privacy controls as a stopper for someone
maliciously trying to take  information out of the system," he
said.

Civil libertarians are not arguing about the system's usefulness,
but many  are wary about the FBI's motives and about safeguarding
sensitive  information.

"Computer systems today are very vulnerable," said panelist Peter
Neumann,  an employee of the SRI International "think tank" in
Menlo Park and member  of the computer group. "There are trap
doors.  Even the best-designed  systems have crackable internal
controls."

The FBI spends about $1 million a year auditing the system to
correct  inaccuracies and has managed to reduce its error rate by
25 percent.   But evey Mr. Bayse agreed that it's not perfect.

"With up to 900,000 queries a day, lots of things can happen
there."   Copyright: Knight/Ridder