A Preliminary Assessment of the National Crime Information Center and the Computerized Criminal...

8/14/2019 A Preliminary Assessment of the National Crime Information Center and the Computerized Criminal History System

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/a-preliminary-assessment-of-the-national-crime-information-center-and-the-computerized 1/85

A Preliminary Assessment of the NationalCrime Information Center and the

Computerized Criminal History System

December 1978

NTIS order #PB-291845



Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 78-600164

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Govement Printing officeWashington, D.C. 20402 - Price $2.75

ii



FOREWORD

In recent years, the application of computer and communicationstechnology to cr iminal jus t ice sys tems has increas ingly drawn the a t-tention of Congress. Such concern is exemplified by requests from theHouse and Senate Committees on the Judic iary tha t OTA undertakean assessment of the Department of Justice’s National Crime Informa-tion Center and the Computerized Criminal History System.

This report , a background p lanning document for tha t assessment ,identifies and analyzes some major issues in the future development of this FederaI-State system. These are: the information needs for admin-

is ter ing cr iminal jus t ice programs and assur ing const i tu t ional r ights ;federa l ism, inc luding d iv is ion of au thor i ty, and cost apport ionment;organiza t ion , management , and overs ight ; the p lanning process , andsocial impacts such as the effects on the administration of justice andthe creation of a dossier society. Many of the policy and technical con-c e r n s d i s c u s s e d i n t h e r e p o r t a r e c o m m o n t o o t h e r m a j o r n a t i o n a li n f o r m a t i o n s y s t e m s b e i n g a s s e s s e d b y O TA i n t h e N a t i o n a l I n f o r -mation Systems Study which addresses , in addi t ion to the NationalC r i m e I n f o r m a t i o n C e n t e r, e l e c t r o n i c f u n d s t r a n s f e r a n d e l e c t r o n i cmail.

The fo l lowing background report was prepared by the Off ice of

Te c h n o l o g y A s s e s s m e n t w i t h t h e a s s i s t a n c e o f a n a d h o c i n t e r -d isc ip l inary working group of exper ts in law, publ ic adminis tra t ion ,S t a t e a n d l o c a l c r i m i n a l j u s t i c e a n d l a w e n f o r c e m e n t , c o m p u t e rsciences, civil liberties, and other related areas.

RUSSELL W. PETERSON

D i r e c t o r

. . .

111



OTA Project StaffNational Crime Information Center’sComputerized Criminal History System

Iram J. Weinstein, Project Director

Marcia J. MacNaughton Phil Hirsch

Barbara Balbiani Liz Emanu el

Robert F. Daly, Coordinator

OTA Publishing Staff

John C. Holmes, Publishing Officer

Kathie S. Boss Joanne Heming

Working Group MembersAdam D’AlessandroActing Deputy CommissionerNew York State Division of Criminal Justice

ServicesAlbany, N.Y.

Jerry J. BermanLegislative CounselAmerican Civil Liberties UnionWashington, D.C.

Donald G. IngrahamOffice of the District AttorneyOakland, Calif.

Steve KolodneyExecutive DirectorSEARCH GROUP,

‘ Sacram ento, Ca lif.

Kenneth LaudonProfessor

Inc.

John Jay College of Criminal JusticeNew York City, N.Y.

Charles ListerAttorney at lawCovington & BurlingWashington, D.C.

Michael D. MaltzProfessor, Department of Criminal JusticeUniversity of Illinois at Chicago CircleChicago, Ill.

Jeffrey A. MeldmanProfessorSloan School of ManagementMassachusetts Institute of TechnologyCambridge, Mass.

Brian RuderInformation Science LaboratorySRI InternationalStanford Research Institute

Menlo Park, Calif.

James J. ZurawskiAssistant Deputy SuperintendentResearch, Development, and Data Systems

DivisionChicago Police DepartmentChicago, 111.

David T. StanleyConsultantVienna. Va.

Note: The working group members provided advice and critique,but d o not n ecessarily approve, disapprove, or end orsethe rep ort, for wh ich OTA assumes full responsibility.

v



CONTENTS

Chapter Page

1. Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......... 3

2. Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ........ 7National Crime Information Center System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7Committee Requests. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8History and Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9The Present Situation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

3. Issu es . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. .. .. ... .. 17

Information Needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17Criminal Justice Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17Constitutional Rights.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Federalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25Division of Authority. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Cost Apportionment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27Organization, Management, and Oversight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Management Responsibilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29Oversight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31Managing Agency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

The Planning Process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35Participation in Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35Technical Alternatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37Transition Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Social Impacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44Effects on the Criminal Justice System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44The Dossier Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46Privacy and Civil Liberties Trends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Appendix A—Letters of Request . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Appendix B—Pertinent Excerpts From the Department of Justice Report . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Appendix C—Chronology of CCH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Appendix D—Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

vii



CHAPTER 1

Summary



CHAPTER 1

SummaryT h e N a t i o n a l C r i m e I n f o r m a t i o n C e n t e r

(NCIC) is a nationwide information network operated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation(FBI) since 1967 which provides criminal justiceagencies throughout the country with access toinformation on stolen vehicles and other stolenproperty, wanted persons, and missing persons.In 1971, a Computer ized Criminal His tory(CCH) file was added, containing records of in-dividual offenders’ criminal histories. The CCHprogram has been s low to develop; only 12States and the Federal Government contributerecords to the system.

Although questions have been raised regard-ing the effectiveness of the entire NCIC net-

work, CCH has been the most controversial as-pect of the system. The controversy over CCHhas focused on the question of whether the FBIshould be authorized to provide a message-switching serv ice to route inquir ies and re-sponses regarding criminal history informationbetween States. However, this question rests onbroader issues, including the system’s potentialimpact on constitutional rights of citizens andon the relationships between the Federal andSta te governments in the adminis tra t ion of criminal justice. The possible longer term im-pacts of the system on society, both desirabIe

and undesirable, have also been the subject of speculation. Because of these and other majorconcerns, the Office of Technology Assessment(OTA) was asked by the Judiciary Committeesof the House and the Senate to undertake anassessment of the NCIC system, with emphasison the CCH portions.

This report is the result of a preliminary effortby the OTA staff and an ad hoc working groupof experts to assess the critical issues raised byCCH and to identify the important questions re-garding each issue. As a preliminary effort, the

document systematically identifies issues butdoes not try to answer the questions they raise.

Although CCH has been the subject of numer-ous studies, conferences, and hearings, there isonly limited information regarding the ways in

which law enforcement and the criminal justicedecisionmakers as well as other government andprivate individuals and the press make use of criminal history information, its benefits, thevalue of nationwide access to this information,and the value of rapid access. Even more limitedis information on the quality of criminal historyrecords in terms of completeness, accuracy, andcurrency, and the effects of inadequate qualityon decisionmaking and constitutional rights of individuals involved. It must be recognized thatcomputerization can eliminate certain kinds of errors which plague manual records. No com-puterized information system is perfect. Since,with computers, increased transaction volumesare to be expected, the potential for harm fromd i s s e m i n a t i o n o f i n a c c u r a t e o r i n c o m p l e t erecords also increases.

Much better information is needed concern-ing these and other questions raised in the reportin order to make assessment and evaluation of the policy alternatives regarding CCH.

Because of the decentralized nature of theU.S. criminal justice system and because thegeneration and use of criminal history informa-tion occurs mostly at the State and local levelsof government, the States have a primary stake

in establishing standards and procedures for thekeeping and dissemination of criminal historyinformation. On the other hand, minimum na-tional standards also are required for an in-terstate CCH system. Attempts at comprehen-sive Federal legislation to control the collectionand dissemination of criminal justice informa-tion have failed to produce legislation or a con-sensus as to how authority for this importantarea of control of the system should be allocatedbetween the States and the Federal Government.The lack of resolution of this issue is a veryserious obstacle to the successful development

of CCH. This federalism issue underlies issuesraised in the report with regard to management,oversight, and planning process for the system.

The role of the FBI as a manager of the CCHsystem should be raised as an issue for further

3



examinat on. By some standards, the FBI is uni- local criminal justice agencies. The history of quely qualified to run the CCH program; theyhave the cooperation and respect of law enforce-ment agencies throughout the country; theyhave an extensive f ingerpr int ident i f icat ionfunction, which is necessary to support effectiveuse of CCH where identity is in question; andthe transfer of the CCH system to some otherGovernment agency might be viewed with great

alarm by the law enforcement community. Byother standards, and in light of changing publicattitudes towards privacy, civil liberties, andgovernmental controls, the FBI is placed in aposition of great conflict of interest in bearingthese records management responsibilities in ad-dition to its primary investigatory responsibil-i t ies. An argument can be made that higherpublic confidence would be attained by placingCCH operations in a more neutral agency.

The Computerized Criminal History system isnow undergoing an extensive review in Con-

gress, in the Justice Department, and in theStates. Thus an important and immediate issueis how to accommodate the needs and interestso f the va r ious l eve l s o f government , t heC r i m i n a l J u s t i c e C o m m u n i t y , a n d o t h e rstakeholder groups in the planning process.Al though some Federal agencies use i t , theessence of the CCH system is that pr imarysources and users of the data are the State and

CCH development has shown the importance of the States participation in the planning process.It is questionable that a blueprint for a workablesystem can be created without their playing adirect, perhaps even principal role in the plann-ing, including participation by a cross-section of in terest groups who wi l l be affected by thesystem.

In rethinking the CCH system, a number of technical system alternatives should be con-sidered. Alternative approaches to managingmessage traffic are available that might relievesome of the concerns raised about the FBI mess-age-switching plan, while raising questions of thei r own regarding costs and audi tabi l i ty.Again the federalism issue is important. Thosewho see the responsibility for maintaining anddisseminating criminal history records as fallingpr imar i ly wi th the States argue for v iewingCCH as many different State systems with aneed to exchange information, not necessarilythrough NCIC. Those who see a strong need forFederal oversight and Federal standards for in-formation dissemination argue for a centrallymanaged system.

In a future full-scale assessment, OTA will ex-amine these issues, the policy alternatives avail-able , and thei r long-range impl icat ions forsociety.

4



CHAPTER 2

Background



CHAPTER 2

Background

NATIONAL CRIME INFORMATION CENTER SYSTEM

The National Crime Information Center(NCIC) i s a n a t i o n a l s y s t e m , m a n a g e d a n doperated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation(FBI) which uses computers and telecommunica-tion technology for transferring and sharingcr iminal jus t ice information among Federa l ,State, and local agencies. The center is physical-ly located in the FBI’s computer facility inWashington, D.C. and includes a telecommuni-c a t i o n n e t w o r k t h a t r e a c h e s a u t o m a t e d o rmanual teletype terminals in all of the .50 States,the District of Columbia, Canada, Puerto Rico,and some large cities. The service of NCIC isfree to the participating States and the funds forit come from the FBI’s authorization.

In addition to the Computerized CriminalHistory (CCH) system, which is the subject of this report, NCIC has eight files containing in-formation about wanted persons, missing per-sons, stolen vehicles, and other missing proper-ty. The summary information in these files isavailable online in response to inquiries fromlaw enforcement agencies throughout the coun-try. Confirmation of the validity of the data andfurther details must be obtained from the agen-

cy that originated the record. Each State has asingle control terminal connected to the NCICcomputer in Washington through which all in-quiries and record updates must be transacted.At the present time, there are well over 6,000law enforcement terminals connected to NCIC,averaging over 250,000 transactions daily.

The CCH file was added to NCIC in 1971,following a successful demonstration of feas-i b i l i t y s p o n s o r e d b y t h e L a w E n f o r c e m e n t

Assistance Administration (LEAA). Originallyconceived as an index file, pointing to recordsheld in State repositories, the system, as im-plemented in NCIC, stores full details of crim-inal records that are supplied by the States andthe Federal Government.

The CCH file now makes available instantly,more than 1,287,642 1 criminal histories of peo-ple who at one time or another have been ar-r e s t e d o n c e r t a i n f e l o n y a n d m i s d e m e a n o rcharges which have been established as “cri-terion offenses. ”

A f t e r 6 y e a r s o f s l o w d e v e l o p m e n t , a n ddespite heavy Federal funding of State systemsby LEAA, only 12 States in addition to theFederal Government are contributing records tothis national data bank for use by their ownagenc ie s , by o the r S ta te agenc ie s , and byFederal agencies. Two of the earliest States todevelop CCH programs, New York and Penn-sylvania, withdrew from the system in 1974,finding that they could not justify the cost of up-dating the duplicate records held by NCIC.

Despite this slow development, criminal jus-tice practitioners are virtually unanimous intheir view that interstate exchange of criminalhistory information is necessary for the efficientand effective administration of justice. State of-ficials express the view that implementation of CCH has been slowed by indecisiveness andconfusion on the part of the Federal Govern-ment.

‘August, 1978 NCIC Newsletter.

7



COMMITTEE REQUESTS

This preliminary analysis was conducted asan initial planning activity in response to a re-quest for an assessment of NCIC made by theChairman of the House Committee on the Judic-iary, Representa t ive Peter Rodino , and theChairman of the Subcommittee on Civil and

Constitutional Rights, Representative Don Ed-wards .

They were joined in this request by the Chair-man of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary,Senator James O. Eastland, and the Chairmenof two Judiciary Subcommittees, the Subcom-mittee on Administrative Practice and Proce-dure chaired by Senator James Abourezk, andthe Subcommittee on the Constitution, chairedby Senator Birch Bayh.

As part of its legislative and oversight respon-sibilities for the Federal Bureau of Investigation

of the Department of Justice, the House Sub-committee is studying the FBI’s criminal justiceinformation systems. Assuring proper standardsfor these systems has been the legislative con-cern of the subcommittee for the last three Con-gresses. Attention has been focused on cost-ef-fectiveness, efficiency, security, and privacyprotection. In addition, the larger issue of therole of the Federal Government in this exchangeof information by and for local law enforcementagencies has been raised before the subcom-mittee.

In seeking OTA’s help, the House Chairmancites* the technical complexity of nationwidecomputerized information and telecommunica-tions systems, and the Jus t ice Depar tment’swork on a proposal with both short- and long-range plans for the future of NCIC, the FBI’sro le in law enforcement te lecommunicat ionssystems, and message switching generally. Hecites a number of provisions that would neces-sarily have to be addressed in the FBI’s plans forthe future of NCIC: appropriate privacy andsecurity measures and safeguards for constitu-t ional r ights and l iber t ies ; the needs of the

primary users, the States; and the right balancebetween State and Federal control.

The Senate Judic iary Committee has beensimilarly concerned for several Congresses with

the legislative and oversight issues raised by theNCIC, particularly the CCH files. Yet the chair-man notes that it has not had the benefit of athorough evaluation of exactly what informa-tion is in the system, who needs it and why.

In addition to the matters covered by theHouse request, the Senate Committee asks* foremphasis on several issues, including: the im-pact of the interrelationship of many informa-t ion pol ic ies tha t govern the adminis tra t ivepractices of the Federal and State agencies thatuse or are affected by NCIC, particularly by thecriminal history records; the effect of any NCICchanges on other Federal agency users, as wellas others who use CCH/ NCIC files; and the re-lationship of NCIC programs, operation, andcontro ls to the const i tu t ional separa t ion of powers and the independence of the Judiciary.

The Chairman also cited the benefits whichmight be gained from such a study; not only toimprove the efficiency of NCIC, but to helpCongress in its consideration of other proposalsfor applying such technology on a nationwidebasis:

We believe Congress will benefit from OTA’sassessmen t of NCIC. This system rep resents thefirst and m ost imp ortant nationw ide use of com-puter and telecommunications technology tolink Federal, State, and local governm ents, andto apply the technolog y to serious law enforce-ment and criminal justice problems of concern toour entire society. Many of the issues involvedin NCIC are those comm on to any such Federal-State informa tion systems.

An assessment of this large Federal-State per-sonal information system would also partiallyrespond to concerns expresed in 1976 and 1977in letters to the Director of OTA from two dif-ferent Chairmen of the Subcommittee on Gov-ernment Information and Individual Rights of the House Government Operations Committee. ,They have cited the subcommittee’s assignmentinvolving the field of computer technolog y a n dother means of e lec tronic communicat ions ,which flows from its legislative jurisdiction,

q See appendix A. *See appendix A.

8



particularly from the mandates of the Privacy earlier request for assistance on this issue, butAct of 1974 and the Freedom of Information commented “Of equal, if not greater importanceAct. is the subcommittee’s concern over the impact of

The current Chairman, Representative Rich- technological advances in the development of

ardson Preyer, reconfirmed the subcommittee’sgovernment information programs in general .“

HISTORY AND PERSPECTIVESThe CCH information system is rooted in all

the complex h is tor ica l re la t ionships amonggovernments and institutions which have char-acterized our Federal system from its beginning,particularly in the area of law enforcement.

To the extent it is a system, CCH was de-veloped and superimposed over patterns, rela-tionships, processes, and ways of making deci-sions in many hundreds of different politicalarenas in every State. It was introduced into aframework already set by constitutional, statu-t o r y, ju d i c ia l, a n d a d m i n is t r at iv e d o ct r in e s .Although it was meant to be an eventual sub-stitute for the pre-existing slower arrangementsfor sharing information at the Federal level, ithas suffered the drawbacks of operating both asa parallel system, as a supplement to the old ar-rangement, or in competition with it as the oldersystem was developed and expanded with newtechnologies.

For these reasons, the development of theCCH da ta - sha r ing p rog ram appea rs to have

been caught up in the same kinds of politicalstruggles and issues, often with new labels,which have dominated the old relationships.The decision areas for CCH development have,fo r some pu rposes , mere ly p rov ided morepoints of access for those contending forces. Inaddition, CCH has brought into the old discus-sions newer forces with varied professional,economic, and organizational interests in theapplication of information sciences and com-puter and telecommunications technology.

The origin of the application of automateddata-processing (ADP) technology to the ex-change of criminal history records is groundedin the political agendas of the decade of thesixties, where political contenders debated theissues of law and order and proposed differentkinds of remedies for dealing with crime in a

highly mobile society. It was conceived in a timeof considerable social unrest, of protest activity,demonstrations, dissent, and violence, frequent-ly involving travel across State lines for the pur-pose. Law enforcement officials and courts wereoften confronted with multiple arrests whichplaced strains on information and investigativeresources and on the capacity of their criminal

justice systems to administer due process of law.Organized crime elements, active in interstate

commerce raised other public and governmentconcerns. The extent of the day-to-day prob-lems of crime in the community were beginningto show up as information technolog y e n a b l e dbetter crime reporting.

These public concerns coincided with trendsin deve lop ing and app ly ing compu te r andtelecommunications technology to deal more ef-f ic ien t ly and economical ly with problems of government and society. Tandem with this wasthe enthusiasm over the systems approach topublic administration.

These movements and trends flowered in thereport of the 1967 Commission on Law Enforce-men t and the Admin is t ra t ion o f Ju s t i ce ap -pointed by President Johnson. A landmark inthe intellectual history of criminal justice issues,the Commission report recommended applyinga systems approach to those interrelated prob-lems through computer technology. It called for“a na t ional law enforcement d irec tory tha trecords an individual’s arrest for serious crimes,the disposition of each case, and all subsequentformal contacts with criminal justice agenciesrelated to th ose arrests. ”

Following passage of the Safe Streets Act of 1968 , the Depa r tmen t o f Ju s t i ce ’s LEAA,through Project SEARCH (System for ElectronicAnalysis and Retrieval of Criminal Histories),an interdisciplinar y group, sponsored an experi-

9



ment to develop a plan for collecting and shar-ing the records of people involved in the ad-ministration of criminal justice.

The ear ly Pro jec t SEARCH reports on theneed for privacy, confidentiality, and securityin the new systems addressed the social andpolitical concerns being expressed in Congressand elsewhere in the Nation about the ways of

achieving a just and fair society, accountabilityin gove rnmen t , how to p reven t unwar ran tedsurveillance and other invasions of privacy, andhow to combat cr ime effec t ive ly. Pr inc ip leswere laid down concerning data content, rulesof access and data use, dissemination, rights of challenge and redress, and administration.

LEAA began fund ing the deve lopmen t o f State information technology that would enableStates to computerize their files and participatein the system. By congressional mandate, theyalso began developing legislation to provides tanda rds fo r in fo rma t ion sys tems tha t theyfunded. In 1973, Congress amended the SafeStreets Act of 1968 to require that all criminalh is tory information col lec ted , s tored , or d is-seminated through LEAA support shall contain,to the maximum extent feasible, disposition aswell as arrest data where arrest data is included.These activities are to take place under pro-cedures reasonably designed to ensure that allsuch information is kept current; the Adminis-tration shall assure that the security and privacyof all information is adequately provided forand that information shall only be used for law

enforcement and cr iminal jus t ice and o therlawful purposes. In addition, an individual whobelieves that criminal history information con-tained in an automated system is inaccurate orincomplete is entitled to review and correct it.

During the 92d, 93d, and 94th Congresses theHouse Judic iary Subcommittee on Civi l andConstitutional Rights and the Senate JudiciarySubcommittee on Const i tu t ional Rights he ldhearings on the various legislative proposals toset privacy, confidentiality, and security stan-dards for arrest records and for any Federal orfederally supported criminal justice informationsystems.

Testimony included that of Federal and Statelaw enforcement officials and administrators in-volved in many different criminal justice pro-grams; groups concerned with protection of pri-

10

vacy and civil liberties: spokesmen for press,radio, and television interests concerned withunfettered access to information; constitutionallaw experts concerned with accountability ing ov er nm en t; co m p u t er p r o fe ss io n al s; Stateofficials concerned with demands and controlsthat would be placed on standards and uses of computer technology, and particularly on Statecomputer operations; representatives from busi-ness , indus t ry, and o the r o rgan iza t ions whoused arrest records; and many others concernedwith the effects on rights to due process of lawunder current practices as well as the range of possibilities for affecting such rights in futureprograms.

During these congressional studies, accordingto one expert observer, five major issues dom-inated the agenda: z

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

What general rules if any should be set byFederal law to restrict the exchange of c r i m i n a l j u s t i c e i n f o r m a t i o n b e t w e e n

criminal justice agencies?Wha t gene ra l ru le s shou ld gove rn therelease of criminal justice information out-side the criminal justice community?The extent, if any, of sealing or purging of records?What rules should govern the collectionand exchange of criminal justice intell-igence and investigative files? andW h o s h o u l d a d m i n i s t e r a n y F e d e r a lleg is la t ion—the Attorney Genera l or aBoard composed of private citizens andrepresentatives of the States and Federal

Government?The problem of how to set controls on intel-

ligence and investigative information with othercriminal justice arrest records was a particularlydiff icu l t leg is la t ive task . Some congress ionalsponsors of legislation and many witnesses feltthat it would be impossible and unwise to setspecific standards for collection and dissemina-tion of criminal history records without anysta tu tory contro ls on d isseminat ion of moresensitive and potentially damaging intelligenceinformation which Federal and State agencies

maintained about people.The extensive congressional hearings on this

draft legislation produced a high degree of co-

2Mark Gitenstein, address before the InternationalSearch Symposium, 1975.



ernment as the most desirable instrument for controls and sanctions for this kind of systemdemocratic self-government. To others, Federal are the best guarantees for freedom.

THE PRESENT SITUATION

The present situation involves plans for ex- At the same time, the States are preparingpansion of NCIC for message-switching capa- their own positions as to the future of CCH,bility including the CCH records. both individually and through their member-

In July 1973, the FBI asked Attorney General ship in SEARCH-Group, Inc.-

Richardson’s permission to implement message-switching capability that “would allow NCICusers to take advantage of the NCIC telecom-munications network to transmit and receivemessages to and from other NCIC users. ” TheDeputy Attorney General on October 1, 1974wrote the FBI Director “that it was deemed ap-propriate for the FBI to engage in limited mes-sage-switching but that any action to implementthe decision must be preceded by the estab-lishment and approval of an implementationplan.” The NCIC Limited Message-SwitchingImplementation Plan was distributed in April1975. Attorney General Levi did not act on it.FBI Director Kelley requested permission to ter-minate FBI participation in the CCH system.Action on this request was also deferred and theFBI was directed to proceed with decentralizingCCH records back to the participating States.

Members of Congress and concerned subcom-mittee chairmen have been informed that this ef-fort would be based on adoption of a compre-hensive “Blueprint” for a decentralized CCHprogram, and the Justice Department has agreedthat this will be developed with the NCIC Ad-v isory po l icy Boa rd , in te res ted Members o f Congress , Sta te CCH program off ic ia ls , andState identification officials, Justice Departmentofficials have also indicated that the FBI will notbe authorized to perform message-switching un-til the approval by the Attorney General andCongress of whatever “Blueprin t” is f ina l lydeveloped by CCH decentralization.

The Deputy Attorney Genera l s ta tes : “ theDepartment has no preconceived notion as towhat ultimate solution will be adopted. ” “The

goals which we shall be striving toward includeidentifying and implementing the type of sys-tem(s) which satisfy both the spirit of our con-s t i tu t iona l democracy and the needs o f ou rcriminal justice community. ” The Departmentviews these as “fully compatible goals. ”

Reasons for the FBI’s lack of enthusiasm forcontinued participation in the CCH system weredescribed as follows in an April 16, 1976 FBImemorandum: lack of State participation, un-derestimation of costs and effort which wouldbe required to establish, collect, and maintaindata for the more elaborate CCH record format;nonexistent or slowly developing State technol-ogies; a lack of required discipline and coopera-tion within State criminal justice systems; andthe controversy surrounding establishment of

the CCH file which has been disruptive to thegrowth and progress of the CCH program. Inaddition, there have been misunderstandingsregarding the reason the FBI is attempting togain approval for limited message-switching;for instance, it is feared by some that the FBI isattempting to supplant the National Law En-forcement Telecommunicat ions Systems, Inc .(NLETS), and that they would be in a positionto monitor a l l law enforcement communica-tions. The Identification Division has a criminalh is tory record f i le represent ing 21 .4 mil l ionrecords contributed by all 50 States and the FBI,while CCH has records contributed by 8 Statesand the FBI . Mos t S ta te s con t inue to r e lypr imari ly on the Divis ion serv ices and th isdiminishes motivation for taking part in theC CH p r o g r a m . Fi n a ll y, th e r e i s u n c e rt a in t yabout the permanence of legislation and regula-tions to govern NCIC-CCH, particularly thoseon privacy and security.

In the course of this planning process, theDepartment of Justice and FBI officials have in-terviewed and evaluated the views of a numberof State officials and CCH user groups. Excerpts

from their report appear in appendix B.

If some of the issues and questions are old,what is new is this critical moment of decisionfor the future development of the system whichis now faced by Congress, the Justice Depart-

12



ment, and the State and local agencies who usesuch information . Decis ionmakers now arepresented with new opportunities for applica-t ion and rearrangement of the information-processing and telecommunications technologyin the light of changes in our society, in oureconomy, in concepts of federalism, and in thepublic expectations of effective law enforcementwork combined with effective government rec-

ordkeeping and fair use of information wher-ever it affects the citizen.

Changes in jur isd ic t ions of the Judic iaryCommittees and in the congressional budgetprocess mean that for the first time in the debateover the issues, responsibility for substantivepolicy and Legislative oversight is joined withresponsibilit y on the FBI budget. What is new,furthermore, is increased awareness of the needfor careful fact-finding on matters which maydetermine the successful structuring of the CCH

system according to the changin g and va r iedneeds of government and society.

13



CHAPTER 3

Issues



NCIC/CCH ISSUES LIST

Information NeedsCRIMINAL JUSTICE REQUIREMENTS

The requirements of the Criminal JusticeSystem for CCH information are not identifiedsufficiently to support planning and evaluationof an interstate system. (Seep. 17. )

CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTSThe threats to constitutional rights potential-

ly posed b y a CCH system are not sufficientlyidentified for planning and evaluation of an in-terstate system. (See p. 20.)

Federalism

DIVISION O F AUTHORITYWhat authority should be allocated among

the units of government to control the con-templated CCH system in terms of efficacy,legality, and accountability? (See p. 25.)

COST APPORTIONMENTHow shal l the costs of developing and

operating the contemplated system be appor-tioned among Federal, State, and local govern-ments? (See p. 27. )

Organization, Management, andOversightMANAGEMENT RESPONSIBILITIES

Considering the decentralized nature of theCriminal Justice System, wh at sort of manage-ment structure is required for CCH? (Seep. 29. )

.OVERSIGHT

What oversight mechanisms are needed to en-sure that the CCH system will operate in theoverall pu blic interest? (See p. 31. )

MANAGING AGENCYWhat are the requirem ents for an agency to

manage the CCH System? (Seep. 33. )

The Planning ProcessPARTICIPATION IN PLANNIN G

How can the needs and interests of thevarious levels of government, the criminal

justice community and other stakeholder groupsbest be accommodated in the planning anddesign of the contemplated system? (Seep. 35.)

TECHNICAL ALTERNATIVESWhat technical alternatives to the prop osed

message-switching system migh t offer advan-tages wh en the fuIl range of system require-men ts and social concerns are considered ? (Seep . 37.)

TRANSITION PLANNINGConsidering the significant change in criminal

justice recordk eeping th at CCH implies and thelong transition period before it can be im-plemented fully, what aspects of this transi-tional period require p lannin g now ? (See p. 40.)

Social ImpactsEFFECTS ON THE CRIMIN ALJUSTICE SYSTEM

In what ways, desirable, or undesirable,might CCH cause, or contribu te to changes inthe operation or organization of the criminal

justice system? (See p. 44.)

THE DO SSIER SOCIETYTo wh at extent, if any, might CCH contribu te

to the growth of Federal social control, orbecome an instrument for subversion of thedemocratic process? (See p. 46.)

PRIVACY AND CIVIL LIBERTIES TRENDSIs there a conflict between maintaining na-

tional privacy and civil liberties trends anddecen t ra l i z ing re spons ib i l i ty fo r the CCHsystem? (See p. 47. )



10.

To what extent is positive fingerprint iden-tification required before using CCH in-formation in criminal justice decision-making?

What will be the operational impact if iden-tification bureaus cannot respond to inden-tification requests within a few hours.

DISCUSSION

The criminal justice system has operated overthe years with inadequate information, lackingcompleteness, accuracy, and timeliness. It isonly in the last 10 years that any significantprogress has been made towards improving thelevel of criminal justice information systems.

Despite its limitations, the law enforcement-criminal justice community has recognized thegrea t va lue of c r iminal h is tory information ,Since 1924 the Federal Bureau of Investigation(FBI) Identification Division has maintained amanual file of arrests, and dispositions whensupplied, based on records submitted by local,State, and Federal law enforcement agencies.Routinely, but on a voluntary basis, these agen-cies send arrest records accompanied by finger-prints of the individual involved to the FBIwhere a search for an existing record is con-ducted. If found, the record is augmented withthe new information; otherwise a new record iscreated. At present, the Division’s identificationrecords represent over 21 million individuals.When supplied with a fingerprint card, the FBIis able to search its files and determine if the in-dividual has a prior record on file. This majorservice of the FBI is routinely used by law en-forcement. Inquiries and responses are made bymail with a response time of about 2 weeks. Inaddition to the FBI files, some States have main-tained their own State criminal history files.

These manual criminal history records, or rapsheets, tend to be incomplete. Since the historicrelationship is between the FBI and local policedepartments, and not with the prosecution orcourts, there has been no guarantee that disposi-tions following an arrest will be reported to theFBI. One internal FBI study showed that less

than 50 percent of entries examined contained

‘Disposition Systems and Procedures—FeasibilityStudy, Final Report, Nov. 11, 1976, Identification Section,FBI.

18

disposition data. Furthermore, of those recordswith dispositions, almost 20 percent were notposted unt i l more than 18 months af ter thearrest. *

Criminal history information is used throu gh-out thethe justice system as a basis for decision-ing. Police rely on criminal history infor-

m a t i o n in evaluating potential suspects in casesi

under investigation. Prosecutors look to priorinvolvement with the justice system as a consi-deration in determining whether or not to pros-ecute a case. The information is used to deter-mine whether an arrested individual should bedetained, released on bail, or on his own recog-nizance. Corrections workers and judges havesimilar mandates and the Defense Bar has ,through discovery procedures, obtained back-ground on their clients from criminal historyrecords.

Federal law enforcement agencies both con-tribute to and use criminal history information.

In addition to the FBI itself, there are 27 Federalagencies with law enforcement authority thathave access to this information, including forexample, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco andFire Arms, the U.S. Department of Agriculture,the State Department Passport Office, the Inter-nal Revenue Service, and the various branchesof the military service. 2

In the past, obtaining this information couldtake 2 weeks or more. This often meant that itw a s n ’ t a v a i l a b l e f o r u s e a t p o i n t s s u c h a sarraignment occurring early in the adjudicationprocess. More recently, in at least some States(e.g., California and New York) the magistratebefore whom the subject must be brought with-out unnecessary delay has been required bystatute to consider criminal history in makingthe decision whether to retain the subject incustody. The prosecution is similarly requiredto evaluate criminal history as part of the charg-ing process. These uses of criminal history in-formation require rapid access, usually within afew hours. In New York, there is a legal require-ment for posi t ive f ingerpr in t ident i f ica t ionbefore the information is used and the State has

*Some of these late disposition postings are no doubtattributable to long adjudication times rather than report-ing delays.

2NCIC Mailing/ Telephone List, Nov. 7, 1977.



installed a facsimile network to make this possi-ble.

Studies have shown that about 30 percent of individuals with criminal history records showarrests in more than one State. This evidence,and a desire to speed up and improve the qualityof criminal history reporting have been impor-tan t motiva t ions for the development of theCCH program. Efforts have gone both in thedirection of improving the data-handling andreport ing procedures , inc luding automation ,within the States, and developing a nationwideCCH program to make out-of-Sta te cr iminalhistory information rapidly available.

A better and more quantitative assessment of the situations in which out-of-State data couldbe useful and the rapidity with which the in-formation is needed would greatly assist theCCH planning process. Some survey should beconducted on the state of the law concerning therequirement that prior criminal history be con-

sidered in charging, receiving evidence, andpassing sentence. Also usefu l would be ananalysis of the extent to which interstate CCHinformation exchange would be reg ional innature. It has been estimated, for instance, thatmore than 90 percent of the multiple-State of-fender records associated with people arrestedin California come from contiguous States.

If positive fingerprint identification becomesa strict requirement before CCH informationcan be used in criminal justice decisionmaking,the u t i l i ty o f r ap id access to ou t -o f -S ta tecriminal history information may depend on thespeed at which the identification process can beaccomplished. The potential problem lies in thecase where an arrest is made in State A wherethe person has no prior record and the CCHsystem discloses a record in State B. Unless amechanism for interstate transmission and iden-t i f ica t ion of f ingerpr in ts is c rea ted tha t wil lallow positive identification in a few hours,these out-of-State CCH records will either beunusable or will be used with less than positiveidentification.

There is no question that access to a subject’s

criminal history might be appropriate beyondthe area of its occurrence: the Federal and Statelegislatures are increasingly requiring not onlythat the punishment fit the crime, but the pros-ecution fit the criminal. And on the face of it,

the criminal justice user is working with onlypart of potentially available information if out-of-State records are not available. But therehave been no analyses performed to show thepotentiaI benefit to any criminal justice deci-sions of the use of out-of-State data. However,surveys of potential user’s perceived needs doshow a general desire to have this data avail-able. 3

The potent ia l benef i ts of the t imely avai l -a b i l i t y o f c o m p l e t e a n d a c c u r a t e c r i m i n a lhistory information come from the potential of improving the quality of decisionmaking. Thefirst offender who might otherwise have beendeta ined before t r ia l would benef i t . Socie tywould benefit from the imprisonment of the in-dividuals with multiple out-of-State convictionswho otherwise might have been put on proba-t ion . But hard information on the potent ia lbene f i t s o f t ime ly ava i lab i l i ty o f c r imina Ihistory is lacking. The data quality needs of c r iminal jus t ice decis ionmaking are a lso notunderstood.

The consequences of defects in record qualitysuch as incomplete, incorrec t , o r ambiguouscriminal history entries on decisionmaking issimply not known. That the criminal historyfiles presently in use are woefully incompleteseems c lear. Undoubtedly a concer ted effor tmust be undertaken to improve disposition re-porting. But since no system can ever be madeperfect, some level of error will always exist.Quantitative measures on data quality matterswill be difficult to come by. However, the at-

tempt is essential because of the apparent con-flict between the perceived needs of the justicesystem and the concerns discussed in the nextsection that defects in record quality could leadto significant harm to individuals’ rights to dueprocess and privacy.

3Search Group Inc., “The American CriminalRecord, ” Sacramento, Calif., Technical Report1976.

HistoryNo. 14 ,

19



Constitutional Rights

ISSUE

The threats to constitutional rights poten-tially posed by a CCH system are not suffi-ciently identif ied for planning and evalua-tion of an interstate system.

SUMMARY

The CCH system was conceived to enhancethe adminis tra t ion and effec t iveness of thecriminal justice system. This objective is certain-ly in the public interest. Also certainly in thepublic interest are the protection of the privacy,civil liberties, and rights to due process, of in-dividuals affected by the system together withrights of freedom of information. Harmonizingthese para l le l and sometimes confl ic t ing in-terests will require public policy decisions. Thepresent climate is clouded by the absence of well-established information on the complete-ness, ambiguities, and accuracy of criminal his-tory data, and on the nature of injuries to indi-viduals that could be caused by improper use of CCH records or inadequate CCH records. Theextent of actual incidence of such injuries is alsounknown .

It must be recognized that computerizationcan eliminate certain kinds of errors that plagueexisting manual records. Yet, because manualrecords are not disseminated widely, the errorstend to be localized. With computers, the trans-action volume and dissemination will increase,

as will the capacity to widely disseminate inac-curate or incomplete records. The potential forharm is therefore much greater with computer-ized systems. It is important for policy makers tounderstand the origins, frequency, and conse-quences of erroneous or incomplete records inorder to strike a fair balance between potentialharm and potential benefits.

CCH information is also used for evaluationof applicants for employment or licenses as per-mitted by Federal and State statutes. Since Statepractices differ considerably, the effect of in-

terstate CCH could be significant. The harm toindividuals’ employabilit y that can be caused byincomplete, inaccurate, or improperly disclosedrecords is recognized, but information on theextent of the problem is not available.

There has been considerable debate on themerits of purging or sealing criminal history in-formation based on considerations such as ageof record, or the principle that such informationis unlikely to provide a reliable guide to thebehavior of the individual. While a few Stateshave established such procedures, present Fed-e r a l r e g u l a t i o n s s e t n o s u c h r e q u i r e m e n t s .Again, little hard information is available to

guide policy on this matter.Another viewpoint is that criminal history in-

formation is public record material that shouldbe made available under freedom of informa-tion principles.

Dissemination of CCH information is limitedand controlled by statute in some States and byDepartment of Justice regulations. However, in-d iv idual Sta te p lanning , modif ica t ion of theregulations, and demonstration of compliancehas moved very slowly. The Law EnforcementAssistance Administration (LEAA) extended the

deadline for submission of State disseminationplans to March 1978, an extension of 2 yearsfrom the original schedule, an indication of thedifficulties involved. Generally, the plans sub-mitted are expressions of intent, not of com-pliance actually achieved.

Further information is needed to assess thepotential danger to constitutional rights, as wellas the needs and benefits of CCH discussed inthe previous section, before conclusions as tothe proper data quality standards and dissemi-nation restrictions can be drawn.

QUESTIONS

1.

2.

3.

4.

To what extent do the records submittedby the individual States and the FederalGovernment comply with the ex is t ingstandards of accuracy, completeness, se-curity, currency, etc., established in Title28 CFR?

What sorts of injury to individuals canresult from the use of incomplete or inac-curate CCH information in any categoryof criminal justice decisionmaking?

To what extent do these injuries occur?

What other uses of the CCH files or in-quiries, such as “flagging” the names of in-dividuals involved in activities protected

20



5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10 .

11 .

12 .

by the f i rs t amendment , for example ,might present a threat to individual rightsor civil liberties?

To what ex tent , i f any, might the in-terstate dissemination of CCH informa-tion create or increase civil liberties prob-lems in:

a.

b.

differences among States in definition

of crimes causing error or confusion incriminal justice decisionmaking basedon out-of-State CCH information;Disclosure of out-of-State informationto employers or others that would notbe permissible in the State record?

What purging or sealing policy, if any,should be established to limit the “mem-ory” of the CCH system for individualswho have had no recent arrest history?

Are existing access controls and loggingrequirements sufficient to control unau-

thorized use of CCH data?How can the system be effectively moni-tored and audited to ensure that the sys-tem standards are met?

Wha t mon i to r ing and aud i t ing mecha -nisms can ensure that actual occurrenceso f i n ju r y t o in d i vi d u a l l ib er t ie s w illbecome known to the system and to thepublic?

Which local, State, or Federal programsfor handling CCH information have been

most effective in protecting constitutionalrights? How might other National CrimeInformation Center (NCIC) participantsbe encou raged to cons ide r adop t ion o f these programs?

Wha t changes , i f any, should be con-sidered in standards regarding listing of arrest charges, CCH disposition entries,investigative uses of CCH records, andvalidation of CCH records to protect thecivil rights and liberties of persons whoserecords are contained in the system?

What changes, if any, to existing Federalresolutions or laws, should be consideredfor protection of individual rights whenCCH information is used for preemploy-ment or licensing purposes?

13. I f the pr ivacy ac t is amended to covercriminal investigatory records, if Federalagencies lose their sovereign immunityprotection, and / or State courts d ecide toremove such immunity for State govern-ments, to what extent will there be lessneed for congressional action regardingNCIC privacy safeguards?

DISCUSSION

A variety of concerns have been expressed re-garding the effect of the CCH program on con-stitutional rights. The most immediate concernsdeal with the possibilities of direct harm to in-dividuals involved in the criminal justice proc-ess through the use of CCH information to sup-port decisionmaking. Similarly, the prospectiveeffects on individuals of dissemination of CCHinformation for preemployment and licensingpurposes has ra ised concerns . These are themain subjects discussed in this section. Less im-mediate civil liberties issues such as potentiallong-term effects of CCH on the criminal justicesystem, or the potential of the system to bemanipulated illegally are discussed under SocialImpacts (p. 44. )

CCH AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE DECISIONMAKING

Criminal h is tory records are used by a l lsegments of the criminal justice community fora variety of purposes. During the investigationof a crime, police may examine criminal historyrecords of potential suspects under the belief that a prior history of arrests for crimes similarto the one in question, or the lack thereof, issuggestive of the subject’s likely involvement.Criminal histories can provide useful leads to aninvestigator such as aliases and prior addresses.

After a rres t , i f avai lab le in t ime, c r iminalhistory records are commonly used to evaluatethe defendant’s right to release on bail. In many jurisdictions, criminal history records influencethe district attorney’s decisions as to obtaining afelony indictment, or willingness to accept amisdemeanor disposition. In some States, laws

specify that prior convictions raise to the felonylevel a crime that otherwise would have been amisdemeanor.

After conviction, most State laws require thecourt to consider the defendant’s criminal his-

21



tory record in determining the sentence. Proba-tion officers and officials in many other pro-grams use criminal histories to assist in theirdecisionmaking. Correctional officials use theinformation to assist in assigning the individualwhile he is ins t i tu t ional ized . Final ly, paro leboards in some States request criminal historyrecords when determining whether an inmateshould be released on parole.

The speed of response needed for these dif-ferent uses of criminal history records varieswidely. Response time measured in hours isprobably adequate for most purposes. Law en-forcement agencies have expressed a need formuch faster response times, 4 but strong substan-tiating arguments have not been presented.

This pervasive use of c r iminal h is tory in-formation throughout the justice system wasone of the motivating forces for development of CCH so that the information would be available

in a timely manner, and to improve the trackingof events in the processing of each case so thatthe criminal history record would reflect thef ina l d isposi tion . Fol lowing the recommenda-tions of a Presidential Commission in 1967, 5

rapid development of State computerized crimi-nal history programs took place. According tothe FBI, 20 Sta tes are now e i ther fu l l par-ticipants in the NCIC/ CCH program or in thefinal stages of program development.

CRIMINAL HISTORY RECORD QUALITY

The operations of the criminal justice systemimpose some limitations on the quality of crimi-nal history records. First, an offender’s record isnot necessarily representative of the behaviorwhich mandated the creation of (or additions to)his record; and second, some criminal justiceagencies are more cooperative and responsivethan others in furnishing the data. Both of thesesituations affect fundamental aspects of dataquality. Other important aspects would includepolicies on who can enter or change data, howcan the data be changed, when data are to besealed, and to what extent they are sealed from

different users,

41bid.‘President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Ad-

ministration of Justice, The Challenge of Crime in a FreeSociety, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1967.

The ability of the written record to accuratelydocument the past criminal behavior of an of-fender is poor and will remain so for the foresee-able future. First, not all of the offender’s knownoffenses result in conviction. A rule of thumb isthat it takes about three arrests before a convic-tion is secured, because of formal and informaldiversion programs. Second, even when a con-viction is secured, plea bargaining often makesit unlikely that the charge at conviction reflectsthe nature of the criminal event. And since pleabargaining is more prevalent in urban than ruralareas, this means that a rural offender commit-ting the same offenses as an urban offender willprobably look a lot worse on paper (or on CCH)than his urban counterpart. On the other hand,the charges at arrest may exaggerate the natureof the event. The police may overcharge an indi-vidual, knowing that it will probably be bar-gained down to a lesser charge.

C r i m i n a l h i s t o r y r e c o r d s a r e o f t e n i n -complete. Arrests are recorded quickly, whiledispositions are recorded more leisurely, if at all(in some jurisdictions). Part of the reason is thefact that the police are responsible for supplyingarrest data to the FBI, while the prosecutor andcourts have the disposition data and do not haveas strong a relationship with the FBI as thepolice. Furthermore, the judiciary is a separatebranch of Government, so its cooperation in aCCH system run primarily by and for enforce-ment agencies has been limited.

There is evidence that disposition reporting is

slowly improving. Certainly the intent is clear,The LEAA regulations mandate disposition re-por t ing with in 90 days . The Sta tes are nowpreparing plans setting forth their operationalprocedures to comply with this requirement.Successful implementation of prompt and com-ple te d isposi t ion report ing is of u tmost im-portance to any future success of CCH systems.

RECORD QUALITY DEFICIENCIES

The implementations of CCH has brought in-to focus a number of concerns about criminal

justice decisionmaking, most of which relate toclaimed deficiencies in some aspect of recordqua l i ty, e .g . , a ccu racy, cu r rency, o r com-pleteness. The most apparent of these deficien-cies is absence of disposition information asso-ciated with arrest entries in the record. Becauseof delays and gaps in the reporting procedures it

22



has been estimated that 50 percent of the arrestrecords do not have disposition information. *Other alleged deficiencies include partial, er-roneous, and ambiguous disposition listings.

Many of the civil liberties questions regardingCCH—in particular questions of due process—center on the effects of record deficiencies oncriminal justice decisionmaking. The criminal justice process is characterized by the exercise of great discretion and bargaining at key points.Much of this discretion is exercised informally,and is in part influenced by the criminal historyrecord of individuals , In some urban areas,more than 50 percent of those arrested by policeare screened out of the judicial process beforeformal accusat ion; of those who do make acourt appearance, the vast majority plead guiltyin accordance with pre-arranged bargains struck between defendants, prosecutors, and police.(This topic is discussed in more detail in theSocial Impacts section of this report. )

Those quest ioning the CCH system haveargued that an individual’s prior arrests countagainst h im in the bargaining process evenw h e r e t h e a r r e s t c h a rg e s w e r e e v e n t u a l l ydropped or the case resulted in an acquittalbecause this information is often not containedin the criminal history. The argument is madethat the s i tuat ion is so ser ious that ent r ieswithout dispositions should not be permitted tobe used, even by cr iminal just ice agencies,unless the case is definitely known to be stillpending. Others argue that this measure woulddeny highly useful information to officials who

are fully competent to understand the l imita-tions of the data, and would result in saturationof the system.

This debate is now being argued in the courts.At least one major case 6 is in process at this timearguing that the State CCH records maintainedand disseminated by the New York State Divi-sion of Criminal Justice Services and suppliedby the New York Police Department have poor

*The FBI, in a recent internal study (see footnote 1)found that less than 50 percent of the entries in their

manual criminal history file contained disposition data. Arecent samp le of New York State records (see footnote 6)showed a blank disposition column in .57.3 percent of listedarrest events since Jan. 1, 1973.

6Taturn, et al. vs. Rogers, 75 Civ. 2782 (S.D.N.Y. )Plaintiff’s Pre-Trial Memorandum of Law, Sept. 9, 1977.

data quality with the consequence that constitu-tional rights of individuals have been violated.Although the issues in this case are directed en-tirely at New York State’s own CCH system, itsoutcome may have profound implications on allaspects of interstate CCH.

This whole issue is badly clouded by lack of information. We need to know the real extent of quality deficiencies in both the existing manualand computerized criminal history systems. It isunfortunate that so little assessment of dataquality has taken place. Neither the State CCHrepositories nor the FBI have conducted thekinds of audits that would supply this informa-tion. Nor is there much documentation otherthan anecdotal evidence of the extent to whichindividual rights are actually being affected bythe present system. Also, the data is not avail-able to estimate the relative extent of under-charging (plea bargaining, e tc . ) and over-charging and the conditions under which eachoccur.

Standards for access and security and privacyhave been the subject of extensive debate. 7 8 9

But in the absence of quantitative informationabout the weaknesses of existing practices, andan understanding of the obstacles to their im-provement , the necessary discussion of whatstandards should be becomes very difficult.

PREEMPLOYMENT AND LICENSING USE OF CCH

Cr i m i n a l h i s t o r y r e c o r d i n f o r m a t i o n i s a l s od issemina ted for loca l and Sta te employment o rlicensing purposes to the extent that it is author-ized by Federal or State statutes. It is estimated 10

that 20 percent of the requests for State CCH in-f o r m a t i o n o r i g i n a t e f r o m n o n c r i m i n a l j u s t i c eagenc ie s . By pre sen t r egu la t ions , ” a r r e s t da tamore than 1 year old is not disseminated for

‘Search Group Inc., “Standards for Security and Privacyof Criminal Justice Information, ” Sacramento, Calif.,Technical Report No. 13 (Revised), January 1978.

‘Search Group Inc., “Access to Criminal Justice In-formation, ” Sacramento, Calif., Technical Memoran du mNo. 14, October 1977.

9M. D. Maltz, “Privacy, Criminal Records and Informa-

tion Systems, ” in Operations Research in Law Enforce-ment, Justice, and Societal Security, Lexington Books,1976.

10Search Group Inc., “The American Criminal HistoryRecord. ”

1128 CFR—-Judicial Administration, 20.33(3).

23



these purposes without accompanying disposi-tion information unless active prosecution of the charge is known to be pending. Federalagencies authorized to obtain information foremployment background checks under author-ity of Federal Executive Order receive criminalh is tory information without res tr ic t ion andgenerally have access to Federal investigative

and intelligence information as well.Individual States have their own regulations

and statutes to govern dissemination for thesepurposes. The State regulations vary drasticallyregarding the types of employments and licens-ing for which criminal histories can be used. 12

Furthermore, some regula t ions conta in pro-cedures for deleting information not deemedrelevant to these uses of the data. As a conse-quence of the diversity of State regulations, it islikely that information may be obtainable fromanother State that is not permissible for use inthe inquiring State. Furthermore, informationnow available for Federal agency backgroundchecks through the FBI files might become un-available if the inquiry is made directly to theState of origin. Careful control and monitoringover interstate dissemination for these purposesmay thus be required to ensure that all appro-priate regulations are being met.

One member of the working group felt thatthe private sector is entitled to more access toCCH information and that denial of this accessonly forces the use of illegal or roundabout ap-

12Amercian Bar Association, “Laws, Licenses, and theOffender’s Right to Work, ” National Clearing House onOffender Employm ent Restrictions, 1974.

preaches to obta in access . 13 For example , inIllinois, a Firearms Ownership IdentificationCard (FOIC) is required for an individual whowishes to own a gun legally. Grounds for deny-ing an individual an FOIC include conviction of a criminal offense. Some firms require a pro-spective employee to obtain an FOIC (at thefirm’s expense) as a precondition of employ-ment. In this way, they find out if the prospec-tive employee has a criminal record. Numerousexamples of illegal disclosure of criminal historyinformation by police personnel have also beenreported.

He further argues that too stringent restric-t ions on access by pr iva te sec tor employerscould make matters worse, especially in light of the liberal access permitted Federal Governmentemployers. As the law presently stands, theDepartment of Labor can check the record of every clerk-typist it considers hiring, but thePotomac Electric Power Company cannot deter-mine i f i ts prospect ive meter readers haverecords of home invasion or rape; the SocialSecurity Administration can prevent those withcriminal records from becoming janitors, but asmall business cannot ensure that it is not hiringa newly released embezzler as a bookkeeper.

In this view, a better balance of access isneeded and might be obtained through a lessrestrictive approach to the private sector ’s in-formation needs.

1 3 M.D. Ma l t z ] t z , “ p r iv a c y, c r imin a l R e c o r d s a n d I n f o r m a -tion Systems, ” in Operations Research in Law Enforce-ment, Justice, and Societal Security, Lexington Books,1976.

24



FEDERALISM

Division of Authority

ISSUE

What authority should be allocated amongthe units of Government to control the con-

templated CCH system in terms of efficacy,legality, and accountability?

SUMMARY

Because of the decentralized nature of theU.S. criminal justice system and because thegeneration and use of criminal history informa-tion occurs mostly at the State and local levelsof government, the States have a primary stakein establishing standards and procedures for thekeeping and dissemination of criminal historyinformation. On the other hand, minimum na-tional standards also are required for an in-terstate CCH system. Attempts at comprehen-sive Federal legislation to control the collectionand dissemination of criminal justice informa-tion have failed to produce legislation or a con-sensus as to how authority for this importantarea of control of the system should be allo-cated. The lack of resolution of this issue is avery serious obstacle to the successful develop-ment of CCH.

QUESTIONS

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

How should the authority for establishing

dissemination constraints, and purging orsealing requirements be allocated betweenthe Federal and State governments?

To what extent can control of operationalprocedures , including access control andemployment standards be left to the discre-tion of the States?

What provisions shall be made for resolu-tion of intergovernmental and interagencyconflicts over system control?

How best can audit responsibilities be ap-

port ioned among levels of government ,participating agencies, and representativesof the general public?

How should authority be divided betweenFederal and State governments for deter-

mination of vsanctions?

olations and imposition of

The extent to which interstate disseminationof CCH data presents civil liberties problemsbecause of the diversity in State regulations is

difficult to assess without more information oncu r ren t p ract ice s. The ques t ions abou t da taquality raised regarding criminal justice uses of the data apply here as well. Since it is requiredthat entries without disposition are not to bedistributed for employment and licensing pur-poses, the data quality questions here focus onthe c la r i ty, accu racy, and comple teness o f disposition listings.

DISCUSSION

Almost every aspect of the NCIC/ CCH prob-lem encounters difficulties resulting from thehistoric, constitutional division of powers andduties in our Federa l sys tem. This d iv is ion ,while provid ing pro tec t ion agains t tyranny,corruption, and other abuses, nevertheless in-vites conflict, error, and confusion in the a c-complishment of valid governmental purposes.With respect to criminal justice, the foundationsof the federalism issues are:

State governments have basic jurisdictionover law enforcement and criminal justicewithin their borders, under their constitu-tionally reserved powers. Within that sys-

tem, local governments play a strong role.Due to the mobility of both State and Fed-eral law violators, effective law enforce-ment increasingly requires exchange of in-f o r m a t i o n a m o n g S t a t e s a n d b e t w e e nStates and the Federal Government.

The Federal Government’s superior taxingpower and its expanded functions under thecommerce clause have led to its involve-ment in law enforcement at local and Statelevels; many an intrastate crime is a Federalcrime.

The sheer existence of the technical capabilitythat can speed information across existing poli-tical-organizational barriers challenges a poli-tical structure inherited from a previous era.Organizational problems arise because a chang-

25



ing political environment increasingly is sen-sitive to the information policies of executiveagencies. More traditional questions arise con-cerned with the sharing of costs among Stateand Federa l levels of government , in ters ta terelationships, and the relation between Federaland State criminal justice functions.

Given this diversity of American political and

administrative culture, the CCH system is veryambi t ious when compared to o the r Fede ra lcomputer systems of national scope. Comparedto the Internal Revenue Service’s Tax Adminis-tration System, which administers a uniformFederal tax code with personnel trained in ac-cordance with uniform standards and criteria,the CCH system seeks to coordinate the law en-forcement activities of a very diverse group of agencies, whose personnel and indeed whoselaws are very different from one another.

If it is going to work, the CCH system will re-quire data and procedures that meet prescribedminimum nationwide standards of quality anduniformity. At the same time most of the basicsource records originate within local and Statelaw enforcement agencies. State and local gov-ernments vary in their resources, their philoso-phies of privacy and publicity, and their sophis-tication in data systems technology. Decisionsthat are necessary to assure an effective nation-wide system may conflict head-on with Statelaws and rules governing access to criminal

justice records, the format and content of suchrecords , and the ir modif ica t ion or expunge-ment . Such decis ions may require Sta te andlocal governments to adopt procedures incon-sistent with or excess to their own operatingnecessities. Both levels of government could bepressured to appropriate money, install equip-ment, and employ personnel against their will.Court systems, despite long-standing, cherishedtraditions of independence, would have to con-form to bureaucratic reporting requirements im-posed by others. Some of these conflicts couldresult in litigation, which would be time-con-suming and which could result in over-narrowd e c i s i o n s n e c e s s a r i l y b a s e d o n t h e i s s u e s

brought to trial in specific cases.Many of the system management problems

will call for accommodations among States, be-tween State and local governments, betweenFederal and State governments, among Federalagencies, and among components of the crimi-

26

nal justice system at all three levels. This arguesfor control by a representative intergovernmen-tal consortium, which would present its ownproblems of management, funding, and over-sight.

Further complexity is added by the need forpro tec t ion of c iv i l l iber t ies and pr ivacy. Nogovernmenta l mechanism well-des igned forsuch a purpose now exis ts , and i t may benecessary to invent one.

The issue is complicated even further by theapparent need for leg is la t ive overs ight . TheJudiciary Committees of both Houses of Con-gress, among others, can logically claim suchresponsibility. However, their ability to overseeadequately a complex, sensitive, and detailedsystem may be questioned, particularly whenthey are compelled to turn their attention fromold and cont inuing responsib i l i t ies to newlyurgent problems.

State legislatures may also legitimately claimthe right to oversee the participation of theirown governments in the contemplated system.They will be concerned with costs, operationaleffectiv en ess, s ecu r it y, a n d p r o t e c t i o n o f citizens’ rights under their own laws.

Another aspect of control is audit. There willbe a need to review the system for fiscal integ-rity, general effectiveness in achieving States’objectives, and quality of management. Theremay a l so need to be a de ta i l ed ope ra t iona laudit, using sampling techniques, of the com-pleteness, accuracy, and currency of the data in

the file and in selected transmissions. Both an-nounced and unannounced audi ts may be re-quired. Systems users should participate in theconceptual planning and review of such audits.There must also be provision for audits of costsand effectiveness.

The issue of how authority should be dividedis closely related to questions of managementand oversight and can directly affect the techni-cal configuration of CCH. Those who see the re-sponsibility for maintaining and disseminatingcriminal history records falling primarily with

the States, for example, will argue for viewingof CCH as many different State systems with aneed to exchange information. * This State-

‘The SEARCH Group Inc., Board of Directors hasrecently adopted a position paper that articulates thisviewpoint, entitled “A Framework for Constructing an Im-proved National Criminal History System. ”



centered concept implies a minimum of Federaloversight. It also would have no compellingreason to remain affiliated with NCIC.

Some of these unresolved problems of over-lapping authority in the system will be settledonly by the disposition of individual conflicts asthey come up. Others may be solvable by coop-erative effort among the levels of government inthe planning process. (See The Planning Proc-e ss , p .35 ) The ques t ion rema ins , howeve r,whether sufficient consensus on these mattersexist to permit resolution at this time.

Cost Apportionment

ISSUE

How shal l the cos ts of developing andoperating the contemplated system be ap-portioned among Federal, State, and Iocalgovernments?

SUMMARY

When all of the system development, dataconversion, and operating costs associated withCCH are considered, the costs to all levels of government have been estimated to amount toseveral hundred millions of dollars over a 10-year period. Costs of related activities, such asbuilding capability in State identification bur-eaus could considerably raise the overall ex-penditures that will be required to achieve a ful-ly operational CCH system.

It has been Government policy to support thedevelopment of CCH in part through the De-partment of Justice Comprehensive Data Sys-tem Program (CDS). However, the great bulk of the anticipated expenditures are operating coststhat will be incurred in the State and local crimi-nal justice agencies. The abiIity or willingness of the Sta tes and local jur isd ic t ions to providethese operating funds will in large part deter-mine the actual rate at which a nationwide CCHsystem can become operational.

The issue of equity in funding is particularlyknotty. Some States will perceive a high benefitfrom the system; others may feel that they areburdened with excessive expenses to provide in-formation to other States and Federal agencies.Finally, some argue that the costs of complyingwith regulations imposed by higher levels of

Government, whether State or Federal, shouldbe subsidized.

Since funding policy will have a crucial role inthe rate and success of CCH implementation, itis an issue that should be dealt with at this time.

QUESTIONS

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

What will it cost to develop a satisfactory

system covering all States?What are estimated annual operating costs?

On what basis should development andoperating costs be apportioned among thethree levels of Government?

To what extent should funding plans takeinto account the variation in capabilitiesand resources among State and local gov-ernments?

To what extent should Federal funding beprovided to Sta te and local agencies to

cover operating expenses which these agen-cies feel are federally mandated?

What advantages, if any, would a systemof user charges offer in the management of this system? What charging mechanismsmight be employed?

DISCUSSION

The very modest initial conversion costs esti-mated in the FBI memoranda are trickles thatwill lead to a flood of expenditures. 14 Any local

jurisdiction participating in the contemplated

system will have to provide for complete, timelyreporting by all components of the criminal

justice system; an information system fully con-gruent with the State and Federal systems; andsufficient trained staff to assure reliable oper-ations and to maintain data quality to estab-lished standards. The State agency concerned,whether it is a criminal justice planning andcoordinating agency or a bureau of investiga-tion, will also have to maintain a congruent sys-tem, including thoroughly effective data collec-tion and follow-up procedures. To the extentS t a t e s h a n d l e d a t a a n d r e p o r t i n g m a t t e r sth rough sub -s ta te r eg iona l c r imina l ju s t i ce

14U. S. Senate. H earings: Criminal Justice Data Banks,Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, Committee on theJudiciary, 1974, volum e 11.

27



charges to cover these costs would be likely todevelop.

It is apparent therefore that States differ interms of perceived benefits, and will continue todiffer on the d is t r ibut ion of costs be tweenFederal and State levels, and among the Statesthemselves.

Generally, it is assumed that costs will be metd i rec t ly th rough app rop r ia ted funds—fromwhatever levels of government. It may be feasi-b le and desirab le , however, to impose usercharges on agencies (at whatever level) seekinginformation through the system. Such charges

could serve to relieve inequities in the systemdue to disproportionate demands on the variousStates. Charges would also provide a mech-anism for limiting the volume of system traffic,as users would not see CCH information as afree good. However, the differences in ability topay might result in less affluent agencies beingdiscouraged from using the system.

The very process of seeking legislative ap-proval and appropriations at possibly all threelevels of government will lead to public debateover costs, effectiveness, controls, civil rights,privacy, and the entire range of issues.

ORGANIZATION, MANAGEMENT, AND OVERSIGHT

Management Responsibilities

ISSUE

Considering the decentralized nature of thecriminal justice system, what sort of man-agement structure is required for CCH?

SUMMARY

It is generally assumed that the FBI runs theNCIC/ CCH system and has full responsibility forits activities. Actually the FBI’s role is verylimited since it must deal with the individualStates as autonomous entities. The responsibil-ity for accuracy, completeness, and currency of records lies with the States as does the respon-sibility for an annual audit. Both the FBI andState criminal history repositories have tendedto view themselves as conduits for records pro-vided to them by others. Thus, the chain of managemen t r e spons ib i l i ty i s weak and am-biguous.

This loose, decentralized, assignment of re-sponsibilities is in part a direct consequence of our decentralized criminal justice system and apersistent national concern over concentratingtoo much power in a Federal law enforcement

agency. On the other hand, serious questionsarise about accountability in such a decentral-ized system, that would apply no matter whatagency is assigned the responsibility for systemmanagement.

This question was also addressed under Fed-eralism. (See p. 25. )

QUESTIONS

1.

2.

3,

4.

What authority should be allocated amongthe units of government to control the CCHsystem?

To what extent would the centralization of management lead to excessive Federal con-trol over State and local criminal justice ac-tivities?

What would be the advantages of sepa-

rating CCH from the NCIC system?

Is there a need to designate a single agencyto have overall responsibility for the ad-ministration of the CCH system? If so,what responsibilities should be assigned tothe agency responsible for managing theCCH system to ensure and validate CCHdata quality?

a. What responsibility should be placed onthe system management agency to ensurethat data disseminated through the CCHsystem is used properly?

b. What responsibility should be placed onthe system management agency to report toCongress and the public on the “health” of the system?

7036-738 0 -78 - 5



c. What authority for audit and monitoringof data submitted by the States and Federaluser agencies is required to satisfy theseresponsibilities?

d. What sanctions should be provided forviolations of standards or procedures?

e. What appeal mechanism should be estab-lished?

f. What would be the merits of restructur-ing the Advisory Board for CCH to includerepresentation of noncriminal justice publicinterest groups?

g. What new Federal legislation, if any,would be required to provide authority forthe system management agency?

DISCUSSIONDECENTRALIZATION OF MANAGEMENT

The responsibility for interstate CCH dissemi-nation is distributed rather widely at present.The FBI runs the NCIC central facility and isresponsible for the NCIC procedures governingaccess to the system. The LEAA has establishedregulations on collection, storage, and dissemi-nat ion of c r iminal h is tory information tha tapply to all criminal justice agencies receivingLEAA funds d irec t ly or indirec t ly—coveringe s s e n t i a l ly a l l p a r t i c i p a n t s i n N C I C / C C H .These regulations in turn call on the States tosubmit a Criminal History Record InformationPlan setting forth each State’s CCH operationalp rocedu res . As o f the l a te s t r ev i s ion o f theregulations, these State plans must be submittedby March 1978. The regulations are explicit inallowing a wide variation among States in theird isseminat ion pol ic ies inc luding freedom tolimit dissemination of both conviction and non-conviction information as each State sees fit.

The existing Federal law and regulations alsoplace the responsibility for annual audit of the

opera t ion of every Sta te’s sys tem with eachState and limit the Federal involvement primar-ily to approval or disapproval of each State’splan. On the other hand, considerable concernabout the need for congressional oversight andFederal supervision of the system has been ex-

pressed in Congress in numerous hearings 16 17

on the subject of criminal justice information,resulting in a number of bills attempting toestablish Federal standards and procedures tocontrol collection and dissemination of such in-formation, as well as providing for Federal auditauthority.

The Federal Government’s role in the day-to-

day m anagement of the NCIC/ CCH system istherefore somewhat ambiguous, and neither theFBI nor the States are sure what their respon-sibilities are. The management solution to thisd i lemma may requ i re imag ina t ion and newforms of Federal/ State cooperation.

ROLE OF AN AD VISORY BOARD

The primary operational link between the FBIfunction as NCIC system manager and the Statepa r t i c ipan ts i s th rough the NCIC Adv iso ryPolicy Board. The decentralized nature of thesystem’s regulations argues for a strong accoun-tability of the central operation to the users of the system. Yet the historical experience withthe use of advisory boards as the formal liaisonbetween system users and the system executivesuggest that this arrangement provides for onlyweak accountability. 18

Typically, members of the advisory board arenot familiar with the operational intricacies of the computer system, and often are not familiarwith the day- to-day system fa i lures whichbecome apparent to lower level, ultimate end-users. Typically, the advisory board meets in-

frequently; its members are only engaged part-time in monitoring the system’s activities. More-over, the operational staff of the computer sys-tem is responsible to the executive director, notthe advisory board. Therefore, advisory boardshave little knowledge or authority with respectto operation of the system.

16U.S. Senate, Hea rings: Subcommittee on Constitu-tional Rights, Comm ittee on th e Jud iciary, S. 2542, S.2810, S. 2963, and S. 2964, March 5, 1974. 93rd Cong ress,2d session.

“U.S. Senate, Hearings: Subcommittee on Constitu-tional Rights, Committee on the Judiciary, S. 2008, S.1427, and S. 1428. July 15 and 16, 1975. 94th Congress, 1stsession. “Criminal Justice Information and Protection of Privacy Act of 1975. ”

“Kenneth C. Laudon, Computer-s and Bureaucrat ic Reform, New York: Wiley, 1974.

30



For all of these reasons the advisory boardmethod of attaining accountability to users iss t ruc tura l ly weak. Ins tead of represent ingultimate users to an executive, they are just aslikely to function in reverse to represent and ex-plain executive policy to lower level users.

A second issue of accountability raised by theexisting NCIC Advisory Policy Board concernsthe question of defining users: who are usersand how shall they be defined? The current ar-rangement recognizes users as those directly in-volved in the creation of the data base and whoultimately use the data base. This confines thedefinition of users to the criminal justice com-munity, and within that community, it is largelylaw enforcement agencies who are representedon the Advisory Policy Board. The historical in-sistence on law enforcement agencies for com-plete control over their information processes isreflected in the existing definition of user.

But CCH is not primarily for law enforcementusers. Whether or not CCH continues to be partof NCIC, some means of strengthening the ad-visory role of the rest of the criminal justicesystem for CCH is needed. Furthermore, addi-t ional par t ic ipa t ion may a lso be des irab le .Several local criminal justice agencies (AlamedaCounty, California’s CORPUS System, for ex-ample) have appointed citizens not employed byc r imina l ju s t i ce agenc ie s to the i r adv iso ryboards. Their experience has been that inclusionof such groups is initially uncomfortable, in thatissues that might otherwise be avoided in a club-like atmosphere of like-minded individuals areforced onto the board’s agenda. But, on theother hand, generally acceptable solutions havebeen found that have stood the test of the in-evitable public scrutiny.

Thus, it may be fruitful to examine alter-natives to the present advisory board. At theopposite extreme would be an independent Ex-ecutive Policy Board with substantial authorityover policy decisions and ultimate responsibilityfor system operations. There are many alter-natives between the extremes which might be ex-plored in a future assessment.

Oversight

ISSUE

What oversight mechanisms are needed toensure that the CCH system will operate inthe overall pub lic interest?

SUMMARYThe h is tory of computer sys tems para l le ls

that of other institutions; they routinely fail torecord and analyze the ir fa i lures . In la rgesystems it is difficult to assign responsibility forsystem shortcomings. Exercising effective over-sight over such a system challenges the intellectof experts and the patience of ordinary citizens.

The purpose of oversight is first, to assurep o lit ica l execu tiv es, managers, Congress,courts, and the public that the system is oper-ating within boundaries defined by Congress.

Second, oversight mechanisms can alert Con-gress and the public to system problems whichemerge in the course of operation.

Oversight is closely linked to system auditsince audit is one of the strong mechanismsavailable for disclosing system problems. Thepresent NCIC regulations do not provide forFederal audit of NCIC operation. Beyond Pri-vacy Act reporting requirements for system usesand new systems involving personal records, nopublic disclosure of system operations is man-dated. Therefore, it is difficult to believe thatthere is adequate information available for ef-fective executive branch, congressional, press,or pu blic oversight\ of the system’s activities.Justice Department and FBI officials, however,believe this problem is met by public relationsactivities for purposes of educating the publicthrough speeches, lectures, films, and invitedpublic observance of meetings of the NCIC Ad-visory Policy Board.

Among the mechanisms which could provideCongress with additional information by whichto judge system operation are mandated man-agement reports on system operations and ran-

31



o r S t a t e C C H r e p o s i t o r i e s i n v o l v i n g t h eNCIC/ CCH file, an account of internal auditresults concerned with data quality, confiden-tiality and security. The question of data ac-curacy seems especially important here. In lightof the FBI approach to the CCH records, that,basically, it has custody of State records, it ap-pears tha t , for puposes of audi t ing , the FBIwould in practice construe “accuracy” as t h e

degree to which FBI and State computer filesagree. * But equally, if not more important, isthe extent to which CCH files agree with localpolice arrest and court disposition data.

A second poss ib le congress ional overs ightmeasure is a random au dit of both NCIC/ CCHand State CCH files by an external group of auditors such as the General Accounting Office(GAO). Banks are routinely required to file suchreports, and in certain circumstances are subjectto Federal audits on demand. If criminal recordsare thought to be as important as bank records,if the potential for abuse is large, then such aFederal audit is in order.

However, Federal legislation may be neces-sary to provide the GAO with adequate author-ity to carry such an audit. In a letter 22 to theSenate Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights,Committee on the Judiciary. The ComptrollerGeneral advised:

we believe explicit access to the necessarycriminal history data should be provided to ouroffice in this legislation because of the sen sitivenature of the data involved. We also need accessto the records of all non-Federal criminaI justice

informa tion system s subject to the legislation forthe p urp ose of evaluating th e Attorney General’sor the Federal Information Systems Board’soperations under the legislation. An explicitstatement of congressional intent regard ing thismatter shou ld p reclud e future executive agencyreluctance to allow us access to documents webelieve we must review to properly dischargeour responsibilities. ”

*According to the FBI, for their purposes, “the accuracyof a CCH record is based upon the original source docu-ment , i.e., the fingerprin t card subm itted by the arrestingagency, conviciton data subm itted by the courts and con-finement data submitted by the corrections facility. The

source document is the basis upon which the CCH record isprepared and submitted and remains in the custody of theoriginal agency for ultimate verification if required. ”

22Federal Bureau of Investigation, “National Crime In-formation Center—Proposed Limited Message-SwitchingImplementation Plan, ” April 14, 1975 (Revised).

Managing AgencyISSUE

What are the requirements for an agency tomanage the CCH System?

SYSTEM

By some standards, the FBI is uniquely quali-

fied to run the CCH program; they have the ad-vantage of the cooperation and respect of lawenforcement agencies throughout the country;they have an extensive fingerprint identificationfunction which is necessary to support effectiveuse of CCH where identity is in question; andthe transfer of CCH to some other Governmentagency might be viewed with some concern byt h e l a w e n f o r c e m e n t c o m m u n i t y. B y o t h e rstandards, and in light of changing public at-t i tudes towards pr ivacy, c iv i l l iber t ies , andgovernmental controls, the FBI is placed in aposition of great conflict of interest in bearing

these records management responsibilities inaddition to its primary investigatory respon-sibilities and its responsibilities for other non-criminal records. An argument can be made thathigher public confidence would be attained byplac ing CCH opera t ions in a more neutra lagency.

The responsiveness of FBI management to theneeds and priorities of the State and local crimi-nal justice agencies is also in question. Some feelthat NCIC is at a disadvantage since it mustcompete for pr ior i ty with in ternal FBI da ta

processing applications because it is run, by andlarge, as an internal FBI operation. The NCICAdvisory Policy Board is supposed to provideguidance to the FBI Director on the relationshipsof NCIC with local and State systems. It hasbeen suggested that the Board could carry outthose functions better if it were given a moredirect role in setting system priorities and direc-tion.

QUESTIONS

1. To what extent, if any, do the FBI’s respon-

sibilities as an investigatory agency conflictwith its responsibilities for the maintenanceof noncriminal files, records of criminalh is tory, and the product ion of c r iminalstatistics?

33



view of control, oversight, and accountability,than other forms of organization.

A second set of concerns argues for seriousconsiderat ion of the organizat ional locat ionquestion. It has been argued that the FBI isburdened with too many contradictory—or atleast conflicting—responsibilities. The ‘FBI is aninvestigatory agency which also bears a heavyresponsibility for the maintenance of criminal

records, stolen property records, and the pro-duction of criminal statistics. It is also involvedin a number of programs involving training of State police officials, maintenance of an exten-sive forensic laboratory, and significant localaid programs.

A widely respected principle of organizationsuggests that unique functions (like investiga-tion as opposed to criminal statistics) be em-bedded in special ized and rela t ively auton-omous social uni ts . Separat ion of the CCHsystem from FBI management would have

serious implications without doubt . F i rst ly,there are the operational problems that may beincurred by organizational separation of CCHfrom the fingerprint identification services of the FBI. Close technical coordination with therest of NCIC would have to be maintained toprevent awkward and expensive interface prob-lems for the users (unless all of NCIC weremoved to other management). The benefits of

the FBI’s Iong involvement and rapport withlocal law enforcement agencies would be lost.Perhaps most important, the implied criticismand off ic ia l endorsement of var ious group’ssuspicions of the FBI might have very highpolitical costs. Nevertheless, because of the fun-damental issues discussed above, other manage-ment structures should be examined.

T h e a l t e r n a t i v e s c o n s i d e r e d n e e d n o t b elimited on the basis that NCIC requires law en-forcement management . I f the system is re-garded as a utility to the criminal justice systemand the communities which it serves, the alter-n a t i v e s o f c o n t r o l m i g h t b e c o n s i d e r a b l ygreater. Some readily apparent alternatives are:the criminal information function might be con-tinued as a responsibility of the FBI; it could beseparated entirely from the FBI and organized asan autonomous division within the Departmentof Justice; it might be organized as a congres-sional board or corporation; and finally it couldbe developed as a consortium of States.

The relevant criteria on which to judge theseor other organizational alternatives would in-clude the following: degree and likelihood of ef-fective accountability, oversight, and respon-siveness of the criminal justice informationprocess; convenience of funding; and appro-priate division of authority between States andthe Federal Government.

THE PLANNING PROCESS

Participation in Planning

ISSUE

How can the needs and in teres ts of thevar ious l eve l s o f G overnmen t , the l awenforcement-criminal justice communitya n d o t h e r s t a k e h o l d e r g r o u p s b e s t b eaccommodated in the planning and designof the contemplated system?

SUMMARY

The Justice Department is now in the processof developing a blueprint for CCH. It is antic-ipated that this blueprint will present a new pro-

posal for decentralized CCH, and will include aplan for telecommunication,

However, the essence of the CCH system isthat the primary sources and users of the dataare the State and local law enforcement andcriminal justice agencies. The history of CCHdevelopment has shown the importance of theStates’ participation in the planning process. Itis questionable that a blueprint for a workablesystem can be created without their playing a

direct, perhaps even principal role in the plan-ning. This should be through a process whichincludes and integrates the views of a broadcross-section of interest groups and categories of citizens and decisionmakers in Government and

35



elsewhere in society who will likely be affectedby the future development and use of the CCHsystem and related information systems.

The nature of the information in the CCH sys-tem has raised public concern and debate aboutprivacy and due process. Special interest groupsand others have had the opportunity to expresstheir views at several congressional hearings.But there has not been any mechanism for in-volving these groups in the planning process.Such involvement may be necessary to thedevelopment of a workable system,

Also to be considered in the planning processshould be the public at large. It would be valu-able to disseminate information on the proposedCCH system and to assess the views of the pub-l ic through var ious forms of c i t izen par t ic i -pation.

QUESTION

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

To what extent should the Federal Govern-ment dominate the CCH planning process?

How can rich States and municipalities,poor Sta tes and munic ipa l i t ies , and ad-vanced and backward criminal justice sys-tems be properly represented in the plan-ning and design process?

Has there been any citizen or public interestgroup participation in the development of CCH?

What participation by citizens or public in-terest groups might be appropriate in future

CCH planning?What mechanisms for informing the publiabout CCH and obtaining participation inp l a n n i n g m i g h t b e a p p r o p r i a t e i n t h efuture?

DISCUSSION

Two major themes have reappeared through-out this report. Firstly, the State and local agen-cies of the criminal justice system; police,courts, prosecution, and correc t ions , a re theprimary users of criminal history information in

the system. They are also the basic source of thedata entries that make up these records. Further-more , the ser ious problems of da ta qual i typlaguing criminal justice recordkeeping can besolved only by the efforts by these agencies. The

36

second theme has been that the CCH systemcannot be considered the exclusive province of the cr iminal jus t ice community. The genera lpublic has a direct interest in it because of thevery nature of the data and its use in decision-making for c r iminal jus t ice , employment , l i -censing, and other noncriminal justice purposesboth public and private, as well as the access af-forded to the press in varying degrees by thevarious States.

At the Federal level, there are three additionalstakeholders. The FBI, as operator of NCIC/ CCH, has a clear interest. The LEAA, with itsmajor Comprehensive Data Systems Programfor stimulating and funding the development of a State and local information system infrastruc-ture, and its responsibilities for promulgatingand ensuring compliance with regulations forcriminal justice information systems is an addi-t ional s takeholder. In addi t ion to these twocomponents of the Department of Justice, thereare the numerous Federal agencies with law en-

forcement powers who have an interest in thesystem as users.

With a l l o f these d iverse s takeholders , i tshould be obvious tha t the type of processemployed for system planning, system modi-fications, and decisionmaking can have a verysignif icant impact on the acceptance of thesystem, on the speed and smoothness of its im-plementation, and on its ultimate viability.

At the present time, the primary mechanismfor system planning is the “blueprint” activity inthe Department of Justice. This effort is beingconducted by Justice and FBI staff, although ithas had the benefit of visits to numerous Stateand local user agencies. * However, any plan, nomatter how well founded, is bound to have con-troversial elements. Therefore, some thoughtshould be given now as to the extent to whichother stakeholders should be included as prin-cipals in this planning process and as to thenature and extent of a ra t i f ica t ion processamong the stakeholders will be required.

The question of participation by stakeholdersarise from another consideration as well. As dis-

cussed under the section on Transition Planning

q See appendix B for a summary prepared by the JusticeDepartment of the viewpoints expressed by State officialsduring these visits.



(see p. 40.), there will be a long transition pathbetween today’s criminal records system and aneventual smoothly funct ioning CCH system.Numerous pitfalls are inevitable along this pathand modifications in system operation, proced-ures, and design, perhaps large ones, are in-evitable. There appears to be a need therefore tohave a continuing planning process rather thana one shot “blueprint. ” The nature of this proc-

ess, and its relationship to the operation of thesystem also needs further examination.

Technical AlternativesISSUE

What technical alternatives to the proposedmessage-switching system might offer ad-vantages when the full range of system re-quirements and social concerns are con-sidered?

SUMMARYThe need for message traffic between States is

inherent in any system based on decentralizedCCH files. The proposed FBI message switchingwould provide telecommunications for this mes-sage traffic in a manner that would route alltraffic through a “hub” under control of the FBI.This approach would integrate the CCH trafficin to the ex is t ing NCIC communicat ions ne t-work and wou ld p rov ide the se rv ice a t nocharge to the States. However, the message-switching concept has raised a furor, in partbecause of concern that the resulting CCH sys-tem would be equivalent to a national data bank even though the files are physically decentral-ized, and that control of the message switchwould give the FBI excessive control over theuser agencies.

Alternative approaches to managing messagetraffic are available that might relieve some of these concerns, while raising questions of theirown. Grouping of States for CCH exchange intoa number of regional networks rather than onenational network may also have some advan-tages that should be explored.

The need for positive identification of individ-uals before cr iminal h is tory records can beapplied with confidence to criminal justice deci-sionmaking has been discussed since the earlydays of project SEARCH. At least one State,

New York, requires positive fingerprint iden-tification and has set up an intra-state facsimilenetwork to fac i l i ta te ident i f ica t ion with in 3hours. Projection of this requirement nation-wide could lead to extensive additional telecom-munications requirements. New technology of-fers some promise, and needs further explora-tion.

QUESTIONS1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

To what extent could the message-switch-ing system be designed to prevent or detectillicit monitoring of CCH message trafficby the message switch operating agency?

To what extent might the system be vulner-able to monitoring or tampering with CCHfiles by unauthorized persons; requiring ad-d i t i o n a l p h y s i c a l a n d d a t a s e c u r i t ymeasures?

W h a t a r e t h e a d v a n t a g e s a n d d i s a d -vantages in cost , operational character-istics, and auditability of a multinode dis-tributed data network which would not re-quire all messages to be routed throughWashington?

Wha t advan tages and d i sadvan tages , i f any, wou ld reg iona l sy s tems have wi thregard to economy, ease of management,responsiveness to local needs, protection of privacy and accountability and resolutionof conflicts between units of Government?

Might a regional configuration obviate theneed for a national pointer index by permit-ting economical broadcast inquiry to theregional systems?

If some smaller States chose to remain withmanual c r iminal h is tory records , wouldregional or national computerized pointerto these records adequately serve the needsof the other States?

How soon would the fingerprint and fac-simile technologies be available for crimi-

nal justice use in a cost-effective manner tosatisfy the identification requirements ac-companying CCH?

What are the likely changes in cost of thesetechnologies with time?

37

3 6 - 7 3 8 0 - 7 8 - 6



9.

10 .

What w ill be th e effect of these technologieson th e optimum national fingerprint systemwith regard to centralization or decentral-ization?

What consideration, if any, should PresentCCH system planners give to these tech-nologies?

DISCUSSION

There is no doubt that present technology indata processing and communications is ade-qu ate to meet NCIC system performance re-quirements . Furthermore, over the past 1 0years, the cost of d ata processing technologyhas been decreasing continuously. In particular,the technology associa ted with d ig i ta l com-m u n i c a t i o n s h a s u n d e r g o n e m a j o r c h a n g e swh ich make the concep t o f d i s t r ibu ted da taprocessing more realizable from a cost point of view.

However, it is not so clear that present tech-no logy and sys tem des ign and deve lopmen ttools and techniques are able to ensure adequatecontrols and protection to ensure the confiden-tiality of the information as it passes throughthe system, is stored on tapes and discs for rapidaccess, or is archived for historical purposes.

At this time, when the alternatives for imple-mentation of CCH are being re-examined, sometime should be given to looking at the possi-bility that newer technology could provide amore effective means of meeting the systems re-quirements or relieve some of the serious prob-lems of social concern about the system.

MESSAGE SWITCHIN G

Message traffic between NCIC user agenciesis a fundamental aspect of the system. In addi-tion to routine administrative traffic, there aretwo important sources of operational messagetraffic between NCIC user agencies. The first isconcerned with validation of NCIC “hits. ” Forexample, if a routine NCIC inquiry about a per-son reveals that the NCIC wanted person file

lists him as the subject of an arrest warrant heldby the Chicago Police Department, the inquir-ing agency must contact the Chicago PD direct-ly to determine if the warrant is still valid beforeit can take action. Rapid and direct communica-

tions for this purpose is obviously necessary andcan minimize the likelihood of a stale or inac-curate record leading to an improper action onthe part of the recipient agency. A second sourceof message traffic between user agencies is asso-ciated with any concept of decentralized CCH,in which criminal histories on file in one Statemust be communicated in response to inquiryfrom another State. These messages are pres-

ently handled either on the National Law En-fo rcemen t Te l e c o m m u n i c a t i o n s System(NLETS), by mail, or by direct telephone com-munication.

The FBI’s proposed Limited Message-Switch-ing P lan wou ld p rov ide fo r t r ansmiss ion o f these types of messages over the NCIC telecom-munications network in addition to the currenttraffic of messages transmitted to and from theNCIC files. The term “message switching” refersto the routing of messages between user criminal

justice agencies by means of the NCIC com-

munications network and its central computer.The communications network can be viewed asa wheel with the FBI computer as the hub andthe communications lines leading to each of theStates as spokes. Transmission of data messagesbetween agencies over this network therefore re-quires transmission from the inquiring agencyto the hub and then retransmission to the ad-dressed agency. Replies would operate the sameway. Use of the NCIC communications network in this fashion could be a rapid and economicalway of managing the system’s message traffic.

Although the message-switching approach todata communications is becoming quite com-mon, it has encountered potent opposition whenapplied to the NCIC situation. One primaryreason for this opposition is concern that theFBI, in managing the message switch, would ob-tain excessive control over the user agencies andan opportunity to monitor the traffic for poli-tical purposes. This opposition is also fed by afear that message switching would provide thecapability of integrating CCH data held by theStates for purposes not intended for the systemand that consequently CCH could become an

u n c o n t r o l l a b l e n a t i o n a l d a t a b a n k . I n t h i srespect message switching for NCIC has becomea s s o c i a t e d w i t h m o r eabout the creation andbanks in our society.

‘genera l ized concernsabuse of national data

38



routine basis. The two bottlenecks to achievingthis are the time-consuming and expensive proc-ess of manual technical search of fingerprintf i les , and the present h igh cost of facs imiletransmission of fingerprints.

Technology offers the prospect of so lv ingboth of these problems. The FBI has investedheavily in the past 10 years in the developmentof the FINDER system for fingerprint encodingand search. This system, now being installed inthe FBI Identification Division, is almost com-pletely automated. Total equipment and soft-ware costs until completion have been estimatedat $57.2 million. In addition, the training andskills required to operate the system are exten-sive. Nevertheless, a highly automated finger-print identification system is on the verge of being demonstrated to be economical, at leastfor the FBI’s very large collection. More recentlythe Canadian Government has ordered a similarsystem to be installed at the RCMP headquar-ters in Ottawa. This system, with a file of 2 mil-lion fingerprint records is about the size thatwould be required by a Sta te ident i f ica t ionbureau. The problem of economical fingerprinttransmission still remains. But here too, recentdevelopments in digital facsimile systems, in-cluding some technology developed with LEAAsupport, shows promise of leading to practicaland economical hardware.

It is not clear without further study how soonthese technologies are likely to be available andeconomical enough for widespread use. Further-more, depending on the relative costs of the

FINDER and facsimile technologies, they couldhave the effect of encouraging either centraliza-tion or decentralization of the Nation’s finger-print identification activities.

Transition Planning

ISSUE

Considering t h e s i g n i f i c a n t c h a n g e i ncriminal justice recordkeeping that CCHimp l ies and the long t r ans i t ion pe r iod

before it can be implemented fully, whataspects of this transitional period requireplanning now?

SUMMARY

Much d iscuss ion of CCH tends e i ther tocriticize problems and imbalances of today’ssystem environment or to focus on design of anultimate system operating at some time in thefuture. It is tacitly assumed that a transitionpath between the two can be found. However,expl ic i t p lanning wil l be necessary to avoiddangerous pitfalls along this path.

The gradual conversion from manual to auto-mated criminal justice recordkeeping is accom-plishing a steady improvement in both the ac-curacy and comple teness of records . At thesame time, more extensive use of the records hasbeen made possible. There is good reason toquestion whether the quality of today’s recordsis adequate to support the uses to which they arebeginning to be put in criminal justice decision-making. System planning should recognize thatthere will be an extended period in which mostcriminal history records do not meet standards

of quality. Interim procedures and monitoringmay be desirable, as is coordination of the paceof implementation of improved intrastate in-formation systems with the rate of interstateCCH implementation.

A large number of cost-related questions notcurrently addressed by the FBI need to be ad-d r e s s e d . T h e r a t e o f d e v e l o p m e n t o f S t a t esystems needed to support CCH is in large partdetermined by Department of Justice policiesand funding which affect systems developmentprimarily. Yet the States have concerns aboutthe operating cost impact of the new systemsand may resist Federal requirements, such asaudit, that could add to their operating costs.

Also related to CCH planning is the relation-ship between the FBI’s Identification Division,the State Identification Bureaus and CCH. Forthe next 5 years or more, until CCH is substan-tially operational, the manual rap sheet activi-ties of the Identification Division will have to becontinued. In the long run, maintenance of thetwo systems wil l obviously be dupl ica t ive .There is no FBI plan dealing with this question.

Finally, there are some questions about poorresponse time in the existing NCIC system. FBIstatistics made available to the working group

40



cient number of CCH records are amassed tosatisfy operational law enforcement needs. " 23

Even if the States begin to join CCH at an ac-ce lera ted ra te , th is per iod is l ike ly to be aminimum of 5, perhaps 10, years.

Even with a decentralized CCH program, theFBI Identification Division will play a centralrole. While States with their own records of of-fender fingerprints will be able to identify of-fenders with prior records in the State, checkswith the master f ingerpr in t f i le wil l s t i l l benecessary if no fingerprints are on file in theState. Thus the procedure of submitting finger-print cards to the FBI on offenders with no Staterecord must be continued. Only in the unlikelyevent of extreme improvement in accuracy andcost of electronic processing of fingerprintscould a centralized national file be eliminated infavor of multiple search of all State files.

The FBI is in the process of automating itsidentification process through a program called

“AIDS” (Automated Identification DivisionSystem). AIDS will eventually provide for auto-matic name and fingerprint searching at the na-tional level. While discussions with FBI repre-sentatives have clearly identified the close link be tween the Ident i f ica t ion Divis ion programand CCH, OTA is not aware of any long- termFBI plan encompassing both activities. Since itdoes appear that the two criminal history fileswil l eventual ly become duplica t ive , and thefingerprint search function is so central to both,it seems necessary that long-term planning inthe FBI and the Department of Justice should

describe the eventual relationships. This wouldapply particularly to the blueprint for CCH nowbeing prepared by the Department of Justice.

Another reason for examining both activitiestogether is that the arguments concerning over-sight and accountability for protection of in-dividual liberties may apply with equal force toboth systems. Special auditing and managementprocedures that may be determined to be neededfor control of CCH information disseminationmay therefore apply equally to dissemination of Identification Division criminal history files aswell.

23 Federal Bureau of Investigation, “National Crime In-formation Center—Proposed Limited Message-SwitchingImplementation Plan, ” April 14, 1975 (Revised).

NCIC RESPONSE TIME AND DOWNTIME

There have been numerous reports of longdelays, some 10 minutes or more, in response toNCIC inqu i r ie s . Fu r the rmore , the sy s tem’sdowntime level is thought to be excessive. Theworking group rece ived from the FBI somesta t is t ics regard ing both response t ime anddowntime.” This data indicated that the NCICcentral facility was unavailable to process trans-actions because of unscheduled downtime of anaverage 23.9 hours per month during the first 9months of 1977, for an average in-service avail-ability of 96.7 percent. There were an average of 57 outages in excess of 2 minutes in the averagemonth. The average duration of these outageswas therefore 25 minutes.

From the viewpoint of the user making in-quiries to the system, this downtime results indelays at least as long as the outage. Conse-quently, the data suggests that over 3 percent of the NCIC transactions may have incurred de-

Iays of several minutes because of system out-age. The local agency experiencing this delayreceives no message explaining the nature of theproblem or the delay to be expected. The user isthus left with uncertainty about the delay that isprobably as operationally serious as the delayitself.

When the central processor is in service, thedata provided by the FBI suggests that on theaverage, response time should be quite good.However, data on the peak busy period process-ing load would be needed to confirm this im-pression.

A long-term solution to NCIC’S response timeand downtime problems should be addressed aspart of the current FBI computer system plan-ning and the NCIC “blueprint” exercise underway in the Department of Justice. However, itshould be recognized that it is likely to be 3 to 4years, if not longer, before these longer termplans begin to have their effect.

In the interim, the FBI has submitted a Re-quest for Proposal (RFP) for a front-end com-munications controller which would be used inconjunction with t he IBM 360/ 65 central pr oc-

24 Letter from Jay Cochran, Jr., Assistant Director, FBITechnical Services Division, Nov. 10, 1977.

43



essor for the purpose of relieving that machineof the burden of managing the NCIC communi-cations traffic. OTA’s working group membersd i d n o t c o n d u c t a n i n v e s t i g a t i o n i n t o t h ereasons for the alleged downtime and responsetime. However, given the data provided in theRFP and the explanation which FBI officialsmade of their problems, and given the technicalpurpose of front-end processing, and its wide-

spread use to perform economically the generalhousekeeping functions associated with messagecontrol, such a procurement request would be acommon technological solution toward relief of such communications problems as are describedfor NCIC. The procurement , however, con-tained a provision for message switching as amandatory opt ion . The FBI’s stated argument

SOCIAL

Effects on the CriminalJustice System

ISSUE

In what ways, desirable or undesirable,might CCH cause, or contribute to ,changes in the operation or organization of the criminal ju stice system?

SUMMARY

Practitioners and critics of the criminal justicesystem suggest that the traditional “due process”or “adversary” model of criminal justice is nolonger appropriate for describing the reality of criminal justice decisionmaking. Organizationalresource constraints and opportunities for dis-cretion have increased the importance of admin-istrative decisions in managing the workload of criminal justice agencies. CCH is an importanttool supporting these mechanisms.

In the long term, CCH has the potential eitherto improve the quality of criminal justice deci-sionmaking or to introduce further inequities inthe system. Careful investigation of its potentialimpac t on admin is t ra t ive p rocedu res i s r e -quired.

for th is was pr imari ly economic: i f messageswitching were to be authorized later, the optionwould have ensured minimum cost to its im-p lem en ta tio n. I n cl u s io n o f t h is o p t i on m e tstrong opposition, as some saw it as a possiblesubterfuge to obtain message switching withoutauthorization. The inclusion of the message-switching option ties this RFP into the CCHdebate, and therefore delayed the procurement.

The RFP was rewritten by the Bureau to removeall references to message switching and on April24, 1978, was presented to the General ServicesAdministration. As of December, procurementau tho r i ty had so fa r been wi the ld pend ingresolution of a difference of interpretation sur-rounding the question of the exact nature of theprocurement and procedures for obtaining it.

IMPACTS

QUESTIONS

1.

2.

3.

4.

Will the proposed CCH system strengthentrends towards administrative justice aso p p o s e d t o t r a d i t i o n a l c o n c e p t i o n s o f l ega l due p rocess , p re sumpt ion o f in -nocence, and full, fair, and open hearings?

What is the likely effect of the proposedCCH system on the administrative processand relationships between criminal justiceagencies?

Will the proposed CCH system make itmore difficult for former offenders to rein-tegrate into society and thus impede theirrehabilitation?

What is the likely impact of use of CCH incriminal justice decisonmaking on case-loads, detention and prison populations,a n d r eq u ir em e nt s f or ju d g e s a n d a t -torneys?

DISCUSSION

It is widely recognized by those who have ex- ,amined the criminal justice system in detail thattraditional, legal definitions of “due process” nolonger characterize the bulk of criminal justicesystem activities. Such conceptions would re-

44



quire a presumption of innocence and truly ad-versary proceedings, full, fair, and open judicialhearings, free from even the taint of coercion,threats, or considerations of advantage either tothe accused or the justice system. While a fewaccused criminals do receive such treatment, thevast bulk of the 5 million or so persons reportedarrested annually do not. In most jurisdictions,from Manhattan to rural Wisconsin, over 9 0percent of the convictions result from guiltypleas .25

Police officials, criminal lawyers, judges, andscholars , who have observed the rea l i ty of criminal justice decisionmaking have character-ized this system, variously, as “bureaucratic dueprocess, “ 26 27 “organizational due process, “2 8 th e“cr ime contro l model , ” 29 and in the popularpress as “assembly line justice. ” 3°

At the heart of each of these descriptions isthe not ion tha t the cr iminal jus t ice process

ope ra te s unde r a p re sumpt ion o f gu i l t . Thegoals of the criminal justice agencies are ra-tional/ instrumental g oals. The criminal justiceprocess—in this view—is seen as a screeningprocess in which each successive stage—pre-arrest investigation, arrest, post-arrest invest-igation, preparation for trial, trial or entry of pleas, conviction, disposition—involves a serieso f r o u t i n i z e d o p e r a t i o n s w h o s e s u c c e s s i sgauged by their tendency to efficiently passalong cases to the next agency.

The period of the 1960’s is very important forunders t and ing cu r ren t t rends in c r imina l j u s t i ceadministration. It was a period of growing pub-l i c a w a r e n e s s a n d f e a r o f c r i m e . Th i s i n t u r nbrough t c r ime to the fo reg round as a politicalissue, resulting in, among other things, a Pres-idential Commision on Law Enforcement andAdministration of Justice. It was a period of

25Donald J. Newman, “Pleading Guilty for Considera-tions: A Study of Bargain Justice, ” )ourrza/ OJ Criminal

Law, Criminology, atld Police Science 46 (1956): 780.Z b A b ra h am s. Blumberg, Criminal )ustice, C h i c a g o :

Quadrangle Books, 1970.“Arthur Niederhoffer, Behind the Shield, Garden City,

N. Y.: Ancho r Books, 1969.‘“lerome Skolnick, lustice Without Trial, New York:

Wiley, 1967.“Herbert L. Packer, The Limits of the Criminal Sanc-

tion, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1968.‘“Jerome Skolnick, Justice Without Trial, New York:

Wiley, 1967.

social strife among whites and blacks, and be-tween anti- and pro-Vietnam War proponents.The activities of the police in particular were afocus of national attention both by those whosaw them as brutal defenders of the status quo,and others who wanted to solve the crime prob-lem by removing all constraints from the police.I t was a lso a per iod of increased reports of crime, increased arrest activity of police, andresultant pressures on prosecutors, courts, andprisons to administer the large caseloads. ThePres ident’s Commission re leased a report in1967, The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society,which itself became an important trend-settingdocument both in terms of future policies andvalue assumptions on the control of crime.

The report recognized that criminal justiceadministration in this country is highly frag-mented. Each of the 60,000 agencies involvedhad its own recordkeeping practices and needs.This observation contributes to the pressure for

computerized criminal histories as a manage-ment tool for tracking persons through the mazeof the justice system.

The report also recognized the problem of rec id iv ism. About 68 percent of persons ar-rested for felonies the first time will be arrestedat least one more time for a subsequent felony.This has added impetus to a program of com-puterized criminal histories both at the Stateand national levels, and also has led to the de-velopment of “careers in crime” programs bothat the FBI and local levels which seek to ensure

that repeat offenders are dealt with severely byprosecutors and judges.

The Commission also reported a lack of in-formation, poor management, and lack of coop-eration among agencies. This encouraged theestablishment of new funding mechanisms toe n t ice lo ca l ag e n ci es i n to c o m p l ia n ce w i thFederal and State executive branch programs.

T h e r e c o m m e n d a t i o n s o f t h e P r e s i d e n t ’sCommission led to the rapid development of State CCH programs; criminal histories havecome to play a central role in the administrative

justice process. The nature of the treatment thatan individual receives from the criminal justicesystem has come to depend strongly on the ad-ministrative screening of his criminal historyrecords at numerous points in the process. (Seelnforrnation Needs, p. 17, for discussion of the

45



constitutional rights and data quality issues in-volved here. ) Thus, CCH is an important, andsucessfu l tool support ing the gradual sh if ttowards bureaucratic criminal justice processes.As the use of computerized records becomesmore widespread and the workload of criminal

justice agencies continues to increase, furtherapplications of CCH as a management tool canbe anticipated.

The availability of criminal history records tosupport c r iminal jus t ice decis ionmaking wil lnecessarily change the quality of those deci-sions. To take just one example, consider theuse of CCH to aid the decision to set bail. Thiswill operate to increase the probability that per-sons with cr iminal h is tor ies meet ing cer ta incriteria would be detained. Two alternative con-sequences would flow from this result. Eitherdetention facilities would become increasinglyovercrowded or incarcerating officials wouldadjust the ir dec is ionmaking process so tha t

some people who would be detained under cur-rent procedures would be permitted bail.

This sort of shift in decisionmaking might bein the direction of a more rational, fair, and ex-plicit system, allowing officials discretionarydecisions to be factually based on appropriateinformation about the individual involved. Cer-tainly studies show that, at present, great ine-quities are observable in decisions for reasonshaving to do with social class, ethnicity, and ahost of other nonlegal social distinctions. 31 Bu tit is also possible that one set of inequities willbe replaced by another. For example, use of in-complete, inaccurate criminal histories has beenattacked as systematically unfair in a currentcourt case. 32 A future assessment could examinethe effect of CCH on this trend.

The Dossier Society

ISSUE

To what extent, if any, might CCH contrib-ute to the growth of Federal social control,or become an instrument for subversion of

the democratic process?

31Charles Bahn, “Sentence Disparity and Civil Rights, ”U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, December 1977.32Tatum , et al. vs. Rogers.

SUMMARY

Some possible consequences of new techno-logical systems are of such magnitude that, eventhough speculative and remote, they deserveser ious a t ten t ion , par t icu lar ly i f the conse-quences have the potential to be irreversible.Falling into this category is the possibility thatCCH might become part of a drift in bureau-

cratic growth leading to ever larger instrumentsof Federal social control, or even to internalsubversion of the normal democratic process.

More explicit technology contingency asses-ment is required to permit evaluation of thisissue.

QUESTIONS

1.

2.

3.

4.

To what extent, if any, does the proposedCCH system in combination with otherFederal systems in the Internal RevenueService, Social Security, HEW, and other

agencies expand the potential surveillancec a p a c i t y o f t h e F e d e r a l G o v e r n m e n tbeyond reasonable limits?

To what extent, if any, will the develop-ment of a national interstate CCH capabil-ity expand criminal justice demand forand use of CCH records?

Given the potential for linkage betweenthe proposed CCH system and the manyother, new, massive Federal data banks,to what extent is it advisable for Congressto establish an agency specifically charged

w i t h m o n i t o r i n g o r c o n t r o l l i n g t h e s esystems?

Are the available oversight and auditingmechanisms strong enough to alert societyto adverse consequences in time to avoidor reverse them?

DISCUSSION

Although American society rejected the ideaof a na t ional s ta t is t ica l-adminis tra t ive da tabank, it is apparent that through incrementaldecisions in a number of areas—HEW, InternalRevenue, Social Security, Occupational Health,and so forth—the building blocks of a nationaldata bank are, or shortly will be, in existence. Itis well known that the demand for informationis often encouraged by the supply of cheap,reasonable quality information. And it is con-

46



ceivable that through the pressure of day-to-dayadministration of large Federal programs, orthrough popular pol i t ica l pressure , cer ta ingroups of Americans will be routinely trackedthrough Federal data banks. Fathers who haveabandoned their families provide an interestingexample of a group thought particularly anti-social by Federal welfare officials, the public,and Congress. The recent program established

by HEW to compare local welfare records withFederal social security files in order to track down these fathers illustrates how a combina-t ion o f po l i t i ca l and admin is t ra t ive fo rcesresponds to the supply of information. Such aprogram would be inconceivable without exten-sive computerization of State-1ocal welfare files.Moreover, there are no inherent limits on thisprocess: popular passions, fed by the technicalcapabi l i ty and supply of information , maygradually extend the dossier society to manypopulation subgroups.

In such a context, CCH must be consideredanother important building block for a nationaldata bank. The extensive use of CCH in law en-forcement, criminal justice, employment, andl icensing could be ex tended beyond presentlimits under pressure of new perceived needs.For example, CCH and the NCIC wanted per-sons and missing persons files could be used toassist in tracking and locating individuals exer-cising first amendment rights, and identifyingmembers of political groups.

In exploring these possibilities, perhaps thelimiting case is the possible abuse of CCH, and

other systems with files on individuals, throughinternal subversion of the democratic processand/ or cultural draft towards a bureaucraticleviathan. In the recent past, reports and hear-ings show that the existence of FBI criminal files,as well as some other Federal Government fileson individuals, has proven a powerful tempta-tion for some political executives to abuse thedemocratic process and threaten the civil liber-ties of Americans. In some instances, Federaladministrators and other personnel with directresponsibility for the integrity of these informa-t ion sys tems have indica ted they of ten fe l t

powerless or acted in concert with the abuse of these systems.

These possibilities may seem remote, but themagnitude of their consequences could be cata-strophic. Furthermore, the ability of our social

organization to recognize and control the incre-mental growth of data banks has not been firm-ly demonstrated to say the least.

A future assessment should examine the vul-nerability of CCH to these abuses, and the pros-pects of strengthening safeguards against them.

Privacy and Civil Liberties Trends

ISSUE

Is there a conflict between maintaining na-tional privacy and civil liberties trends anddecentralizing responsibility for the CCHsystem?

SUMMARY

The national dialog on computerized criminalh is tor ies has produced some s low progresstowards achieving a recognition of the need forrestrictions on the dissemination of records. Theeffect on the health of this movement of a possi-ble decentralization of CCH to the States is notclear. It may become more difficult to maintaina national spotlight on these sensitive questions.

QUESTIONS

1.

2.

3.

What would be the impact of decentraliza-tion of CCH on the opportunity for over-sight of constitutional rights protectionthroughout the country?

Would it be more or less possible for in-teres ted groups to focus a t ten t ion onvio la t ions or pa t te rns of governmenta labuses?

Would a decentralized system be more orless responsive to the privacy concerns of individuals?

DISCUSSION

The crea t ion of a computer ized f i le withcriminal histories under Federal auspices has of-fered a unique opportunity to make some slownational progress toward achieving social goalsof fairness, privacy, and freedom of informa-t ion through s ta tu tor y and admin is t ra t ive re -strictions on abuses in use of personal recordsand on careless or malicious or unwise dissem-ination of records. It allowed, indeed forced, along-needed dialog on the need for relevancy,

47



accuracy, and timeliness of information on peo-ple when it was used by those agencies whichmost intensely exercised the force of govern-m e n t . M a n y h u n d r e d s o f s t u d i e s , a r t i c l e s ,essays, and speeches have analyzed the implica-tions of these issues which were inherent fromthe beginning of NCIC/ CCH.

Although reflecting diversity, this dialog, and

t h e l a w s , r u l e s , a n d j u d i c i a l d e c i s i o n s i tgenerated, moved the Federal and many Stategovernments very far along the way towards anat ional information pol icy. In i tse lf , i t hashelped to weld together the diverse politicalarenas in our society where these issues weredebated. It energized reforms in other areas of r eco rdkeep ing and many o f these a re doc -umented in recent reports of the Privacy Protec-tion Commission.

Some analysis needs to be given to the healthof this movement insofar as law enforcement ,

criminal justice records and computerized sys-tems are concerned. Returning CCH files to theStates or to another entity, under different um-brellas, might reduce the opportunity for over-

sight of the way important constitutional rightsinterests are being protected throughout thec o u n t r y. I t i s n o t c l e a r w h e t h e r i n t e r e s t e dgroups would find it easier or more difficult toturn a spotlight on a violation or pattern of governmental abuses with the intensity suffi-cient to effect changes. Restructuring of NCICmight result in throwing such political interestgroups into an arena dominated by influentialpolice chiefs and political executives in the lawenforcement and criminal justice agencies of each State. On the other hand, such a scenariomight make it easier to advocate changes andpromote oversight in areas of concern to con-stitutional rights groups and others concernedwith maintenance of effective criminal justicesystems.

A future assessment of this issue should takenotice of identifiable trends in public attitudeconcerning civil l iberties, fear of scientific-techno log ica l deve lopmen t , and towards in -

creased levels of powerlessness and alienationwith regard to political institutions. Such trendsare evidenced by numerous surveys, reports,and legislative activities.

48



Appendixes



Senator Edward M. KennedyS e p t e m b e r 1 2 . 1 9 7 7Page 2

s w i t c h i n g g e n e r a l l y . A n a n a l y s i s o f t h e p r o p o s a l i sn e e d e d i n t e r m s o f t h e i s s u e s r a i s e d a b o v e , i . e . :

does the p r o p o s a l c a l l f o r im p l e m e n t a t i o n o f

t h e n e w e s t a n d b e s t t e c h n o l o g y a v a i l a b l e ( I st h a t t e c h n o l o g y n e c e s s a r y t o c a r r y o u t t h ef u n c t i o n s d e s c r i b e d i n t h e p r o p o s a l ? ) ;

d o e s i t p r o v i d e f o r a p p r o p r i a t e p r i v a c y a n ds e c u r i t y m e a s u r e s a n d s a f e g u a r d s f o r c o n s t i t u -t i o n a l r i g h t s a n d c i v i l l i b e r t i e s ; .

d o e s i t t a k e i n t o a c c o u n t t h e n e e d s o f i t sp r i m a r y u s e r s , t h e s t a t e s , o n a n o n g o i n g b a s i s ;

d o e s i t o r s h o u l d i t , p r o v i d e f o r s y s t e m a t i ca u d i t s o f t h e s y s t e m , b o t h i n t e r n a l a n d e x t e r n a l ,announced and unannounced ;

w i l l i t i m p r o v e t h e s p e e d o f r e s p o n s e a n d r e d u c et h e c u r r e n t d o w n t i m e l e v e l s , b o t h o f w h i c h a r ec i t e d a s p r o b l e m s b y s o m e u s e r s a n d o u t s i d ec o m p u t e r e x p e r t s ( A r e t h e s e i n f a c t s e r i o u sp rob lems ?) ;

d o e s i t s t r i k e t h e a p p r o p r i a t e b a l a n c e b e t w e e ns t a t e a n d f e d e r a l c o n t r o l o f t h i s s y s t e m ,k e e p i n g i n m i n d t h a t t h e S u b c o m m i t t e e l e a n st o w a r d t h e l e a s t i n t r u s i v e f e d e r a l ( F B I ) i n -v o l v e m e n t p o s s i b l e , c o n s i s t e n t w i t h e f f i c i e n to p e r a t i o n o f t h e s y s t e m .

T h e s e q u e s t i o n s a n d i s s u e s a r e n o t m e a n t t o b ea l l - i n c l u s i v e . F o r ex a m p l e , i n a r e p o r t p r e p a r e d f o r t h eS u b c o m m i t t e e b y t h e S c i e n t i s t s ’ I n s t i t u t e f o r P u b l i cI n f o r m a t i o n , a c o py o f wh i ch i s en c lo s e d, a d di t io n a lp r o b l e m s w e r e c i t e d , a n d s u g ge s t io n s f o r c h a ng e we r e m a de .Yo u r e v a l u a t i o n o f t h o s e p r o b l e m s a n d s u g g e s t i o n s w o u l da l s o s h e d m u c h l i g h t o n t h i s i n q u i r y . F i n a l l y , y o u r a n s w e r st o a l l o f t h e s e q u e s t i o n s m a y , i n t u r n , l e a d Y O U t oi d e n t i f y a n d a s s e s s a l t e r n a t i v e s , w h i c h w o u l d b e u s e f u l t ot h e S u b c o m m i t t e e ’s s t u d y.

52



Regulations place the responsibility for theauditing of Computerized Criminal Historydata on each state to perform its own audit.The NCIC Advisory Policy Board state-ment of October 20, 1976, also mandatessystematic audits on the part of the stateswith respect to CCH data. There are noRegulations at all which mandate any auditof non-CCH data. Therefore, neither the

FBI nor any other agency except the sub-mit t ing sta te audi ts what goes in to thesystem and how it goes in, The FBI onlyscrutinizes state systems when it is invitedto do so by that state, or when the FBIsuspects wrongdoing on the part of em-ployees of the system. The FBI does pointout errors in procedure and obvious dataerrors that come to its attention, However,the opinion of the Task Force was that in-dependent auditing, both announced andunannounced, as in the case of bank audits,is crucial to maintaining the accuracy and

integrity of data, and to ensure that ade-quate computer management practices andsafeguards are being followed. For exam-ple, the rate of inaccurate records can bestbe determined by independent audit, but atthe present time such figures for the systemas a whole are unavailable. Finally, oneTask Force member felt that the “friendly”relations between the local law enforce-ment agencies and the FBI, and the desire tokeep those relations fr iendly, mili tatedagainst a system where one part was trulylooking over another part in a critical way.

2. There has been no in-depth evaluation of the actual benef i t s of NCIC ei ther per-formed by the states or by the FBI despite10 years of operation. Except for a numbero f h i g h l y d r a m a t i c i n c i d e n t s t h a t a r ereported on occasion to indicate that NCICworks, there have been no studies, evalua-tions, or reports which give hard data onthe benefits that have resulted to criminal

justice as a result of NCIC. For example,what use does the criminal justice com-

munity make of NCIC data, and how doesthis improve criminal justice efforts? Theactual benefits of NCIC still remain in thearea of surmise, rather than demonstratedresults.

3.

4.

For such a vast system, containing over 61 / 2

m i l l i o n r e c o r d s , w i t h 2 5 0 , 0 0 0 t r a n s a c t i o n sper day, the hit ratio was not demonstratedt o b e i m p r e s s i v e . The system has about1,000 hits per day, of which 50% were forstolen vehicles, 20-25 1%0 for wanted per-sons, and the rest scattered over the othersix non-CCH files. There was no reliabledata available for the CCH hit ratio. With-

out studies of the context of the hits, evenin cases involving the “hot” files there is noproven demonstration of the significance of these hits. There is insufficient availableproof of whether an extremely rapid re-sponse, which NCIC is designed to pro-v ide r is of such vital significance in a greatproportion of these 1,000 daily hits. In ad-dit ion, all of the information obtainedthrough NCIC could be obtained else-where, admittedly, by a less rapid manner,since all the data is kept at the state level.There are other sources of criminal justice

information in addition to this state main-tained data. For example, there is a stolencar list maintained by a consortium of in-surance companies which the FBI admits isin some respects more accurate and up-to-date than the NCIC stolen vehicle f i lewhich relies on state-supplied information.Perhaps the NLETS system, in the case of much intersta te informat ion, i s an ade-quate, alternative communication device.The maintenance of the huge NCIC system,growing every year, may be subject toquestion when there is no demonstration

that the 1,000 daily hits provide a signifi-cant benefit to law enforcement, and thatcomparable information may be availableby other means, at cheaper cost, and withless significant problems involving in-tergovernmental relations.

The downtime of the system was viewed asexcessive. There ar e abou t 30 hou rs permonth o f unschedu led downt ime , an dabout 2-3 hours per month of scheduleddown t ime . On 7 / 12/ 77 the sys t em hadoperated for eight straight days without

downt ime, but has had other occasionswhen the system was down for as long as11 hours. I t requires a minimum of 45minutes to restart the system after down-time; it requires a cold start; and the down-

55



t ime is more due to hardware than soft-ware. Although the system has 94% up-time, the Task Force said that this would bean unacceptable record in most commercialenterprises. If such downtime existed in abank or insurance company, it would be as i tua t ion requir ing immedia te correc t iveaction. The FBI plans to request additionalfunds for some costly equipment upgrad-

ing, designed, in part, to solve this problemof downtime.

5. “Expungement” from the system does notmean true expungement of a record. Back-up tapes and a log are necessarily main-tained by NCIC for system reliability pur-poses. This is a necessary precaution com-mon in computer systems. However, sinceback-up tapes and a log are maintained,“expungement” (“cancellation,” “clear”)from NCIC really means that the expungeddata is not available on-line, but does exist

on tapes that are kept at FBI Headquarters.Expungement from NCIC can occur due tothe fact that the initial entry was incorrect,among other reasons, but even this sort of expungement would still entail a record be-ing maintained by the FBI, even of the er-roneous data, kept on back-up tapes. Theproblem of expunged data does not involveinsignificant numbers. For example, in a re-cent ten-day period, there were cancels andclears on 17,000 stolen vehicles, 2,500 CCHfiles, 1,000 “articles,” 2,000 license plates,6,200 wanted or missing persons, and 1,800

guns. There are a variety of reasons forthese clears and cancels, but some percent-age of them involve errors that put peopleinto the files who never belonged there inthe first place. Yet, these records will bemaintained on NCIC back-up tapes.

6 . There have been a t leas t e ight lawsui tsresulting from the use of NCIC data, one of which was d irec ted agains t the Sect ionChief of NCIC. These suits can result fromfalse arrest, unlawful search and seizure, orother improper practices. One of the side

benefits of not fully expunging data is todefend law enforcement personnel f roml a w s u i t s b y p o i n t i n g t o d a t a t h a t h a dpreviously been maintained in NCIC at onet ime , wh ich may have g iven “p robab le

cause” for the law enforcement action thatthe lawsuit arose over.

7. The FBI admits that there has been poordisposition reporting by the courts. Thismeans that arrest records remain in the sys-tem without updating of the outcome of that arrest. The arrest records do not dropout of CCH even if no disposition is everreported. Although there are limits on thedissemination of arrest data to non-crimi-nal justice agencies, nonetheless, data onstale arrests are not removed from the sys-tem. One Task Force member suggestedthat arrest data in CCH be removed unlessthere is prompt disposition reporting. Asthe system is now operated, a person willhave an arrest record maintained indefi-nitely in CCH whether or not he is everconvicted in a court.

8 . NCIC requires a cumbersome correc t ion

and updating procedure. When an enteringagency corrects an error or wishes to up-date a record, it must transmit that data tothe central state control terminal, for fur-ther transmission to NCIC central head-quarters in Washington. However, in addi-tion to the data having to pass through sev-eral different steps for correction, this pro-cedure doesn’t provide for complete correc-tion or updating of NCIC data. For exam-ple, assume that Florida has made an inputof incorrect data to NCIC, or certain datathat it has input is now stale. Suppose that

this is CCH data concerning John Doe. If Michigan makes an inquiry to NCIC aboutJohn Doe, Michigan will receive either in-correct or stale data. Further assume thatFlorida then corrects or updates John Doe’srecord, Nonetheless, Michigan is still inpossession of the stale or incorrect data onJohn Doe, and unless Michigan makesanother information request on John Doe,Michigan will not receive the correct andup-to-date data through NCIC. It is notpossible for Florida to directly update orcorrect Michigan’s record on John Doe

through NCIC. Under current procedures,even after Florida has carried out the proc-ess of correction on-line, nevertheless, theFBI still must inform Michigan through themails that there has been an expungement

56



9.

on John Doe. There is no mail correction orupdating on non-CCH files. Local law en-forcement agencies are advised not to acto n o l d N C I C h i t s . O n l y f r e s h h i t s a r eviewed as being adequate, and even then,the person who gets the hit must confirmthis information with the entering state byanother means than NCIC.

The procedures for the verification and cer-tification of data by the states does not pre-vent at least some stale and incorrect datafrom being in NCIC at any given time.Every six months the FBI sends to each stateeither a print-out or tapes of the data thatthat state has submitted to NCIC that is stillbeing maintained in the system. The statemust certify that this data is correct. How-ever, unless the state at that point takes af-firmative action to correct the data sentback to it by the FBI, the data will remainin the system. That is, the state certificationprocedure makes the implied assumptionthat the data, as it is already being main-tained, is correct and up-to-date. One Task Force member suggested that an alternativemethod would be for NCIC to periodicallystart with a clean slate, and have each statesubmit all data at that point which it couldcertify as correct and up-to-date. By theformer method, there is an implied assump-tion that the data in the system is correctand up-to-date. By the latter method, nosuch assumption is made, and a greaterburden of verification and certification isplaced on each state. A second problem isthat the certification procedure is carriedout only every six months. This can leave asubstantial t ime gap in the correction of records which allows a certain percentageof bad data to remain in the system duringthat time gap. Finally, the sanction for astate which certifies data incorrectly can in-clude being cut-off from the system, whichcan also be applied in cases of improperpractices of other kinds. However, becausethe sanction of cut-off is viewed as dracon-

ian, it is applied sparingly. No state hasever been cut off from the hot files. Onlyone local law enforcement agency has everbeen cut off from NCIC, and that was anaction taken by the State of Ohio. Threeother states in the past have been tem-

10.

11.

12.

porarily cut-off from the CCH file due toreorganization o f p r o c e d u r e s i n t h o s es ta tes , bu t have s ince been res tored toCCH. In a system where the only effectivesanction is cut-off, the problem of enforc-ing procedures is a delicate one.

People are not informed when a CCH rec-ord is maintained on them. They do have

the right to check their own file through acumbersome process and the payment of fees in some cases, but figures were notavailable on the number of people who ac-tually do check. There was some feeling ex-pressed by Task Force members that peopleshould be informed periodically if a recordis being maintained concerning them. Ad-dress information of the people on whichrecords are maintained appears on the fin-gerprint cards related to the record in CCH.

There are serious security and privacy con-

siderations when between 6,6oo and 7,000terminals can access NCIC nationwide. Asthe number of terminals increase, with apotential of 45, OO O local, state, and Federalcriminal justice use terminals, the oppor-tunities for abuse also increase. As long assomeone can either gain unauthorized ac-cess themselves , or ga in indirec t accessthrough an authorized user, a system con-taining sensitive data is open to abuse.

Despite nearly six years of operation, only11 states are participating in the CCH por-tion of NCIC by providing some input, andof these, only 2 are fully participating in thesense of providing input of all arrest rec-ords. FBI Director Clarence M. Kelley, inan April 1.5, 1977 memo to Attorney Gen-eral Bell, reiterated his previous request toterminate FBI par t ic ipa t ion in the CCHportion of NCIC. Director Kelley’s reasonsrepeated his previously advanced reasonssuch as excessive cost of the system, lack of participation by the states, and the absenceof au thor i ty for a “message-switching”capability which caused duplication of data

at both the state and Federal levels. CCHreco rds make up abou t 1670 of the totalnumber of records in NCIC, yet even thehead of the agency that manages the systemquestions the efficacy of this portion of it,and calls for the end of this portion.

57



13. In a May 19, 1977 memo, Peter F. Flaherty,Deputy Attorney General, wrote to Direc-tor Kelley that the Justice Department hadundertaken a study to see if “interstatemessage switching should be authorized forthe CCH program. ” Message switchingwould entail keeping CCH data on Federaland multi-state offenders centrally main-ta ined by the FBI, but having data onsingle-state offenders (about 70% of thetotal) maintained by the states. The FBIwould keep a “pointer” file which woulddirect an inquiry from State X to the properstate where that CCH record was beingmaintained, and the capability would existfor State X to query State Y through theNCIC. The FBI would supply the facilitiesfor a state to inquire over FBI maintainedlines to each of the other states. However,

this raises at least two questions. One, withdirect state-to-state access, through the FBI,would there be a tremendous increase in theamount of criminal justice information thatwould be available on-line? For example,California’s CLETS system submits onlyabout 10% of its criminal history data toCCH, determined by the gravity of the of-fense, residence of the defendant, and otherfa ct o rs . H o w e v er , w i th d i r e ct a cc es s,would the entire CLETS system be avail-able to other states? The Task Force feltthat as interconnection increases, problemareas multiply. Two, in this electronic con-tex t , due to the des ign of th is centra lswitching system, would this mean that theFBI would control the flow of ever-increas-ing amounts of criminal justice informationthroughout the country?

58



J A M E S O . E A S T L A N O , M I S S . , C H A I R M A N

C O M M I T T E E O N T H E J U D I C I A R Y

W ASH i NGTON . D.C. 20510

February 15 , 1978

Dr . Russe1l W. PetersonD i r e c t o rO f f i c e o f Te c h n o l o g y A s s e s s m e n tC o n g r e s s o f t h e U n i t e d S t a t e sWashington D. C. 20510

Dear Dr . P e te r so n :

I t i s o u r u n d e r s t a n d i n g t h a t t h e O f f i c e o f T e c h n o l o g y A s s e s s m e n tis now engaged in a pre1iminary analysis o f the National CrimeI n f o r m a t i o n C e n t e r i n r e s p o n s e t o a r e q u e s t f o r a n a s s e s s m e n twhich you rece ived f rom Chai rman Rod ino o f the House Jud ic ia ryCommit tee and Cha i rman Edwards o f the Subcommit tee on Civ i l andC o n s t i t u t i o n a l R i g h t s .

As Cha i rman o f the Sena te Jud ic ia ry Commit tee and as Cha i rmen o f t h e S u b c o m m i t t e e o n A d m i n i s t r a t i v e P r a c t i c e a n d P r o c e d u r e a n d t h eS u b c o m m i t t e e o n t h e C o n s t i t u t i o n , w e j o i n i n t h i s r e q u e s t f o r af u l l s c a l e a s s e s s m e n t a n d e v a l u a t i o n o f t h e N C I C . I n v i e w o f t h ep r e s e n t a n d p r o p o s e d r o l e o f t h e F e d e r a l G o v e r n m e n t i n t h e o p e r a t i o na n d m a n a g e m e n t o f t h i s e x c h a n g e o f i n f o r m a t i o n f o r l o c a l l a we n f o r c e m e n t a g e n c i e s , w e b e l i e v e t h e r e i s a n u rg e n t n e e d f o r a ne v a l u a t i o n o f t h e N C I C f o r : ( 1 ) i t s b e n e f i t s t o t h e u s e r s a n d t ot a x p a y e r s i n t e r m s o f t h e a c c u r a c y o f i t s d a t a , i t s s p e e d , e f f i c i e n c y

a n d r e l i a b i l i t y ; a n d ( 2 ) i t s c o n s e q u e n c e s f o r e f f e c t i v e p r o t e c t i o no f c o n s t i t u t i o n a l r i g h t s i n t h e a d m i n i s t r a t i o n o f j u s t i c e .

T h e D e p a r t m e n t o f J u s t i c e i s c u r r e n t l y c o n s i d e r i n g v a r i o u s p l a n sf o r u p d a t i n g a n d e x p a n d i n g N C I C w h i c h w o u l d i n c l u d e r e t u r n i n g t h ec o m p u t e r i z e d c r i m i n a l h i s t o r i e s ( C C H ) r e c o r d s o f N C I C t o t h e s t a t e sw h i c h h a v e a l r e a d y p u t t h e m i n t o t h e s y s t e m a n d o p e r a t i n g a c e n t r a lm e s s a g e s w i t c h i n g c e n t e r f o r l o c a l a n d s t a t e p o l i c e a g e n c i e s w h e nt h e y r e q u e s t i n f o r m a t i o n f r o m o t h e r j u r i s d i c t i o n s . Th is wou ldr e s u l t i n a m a j o r e x p a n s i o n o f t h i s n a t i o n - w i d e s y s t e m , w i t h i m p l i -c a t i o n s f o r t h e r i g h t o f s t a t e s t o c o n t r o l l o c a l l a w e n f o r c e m e n ta n d t o d e v e l o p r e l a t e d i n f o r m a t i o n s y s t e m s i n l i g h t o f t h e i r o w ns t a t u t e s g o v e r n i n g p r i v a c y a n d f r e e d o m o f i n f o r m a t i o n . J u s t i c e

D e p a r t m e n t p l a n s a l s o r a i s e m a j o r c o n s t i t u t i o n a l r i g h t s p r o b l e m so f p r i v a c y, c o n f i d e n t i a l i t y , s e c u r i t y , d u e p r o c e s s a n d c i v i l l i b e r t i e sw h e r e t h e t e c h n o l o g y m a y i n t e r a c t w i t h a d m i n i s t r a t i v e a n d j u d i c i a lp o l i c y .

60



Dr q R u s s e l l W. P e t e r s o npage two

T h e S e n a t e J u d i c i a r y C o m m i t t e e h a s c o n d u c t e d h e a r i n g s a n d c o n s i d e r e dl e g i s l a t i o n o n t h e s e i s s u e s f o r s o m e s e v e r a l C o n g r e s s e s w i t h o u tt h e b e n e f i t o f a t h o r o u g h e v a l u a t i o n o f e x a c t l y w h a t i n f o r m a t i o ni s i n t h e s y s t e m , a nd wh o n ee ds it an d w hy.

E s p e c i a l l y i n t e r e s t e d i n t h e s e i s s u e s i s t h e S u b c o m m i t t e e o nA d m i n i s t r a t i v e P r a c t i c e a n d P r o c e d u r e w h o s e o v e r s i g h t j u r i s d i c t i o ne n c o m p a s s e s b o t h t h e s u b s t a n t i v e a n d p r o c e d u r a l i n t e r n a l p r a c t i c e sa nd p ro ce du re s o f f e de r a l ag e n c i e s . T he Su bc om mi t t ee i s s tr on gl yi n f a v o r o f a c o m p r e h e n s i v e a n d e f f i c i e n t s y s t e m o f l a w e n f o r c e m e n t ,a n d j o i n s w i t h t h e J u s t i c e D e p a r t m e n t i n s e e k i n g t h i s g o a l . However,t h e i m p o r t a n c e o f a s s u r i n g a c i t i z e n ’ s c o n s t i t u t i o n a l r i g h t s o f d u e p r o c e s s , p r i v a c y, a n d c i v i l l i b e r t i e s i s a l s o o f p r i m e c o n c e r n .

T h e S u b c o m m i t t e e o n t h e C o n s t i t u t i o n a l s o h a s a p a r t i c u l a r i n t e r e s tin the NCIC. O v e r t he p a s t s ev e r al y e a r s i t h a s h e ld s e v er a l h ea r i n gso n t h e i s s u e s r a i s e d b y c r i m i n a l i n f o r m a t i o n s t o r a g e a n d r e t r i e v a ls y s t e m s a n d t h e v a r i o u s c o n s t i t u t i o n a l a n d p r i v a c y c o n c e r n s

p r e s e n t e d b y t h e m . T h e S u b c o m m i t t e e h a s r e c e n t l y e n g a g e d i n a n ,e x c h a n g e o f c o r r e s p o n d e n c e w i t h t h e A t t o r n e y G e n e r a l o n t h eD e p a r t m e n t ’s p l a n s a n d i n t e n t i o n s f o r N C I C .

We are, i n a d d i t i o n , c o nc e rn ed w i t h th e is s ue o f F e de r al c on t ro lo v e r S t a t e i n f o r m a t i o n , a n d h o w t h a t i s s u e w i l l b e d e a l t h w i t h i nt h e p r o p o s e d s y s t e m . I f t h e l o n g t e r m s o c i a l c o n s e q u e n c e s , b e n e f i c i a l

a s w e l l a s a d v e r s e , o f t h i s l a w e n f o r c e m e n t i n f o r m a t i o n s y s t e ma r e t o b e f u l l y i d e n t i f i e d f o r C o n g r e s s , w e b e l i e v e s e v e r a l a r e a sn e e d t o b e f u l l y e x p l o r e d b y y o u r c u r r e n t w o r k i n g g r o u p .

F i r s t , w i t h r e s p e c t t o t h e i s s u e o f t h e i m p a c t o f t h e i n t e r r e l a t i o n -s h i p o f t h e m a n y i n f o r m a t i o n p o l i c i e s w h i c h g o v e r n t h e a d m i n i s t r a t i v e

p r a c t i c e s o f F e d e r a l a n d S t a t e a g e n c i e s w h i c h u s e o r a r e a f f e c t e dby NCIC- -particularly by the computerized criminal history files,(CCH) ---

a . A n a n a l y s i s f r o m t h e p e r s p e c t i v e o f t h e r i g h to f p r i v a c y, f r e e d o m o f i n f o r m a t i o n , d u e p r o c e s sr i g h t s a n d c i v i l l i b e r t i e s i n g e n e r a l s h o u l d b em a d e w i t h r e s p e c t t o t h e a b o v e q u e s t i o n .

b . A n a n a l y s i s o f t h e F e d e r a l v s . S t a t e r o l e s w i t hr e s p e c t t o t h e h a n d l i n g o f t h e i n f o r m a t i o n i n t h e s y s t e m :i . e . , w h i c h p e r s o n o r e n t i t y w i l l c o n t r o l w h a t d a t a i n t h enew NCIC system, a n d w h i c h p e r s o n o r e n t i t y w i l l b e h e l da c c o u n t a b l e f o r t h e q u a l i t y o f i n f o r m a t i o n i n t h e s y s t e m - -and by what method th i s wi l l be done .

61



D r. R u s s e l l W. P e t e r s o np a g e t h r e e

c . A n a n a l y s i s s h o u l d b e m a d e o f t h e e f f e c t i v e -n e s s o f t h e p o l i c i e s , b o t h f o r t h e p r e s e n t a n dfu tu re NCIC sys tem, w i t h r e s p e c t t o e x p u n g e m e n t

o f i r r e l e v a n t ,o l d , o r i n a c c u r a t e d a t a ,

Fori n s t a n c e , h o w w o u l d t h e s t a n d a r d s f o r s u c h a p r o c e s sb e s e t a n d m a i n t a i n e d a n d / o r c h a n g e d , i f n e c e s s a r y ? Who o r what en t i ty wou ld be respon-s i b l e f o r t h e a c c u r a c y o f a l l r e c o r d s i n t h e s y s t e m ?How wou ld th i s be aud i ted o r rev iewed inl i g h t o f t h e r i g h t o f p r i v a c y, d u e p r o c e s s a n dc i v i l l i b e r t i e s c o n c e r n s ?

Second , t h e r e s h o u l d b e a n a n a l y s i s o f a n y e f f o r t s b e i n g m a d e t oi d e n t i f y a n d a d d r e s s “ f l a g g i n g ” a s a p o t e n t i a l c i v i l l i b e r t i e sp r o b l e m .

T h i r d l y , w e b e l i e v e t h a t a n e v a l u a t i o n o f t h e e f f i c i e n c y o f N C I Ca n d o f a n y p r o p o s e d t e c h n o l o g i c a l c h a n g e s s h o u l d e n c o m p a s s t h ee f f e c t o f t h o s e c h a n g e s o n a l l o t h e r F e d e r a l u s e r s o f N C I C f i l e s .T h i s w o u l d i n c l u d e , f o r i n s t a n c e , t h e D e p a r t m e n t o f A g r i c u l t u r e ,t h e Ve t e r a n ’s A d m i n i s t r a t i o n , C u s t o m s a n d t h e o t h e r Tr e a s u r yDepar tmen t Bureaus , t h e S t a t e D e p a r t m e n t , t h e S e c r e t S e r v i c e , a n do t h e r i n t e r e s t e d F e d e r a l a g e n c i e s . I n c o n n e c t i o n w i t h t h i s i s s u e ,w e w o u l d a l s o l i k e t o k n o w w h e t h e r t h e D e p a r t m e n t o f J u s t i c ep l a n s f o r N C I C h a v e c o n s i d e r e d p o s s i b l e a l t e r n a t i v e f u t u r er e l a t i o n s h i p s b e t w e e n t h o s e f e d e r a l a g e n c i e s a n d C C H r e c o r d sa n d N C I C d a t a b a n k s a n d c o m p u t e r i z e d f i l e s .

W h a t w o u l d b e t h e e f f e c t o n i n d i v i d u a l c o n s t i t u t i o n a l r i g h t s a n do t h e r g u a r a n t e e s i f t h e p r e s e n t N C I C r e l a t i o n s h i p s a r e a l t e r e d ?How would an enlarged system such as proposed, compare with thep r e s e n t s y s t e m i n t e r m s o f p r i v a c y, d u e p r o c e s s a n d c i v i l l i b e r t i e ss a f e g u a r d s ? Would cer ta in rea r rangemen ts o f NCIC tend to magn i fyo r e x t e n d s o m e u n d e s i r a b l e f e a t u r e s o f t h e F e d e r a l u s e o f N C I C ?O n t h e o t h e r h a n d , w o u l d c e r t a i n r e a r r a n g e m e n t s m a k e i t m o r ed i f f i c u l t o r c o s t l y f o r s o m e a g e n c i e s t o u s e a n d s u p p o r t N C I Ct o t h e d e t r i m e n t o f t h e i r p r o g r a m s a n d o f t h e r i g h t s o f c i t i z e n s ?

T h e f o u r t h a r e a w h i c h c o n c e r n s u s a s M e m b e r s o f t h e J u d i c i a r yC o m m i t t e e i s t h e r e l a t i o n s h i p o f N C I C p r o g r a m s , o p e r a t i o n s a n d

c o n t r o l s t o t h e F e d e r a l a n d S t a t e J u d i c i a r y . C o u l d p r o p o s a l st o c h a n g e N C I C t e n d i n t h e l o n g - r u n t o f e s t e r o r t h r e a t e n t h ec o n s t i t u t i o n a l s e p a r a t i o n o f t h e J u d i c i a r y f r o m t h e E x e c u t i v e

62



D r. R u s s e l l W. P e t e r s o np a g e f o u r

b r a n c h a n d t h e L e g i s l a t u r e , a t a l l l e v e l s o f g o v e r n m e n t ? Wouldp e n d i n g p r o p o s a l s t o c h a n g e N C I C t e n d t o p r o m o t e o r r e t a r d t h ea b i l i t y o f S t a t e j u d i c i a l o f f i c i a l s t o m a k e t h e m o s t e f f i c i e n tu s e o f d a t a s y s t e m s i n o r d e r t o p r o t e c t t h e r i g h t s o f c i t i z e n si n v o l v e d i n t h e j u d i c i a l p r o c e s s ? We a r e n o t f a m i l i a r w i t h a n ys t u d i e s t h a t h a v e d e a l t d i r e c t l y w i t h t h i s q u e s t i o n .

F i f t h , t h e r a m i f i c a t i o n s o f F e d e r a l m e s s a g e s w i t c h i n g , w h e ni n c o r p o r a t e d i n t o s u c h a l a w e n f o r c e m e n t i n f o r m a t i o n s y s t e mas NCIC, n e e d t o b e t h o r o u g h l y e x p l o r e d f o r i t s i m p a c t o n t h er i g h t s o f t h e i n d i v i d u a l i n o u r s o c i e t y , a n d o n t h e p o w e r s O f

t h e S t a t e s , ( a n d o n t h e a b i l i t y o f p r i v a t e e n t e r p r i s e t o c o m p e t ewi th the Federa l Governmen t ) . We r e a l i z e t h a t m e s s a g e s w i t c h i n gi s a c o m m o n t e c h n i q u e w h i c h i s u s e f u l i n a g r e a t v a r i e t y o f g o v e r n m e n t a n d p r i v a t e i n f o r m a t i o n p r o g r a m s . H o w e v e r, t h e r ea r e a s p e c t s o f s o m e o f t h e c u r r e n t N C I C p r o p o s a l s i n t h i s a r e a

w h i c h n e e d f u r t h e r s t u d y i n l i g h t o f c i v i l l i b e r t i e s a n d o t h e rc o n c e r n s w h i c h h a v e b e e n o f t e n v o i c e d b y t h e p u b l i c a n d p r e s sand emphas ized in Congress .

L a s t , b u t n o t l e a s t , we have ye t to see an eva lua t ion o f the NCICc o n c e p t , t h a t i s , o f w h e t h e r o r n o t a n N C I C - t y p e s y s t e m i s t h em o s t e f f i c i e n t w a y t o a c c o m p l i s h t h e l a w e n f o r c e m e n t g o a l sd e s i r e d , a n d w h e t h e r o r n o t w e a c t u a l l y n e e d a n a t i o n - w i d es y s t e m s u c h a s t h a t p r o p o s e d . S h o u l d p r i v a t e e n t e r p r i s e p l a ya greater role in providing services? To w h a t e x t e n t s h o u l d t h eF e d e r a l g o v e r n m e n t c o m p e t e w i t h p r i v a t e i n d u s t r y ? An OTAa s s e ss m e nt s ho u l d , i n v i e w of y o u r s ta t u t or y m i s s i o n , i nc l u dea n a n a l y s i s o f a l t e r n a t i v e s t o N C I C . F o r i n s t a n c e , w o u l d a n

a l t e r n a t i v e a r r a n g e m e n t b e m o r e e f f e c t i v e i n a c h i e v i n g o u r g o a l s ?H o w e f f e c t i v e , f o r i n s t a n c e , w o u l d i t b e t o d e v e l o p a s y s t e mi a s e d o n r e g i o n a l d a t a b a n k s ? U n d e r v a r i o u s a l t e r n a t i v e s , w h a tw o u l d h a p p e n t o p o l i t i c a l r i g h t s a n d p r i v i l e g e s o f c i t i z e n s ?

We be l ieve Congress wi l l benef i t f rom OTA’S assessmen t o f NCIC.T h i s s y s t e m r e p r e s e n t s t h e f i r s t a n d m o s t i m p o r t a n t n a t i o n - w i d eu s e o f c o m p u t e r a n d t e l e c o m m u n i c a t i o n s t e c h n o l o g y t o l i n k f e d e r a l ,s t a t e a n d l o c a l g o v e r n m e n t s , a n d t o a p p l y t h e t e c h n o l o g y t os e r i o u s l a w e n f o r c e m e n t a n d c r i m i n a l j u s t i c e p r o b l e m s o f c o n c e r nt o o u r e n t i r e s o c i e t y . Many o f the i s sues invo lved in NCICa r e t h o s e c o m m o n t o a n y s u c h F e d e r a l - S t a t e i n f o r m a t i o n s y s t e m . .

63



D r. R u s s e l l W. P e t e r s o np a g e f i v e

T h e F e d e r a l a n d S t a t e g o v e r n m e n t s w i l l s p e n d m i l l i o n s o f d o l l a r st o d e v e l o p f u l l y t h e N C I C a n d t h e d a t a p r o g r a m s a n d t e c h n o l o g yw h i c h f e e d a n d s u p p o r t i t . I t i s d i f f i c u l t , i f n o t i m p o s s i b l e ,t o r e v e r s e t h e e f f e c t s o f m i s j u d g m e n t o r p o o r p l a n n i n g i n s u c hp r o g r a m s . T h e r e f o r e w e b e l i e v e i t i s i m p o r t a n t t o a s k h a r dq u e s t i o n s n o w a n d t o h a v e t h e m r e s o l v e d t h a n t o h a v e t h e m f e s t e ra s s o c i a l a n d l e g i s l a t i v e i s s u e s f o r y e a r s t o c o m e s i m p l yb e c a u s e g o v e r n m e n t s a n d t a x p a y e r s h a v e l e t t h e m s e l v e s b e c o m ei n d e n t u r e d t o c o s t l y a n d c o m p l e x t e c h n o l o g y.

S i n c e r e l y ,

ames A b o u r e z k

C h a i r m a nS u b c o m m i t t e eP r a c t i c e a n d

o n A d m i n i s t r a t i v eP r o c e d u r e

Chairman

ChairmanS e n a t e J u d i c i a r y C o m m i t t e e

S u b c o m m i t t e e o n t h e C o n s t i t u t i o n

64



NINETY-FIFTH CONGRESS

CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATESHouse of Representatives

GOVE RNME NT I NFORMAT I ON AND I NDI VI DUAL RI GHT SSUBCOMMl T T E E

OF THECOMMI TT EE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATI ONS

R AYBURN HOUSE O FFICE B UILDING , Room B-349-B-CWA S H I N G T O N . B . C . 2 0 5 1 3

Se p t e mb e r 1 9 , 1 9 7 7

Mr . Da n i e l V . De Si mo n eAc t i n g Di r e c t o rOf f i c e o f T ec h n o l o g y As s e s s me n tS en a t e An n e x # 3Wa s h i n g t o n , D. C. 2 0 51 0

De a r Mr . De Si mo n e :As Ch a i r ma n o f t h e Su b c o mmi t t e e o n Go v e r n me n t I n f o r ma t i o n a n dIndi -

vidual Rights o f t h e Ho u s e Go v e r n me n t Op e r a t i o n s Co mmi t t e e , I wi s h t o c o n ft h e p r e v i o u s r e q u e s t ma d e b y t h i s s u b c o mmi t t e e o n Se p t e mb e r 8 , 1 9 7 6 f o r ta s s i s t a n c e o f t h e Of f i c e o f T e c h n o l o g y As s e s s me n t , a n d t o s e e k y o u r h e l p f u r t h er p r o j e c t s o f c o n c e r n .T h e s u b c o mmi t t e e h a s a s s i g n me n t s i n v o l v i n g t h ef i e l d o f c o mp u t e r t e c h n o l o g y a nd o t h e r me a n s o f e l e c t r o n i c c o mmu n i c a t i o n swh i c h f l o w f r o m o u r l e g i s l a t i v e j u r i s d i c t i o n , p a r t i c u l a r l y f r o m t h e ma n do f t h e Pr i v a c y Ac t o f 1 9 7 4 a n d t h e F r e e d o m o f I n f o r ma t i o n Ac t .

T h e e a r l i e r r e q u e s t ,a c o p y o f wh i c h i s a t t a c h e d , wa s i n c o n n e c t i o nwi t h t h e n e e d f o r t e c h n i c a l s u p p o r t f o r t h e Co n g r e s s i n i t s r e v i e w o fEx e c u t i v e a g e n c y p r o p o s a l s t o a l t e r o r e s t a b l i s h i n f o r ma t i o n s y s t e ms . T h

OT A c a n p e r f o r m a n i mp o r t a n t s e r v i c e i n t h i s a r e a i s c l e a r f r o m i t s a s s e so f t h e p r o p o s e d T a x Ad mi n i s t r a t i o n Sy s t e m. OT A i n v ol v e me n ’ t o n a mo r e r eb a s i s wo u l d , o f c o u r s e , b e mo s t d e s i r a b l e . I n t h i s r e g a r d , I a n d my s t a fwo u l d we l c o me t h e op p o r t u n i t y t o di s c u s s t h i s ma t t e r wi t h y o u .

.

Of e q u a l , i f n o t g r e a t e r i mp o r t a n c e i s t h e s u b c o mmi t t e e ’ s c o n c e r n t h e i mp a c t o f t e c h n o l o g i c a l a d v a n c e son t h e d e v e l o p me n t o f g o v e r n me n t i n f o r -ma t i o n p r o g r a ms i n g e n e r a l .Ou r i n t e r e s t s i n t h i s a r e a wo ul d , I b e l i e v e , b eb e s t s e r v e d t h r o u g h l i s t i n g t h e s u b c o mmi t t e e a s a s p o n s o r f o r t h e u p c o mi ne x p l o r a t i o n o f t h e n e e d f o r a g o v e r n me n t - wi d e p o l i c y o n c o mp u t e r s a n d t e lc o mmu n i c a t i o n s .T h i s s p o n s o r s h i p wo u l d a f f o r d a mp l e o p p o r t u n i t y f o r s u b c o mi n pu t o n t h o s e a s p e c t s o f t h e e x p l o r a t i o n s t u d y wh i c h r e l a t e t o o u r j u r i s

T h a n k y o u f o r y o u r c o n s i d e r a t i o n a n d c o n t i n u e d c o o p e r a t i o n .

6 5

Ch a i r ma n



September 8, 1976



6 7



2.

3.

4.

1f it is necessary to obtain out-of-State in-formation for (a) wanted persons , (b)wanted properties, or (c) prior criminaloffenses, which data could be obtainedsatisfactorily by means of bilateral agree-ment between States? Which of this datacould be obtained reasonabl y by means of regional arrangements? Must any of thisdata be the subject of a routine nationwide

inquiry?If a nationwide information interchangefacility is required to exchange criminal

justice information for (a) wanted per-sons, (b) wanted properties, or (c) priorcriminal offenses, what is the proper andpreferred role of any participating Federala g en c y? Th a t is , s h o u ld t h e r o le an dresponsibility of a participating Federalagency be similar to that of a participatingState, or should the participating Federalagency have responsib i l i ty for the ad-

ministration of the nationwide criminal justice information interchange facility?

If a Federal agency is to be responsible forthe administration of a nationwide crim-inal justice information interchange facili-ty, should that agency be one which does

not have opera t ional law enforcementresponsibilities? More specifically, if aFederal agency is a proper and preferreda g e n c y t o a d m i n i s t e r s u c h a f a c i l i t y,should that responsibility be vested in theFBI?

5. What changes, improvements, etc., a r eneeded in terms of the existing capabil-ities, procedures, etc., which govern theinter jurisdictional exchange of criminal

justice information? What problems, if a n y, a r e a s s o c i a t e d w i t h t h e p r e s e n tcriminal identification process in whichlocal criminal justice agencies submitidentification requests directly to the FBI?Are the present methods of processingsuch requests adequate and responsive tothe needs of the State criminal justice com-munity? What alternative methods wouldbe preferable?

6. Do the pr esent m ethod s associated w iththe collection, storage, and exchange of criminal records afford State officials ade-quate control over access to, and dissem-ina t ion o f c r imina l r eco rds? Wha t , i f anything, must be done to remedy any ex-isting shortcomings?

RESPONSES OF STATECRIMINAL JUSTICE OFFICIALS

Without exception, all of the State officialsagreed that the convenient and rapid acquisitionof out-of-State data pertaining to wanted per-sons, wanted properties, and prior criminal of-fenses was essential to the proper discharge of their statewide responsibilities. State officialsemphasized the increasing level of contact be-tween criminal justice authorities in their Stateswith nonresidents, and offered convincing argu-ments that the equal treatment of offenders is inpart dependent upon the equal availability of app rop r ia te and re levan t in fo rma t ion a t a l l

stages of the criminal justice process,With respect to the acquisition of criminal

justice information, State officials emphaticallyrejected bilateral or regional arrangements for avariety of reasons. Frequently, the State of-

f ic ia ls c i ted sh if t ing pr ior i t ies with in manyStates as a result of changes in administration,the tensions which occasionally arise betweenneighboring States, the fact that offenders withwhom State criminal justice officials come incontact are not exclusively from any particulargrouping of States, the constraining experiencesand limited success associated with previouslocalized or regional undertakings, etc.

In strongly endorsing the need for a nation-wide reference (index) capability for wanted

persons, wanted properties, and prior criminaloffenses, State officials repeatedly and withoutexception expressed a preference for a federallyadministered facility. The State officials fre-quently pointed out that a federally adminis-tered facility is “neutral” in terms of its dealings

69



the course of the v is i ts to the var iousStates, it became quite clear that LEAAnever adequate ly comprehended or ad-dressed programmatically the critical rela-

tionship between the criminal identifica-tion process and the interjurisdictional ex-change of criminal records.

A CONSENSUS CONCEPT

Possibly because of the lingering impasse, and 2.the spreading and intensifying dissatisfactionamong officials in all of the States, officials inthe 10 States eagerly analyzed and commentedon alternative concepts for a nationwide crim-inal jus t ice information in terchange fac i l i ty.There was marked agreement as to what con-cep tua l a r rangemen t wou ld bes t s a t i s fy theneeds of the States. The concept which enjoyedthe unanimous support of State officials is mosteasily described by a discussion of the processand procedures associated with the concept.Specifically:

Iden tification Procedures1. Following an arrest the arresting agency

wou ld send/ transmit the subject’s finger-p r i n t c a r d t o the State IdentificationBureau. If this arrest was the first contactbetween the subject and the criminal jus-tice authorities of that State, a definitive 3.identification could not be made as thesubject might have engaged in criminal ac-t iv i t ies in e i ther the same jur isd ic t ion

under a different name or in another juris-diction under either the same or a differentname. (Note: If the State had a fully devel-oped “technical” fingerprint search capa-bility it would be able to make a definitiveidentification of all subjects who had pre-v ious contac t with the cr iminal jus t iceauthorities of that State. ) Accordingly,the State Identification Bureau would for-ward/ re transmit the f ingerpr in t card foreach first offender (within the jurisdiction)to the FBI Identification Division in orderto establish the definitive identification of the subjec t . In a l l such ins tances , theresponse from the FBI would consist of theFBI identification number assigned to thesubject, and any other identities which the 4 .

subject is known to have previously used.

The FBI identification number and suchidentification information as is necessaryto es tab l ish the ident i ty of the subjec twould be transmitted by the most rapidmeans to the State Identification Bureau.A t th a t p o i n t , t h e St a t e i d e n t ifi ca t io nrecord could be completed, and thereafterwould contain both the State identifica-tion number and the FBI identificationnumber. State officials would then deter-mine whether the offense was of such anature that the existence of the criminalrecord should be reflected in a nationwideindex. If the offense met both State andnational criteria for entry in a nationwideindex of decentra l ized cr iminal h is toryrecords, then the State authorities wouldtransmit, for index entry purposes only,the identification segment of the recordestablished at the State level.

On all subsequent and appropriate con-tacts between the criminal justice authori-ties of that State and a person for whomthe State Identification Bureau has pre-

v iously crea ted a record , the arres t ingagency would continue to send/ transmitthe subject’s fingerprint card to the StateIdentification Bureau. However, since theState would ordinarily be able to make adefinitive identification based upon priorcontact, it would not be necessary to for-ward / retransmit the subject’s fingerprintcard to the FBI, nor ordinarily would theState have to take any action with respectto the nationwide index (unless there wasa significant change in the identificationdata contained in the index, e.g., amputa-tions, etc. )

Record-Accessing Procedu resIn contrast to present procedures wherebyeach arresting agency, or authorized crim-

72



10.

response from the nationwide servicing This conceptual design of a decentralized na-facility, and the receipt of the message by tionwide system of criminal history records pro-the inquir ing Sta te cr ime information vides State officials with maximum control overcenter would be logged. State records while permitting the reasonable

exchange of these records between identifiableUpon receipt, the inquiring State informa- agencies for known purposes. If implemented,

CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS

The brief description of a consensus conceptand the accompanying procedural changes arenot intended to be a definitive systems design.Rather, they are indicative of the principal fea-tures of a system which would restore a balanceof responsibility among the States and the Fed-eral Government. This balance has been absentfor the past half-century in the areas of criminalidentification and criminal records.

But the purpose of restoring a balance longlost is not the principal reason why correctiveaction should be taken immediately. Rather, themore compelling reasons arise from the indefen-sible situation which presently exists; that is, asituation in which State criminal records aremaintained in a fashion which does not put

State and local criminal justice agencies in thebest position to ensure the accuracy, complete-ness, and currency of State criminal records; asituation in which the response to a record re-quest is so lengthy in term of elapsed time that itworks to the advantage of the career criminaland to the disadvantage of the first offender;and a situation which affords State officials vir-tually no effective control over dissemination of State criminal justice data.

If this situation existed under circumstanceswhere it was the best that our society could do,

it would be unfortunate; for it to exist in a socie-

ty such as ours, where we know we can do muchbetter, there is no reason for further delayingthe necessary corrective efforts.

In te rms of correc t ive measures , the nextlogical step would be for the Department of Justice to acquire validating endorsements of theconceptual and procedural features indicated inth is r epor t . Th is migh t bes t be done by thebroad circulation of this report to all relevantFederal and State agencies, appropriate publicand private organizations, etc. Thereafter, thenext logical step would be for the Department of Justice to obtain Program and System DesignProposals. In this respect, the Department, inconcert with the cognizant congressional au-thorities, could select a distinguished panel of

State officials to develop and present for ap-propriate consideration the required Programand System Design Proposals. Alternately, theDepartment, in similar concert with the cogni-zant congressional authorities, could commis-sion several qualified private organizations todevelop and submit the required Program andSystem Design Proposals.

In either event, an unrelated panel of Depart-ment officials, congressional authorities, Stateo fficia ls, a n d o t h e r p u b l ic r e p r e s e n t a ti v e sshould be constituted to review and recommend

implementation of the most suitable approach.

7 4



Justice; J. Daunt in the capacity of specialconsultant to the Department of Justice; J.Cochran, F. Still, F. Buell, and R. Youngof the FBI; H. Bratt, and S. Ashton of LEAA; L. Bastian of the Department of Justice, and M. Lane of the Department of Treasury. Both Mr. Bastian and Mr. Laneare presently serving with the President’sReorganization Project for Law Enforce-ment.

7. Since footnotes have not been employedin the preparation of this report each of

the par t ic ipa t ing off ic ia ls indica ted infootn ote 6, above, h ave rev iewed th isreport and have been invited to provideindividual concurring, dissenting, or amp-lifying comments. By and large, the com-men ts wh ich have been rece ived wereorally communicated, and have resultedin modifications to the language employedin earlier drafts of this report. Writtencomments received by March 3, 1978, areattached.

76



APPENDIX C

Chronology of CCH

(This chronology d escribes some NCIC/ CCH events brough t to pu blic attention by the press andCongress. It is by no means complete. A more definitive list would form part of the formal OTA

November 1971Bible Rider to the Supplemental Appropria-tions Act of 1972 gives FBI authority to con-tinue dissemination of arrest records negatingthe effect of the Menard decision.

January 1973GAO report says Department of Justice hasnot determined costs of developing a fullyope ra t iona l CCH sys tem, thus p reven t ingStates from determining whether they can af-

ford to participate. Also, users have no as-surance that data entered into CCH is com-plete/ accurate because not all arrests/ disposi-t ions a re be ing repo r ted by pa r t i c ipa t ingSta tes . Report a dd s tha t LEAA/ FBI agreewith above critique but aren’t doing enoughto correct p roblems. Specifically, LEAA iscollecting cost information as part of its Com-prehensive Data Systems program (CDS), butnot all States exchanging CCH records are re-quired to participate in CDS, and State sub-missions to CDS will not show separately thecosts of developing CCH exchange capability.

Regarding the arrest/ disposition reportingproblem, GAO says NCIC’S plan to informp a r t i c i p a t i n g S t a t e s , p e r i o d i c a l l y, o f t h especific CCH records for which no disposi-tions are available, will fail to remedy “aserious system deficiency” because simply in-forming the States that certain records are in-complete will not prevent users from acquir-ing the information and acting on it despitethis shortcoming.

Spring 1 9 7 3Alaska and Iowa enact statutes governing useof criminal history records.

June 1973Massachusetts refuses to participate in theCCH program until safeguards are adopted atthe Federal level. Justice Department sues to

7 7



gain access to d ata in the Massachusetts Statefiles by the Small Business Administration.

July 1 9 7 3Kennedy Amendment to the Crime ControlAct of 1 9 7 3 requires LEAA to issue regula-tions controlling LEAA-funded State criminal

justice data systems.July 1 9 7 3 .

HEW Report, Records, Computers, and the

Rights of Citizens, is published. It proposedl i m i t a t i o n s o n a u t o m a t e d p e r s o n a l d a t asystems on the Federal Government.

August 1973Massachusetts Governor Francis W. Sargentand others petition Justice Department to de-velop standards governing criminal historyrecords.

February 1 9 7 4LEAA proposes regulations to control crim-inal justice information systems which receiveFederal funds.

February 1 9 7 4

S . 2 9 6 3 , drafted by Senator Ervin, togetherwith S. 2964, drafted by the Justice Depart-ment, and introduced by Senator Hruska, arereferred to Senate Constitutional Rights Sub-committee. (Neither bill was enacted. )

October 1, 1974Deputy Attorney General Silberman author-izes FBI to engage in “limited” switching of NCIC-related messages, provided the Bureauprepares an implementation plan that is ap-proved beforehand by the Attorney General.

April 1 4 , 1 9 7 5FBI releases a “National Crime Information

Center Limited Message-Switching Imple-mentation Plan. ”

M ay 20, 1975Justice Department, after redrafting regula-tions proposed in February 1974 on the basisof subsequent comments, publishes the newRules in Federal Register “governing dissem-inat ion of c r iminal records and cr iminalhistory information. ” These regulations pro-vide privacy safeguards of individual recordsin files maintained and administered by theFBI, criminal justice exchange of records.Also, the regulations require State criminalhistory record information to be stored andprocessed in dedicated computer system.

June 1 9 , 1 9 7 5LEAA regulations become effective.

July 1,1975S e n a t o r Tunney, Congressman Edwards in-t roduce S . 2 0 0 8/ H . R . 82 2 7 t o c on t r o ldissemination of information from criminal justice information systems. The bills, iden-t i c a l t o e a c h o t h e r , i n c l u d e a F e d e r a lregulatory commission similar to one pro-posed the previous year, by Senator Ervin inS. 2963. (The Tunn ey / Edwards l egi s la t ion

was not enacted. )October 2 4 , 1 9 75

Justice Department modifies regulations to letStates use shared computer facilities, if properprecautions are taken. Justice also announcesit will hold hearings to consider changes inprovisions covering dissemination of criminalhistory record information.

November 1975Attorney General Levi defers decision grant-ing FBI permission to implement NCIC mes-sage-switching capability, after congressionalcritics and others express fears that agencywill gain too much power,

March 19, 1 9 7 6Fo l lowing December Ju s t i ce Depa r tmen thearings to assess balance between public’sright to know such information and right toprivacy, LEAA adopts amended regulationscovering records dissemination and sharing of re la ted computer sys tems. In effec t , ru lesleave the dissemination up to the individualStates. Each State must submit a plan describ-ing its dissemination and security procedures.After review and approval by LEAA, these

p rocedu res mus t be imp lemen ted in eachState by December 31, 1977. States must de-v ise p lans tha t comply with requirementsspec i f i ed in amended regu la t ions and a reallowed to use shared computers to store andprocess criminal histor y record information ,provided systems satisfy criteria specified inregulations.

April 16, 1976FBI Director Kelly requests permission fromAttorney General Levi to terminate FBI par-ticipation in CCH program because the costand effort of maintaining the centralized CCHsystem was “grossly underestimated, ” the in-tergovernmental relations problems are “le-gion, ” and the Bureau “cannot move aheadwith its plans to decentralize CCH because it

7 8



1 , 1 9 7 8 , to implement d issemination/ securit y

regulations issued in March 1976. The orig-inal deadline was December 31, 1977.

December 13, 1977Attorney General Bell proposes abolishing L-EAA and replacing it with a National Instituteof Justice. The official reorganization pro-posal is to be submitted to Congress in thespring of 1 9 7 8 . Major provisions: State crim-inal jus t ice p lans and pro jec ts would nolonge r r equ i re p r io r Fede ra l app rova l ; r e -gional criminal justice planning boards wouldno longer be subsidized by the Federal Gov-er nm en t; a d m i n is t ra t iv e co s ts w o u ld b efunded by the Federal Government on a morelimited basis, requiring dollar-for-dollar mat-ching by State/ local recipients.

January 6,1978SIPI responds to FBI comment on 1977 SIPIstudy of NCIC. “It is our considered opinion

that an indepth study of NCIC, performed bythe Off ice of Technology Assessment , theGeneral Accounting Office, a qualified inde-pendent organization, or all three is calledfor.”

95th Cong., 2d Session: No legislation wasenacted. Hearings and studies continued onLEAA restructuring and guidelines before theHouse Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime andthe Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crim-inal Laws and Procedure . The fu l l SenateJudiciary Committee also conducted hearingsa n d s t u d i e s r e l a t e d t o t h e F B I s t a t u t o r ycharter. This subject is also of concern to theHouse Judiciary Committee.

80



APPENDIX D

Glossary

AIDS—’’Automated Identification DivisionSystem, ” a compu ter ized sys tem being devel-oped for use within the FBI Identification Divi-sion that will eventually provide for automaticname and fingerprint searching.

arra ignm ent —The judicial process by whichan individual accused of a criminal offense isbrought before a judge to enter a plea to thecharge.

arrest record information—See Criminal Jus-tice Information.

a u d i t — T h e processes by which: a) the ac-curacy, completeness , and re levance of CCH

record data are verified; b) CCH recordkeepingpractices and CCH data are examined for com-pliance with applicable regulations. (See over-sight. )

Co mp r eh en siv e D a t a Sy s t em s Pr o g r a m —L a u n c h e d i n 1 9 7 2 b y L E A A , t h i s p r o g r a mfinances the development of State systems tostandardize, integrate, and centralize the assem-bly and processing of criminal justice statisticaldata. Each system must include capability totrack offenders through the cr iminal jus t iceprocess and exchange criminal history recordswith other jurisdictions.

CCH—Computer ized Criminal His tory—Arecord, maintained in machine-readable form,which contains information collected by a crim-inal justice agency on an individual and whichincludes: identification record information, ar-res t record information , c r iminal record in-formation, and / or disposition information. (See“criminal justice information” for definitions of these terms. ) An individual whose recordedcharges were f i led with in a s ingle Sta te isrepresented by a “single-State” CCH record. If the charges were filed in more than one State,the entries comprise a “mu lti-State” CCH rec-ord .

correct ional and reIease informat ion—SeeCriminal Justice Information.

Cr iminal His tory Record Information Sys-tem—A system including the equipment, facil-ities, procedures, agreements, and organizations

thereof, for the collection, processing, preserva-tion, and / or dissemination of criminal historyrecord information. The Department of Justicecriminal history record information system en-compasses the Identification Division and theComputerized Criminal History (CCH) fiIe sys-tems operated by the FBI.

criminal intelligence information—See Crimi-nal Justice Information.

criminal i n ve st ig at iv e i n fo rm a ti on —S eeCriminal Justice Information.

criminal justice agency—a) any court withcriminal jurisdiction; b) a government agency or

any subunit thereof which, pursuant to s tatuteor executive order, has responsibilities involv-ing the apprehens ion, detent ion , pretr ia l re-lease, post-trial release, prosecution, defense,ad jud ica tion , o r r ehab i l i t a tion o f accus ed in -dividuals and/or convicted offenders.

criminal justice information—includes any orall of the following:

a) Ident i f icat ion record—information de-scribing an individual that does not suggest hehas committed a crime—e.g., voiceprints, p h o -tographs, fingerprints.

b) Arrest record—information concerning

the arrest and charging of an individual who hasbeen accused of a criminal offense. Arrest rec-ord information does not include any referenceto disposition of charge(s).

c) Criminal record—when disposition in-f o r m a t i o n i s a d d e d t o a n a r r e s t r e c o r d , i tbecomes a “criminal record” (sometimes called aconviction record).

d) Disposition—a record entry or entriesdisclosing 1) that a decision has been made notto bring criminal charges against the subject of the record, or 2) that criminal proceedings havebeen conc luded , abandoned , o r inde f in i t e lypostponed. If an individual is convicted andsentenced, the related disposition informationincludes the nature of the sentence and subse-quent events—e.g., release from correctionalsupervis ion , the outcome of appel la te rev iew,and / or executive clemency action.

8 1



e) Correctional and release record—infor-mation on an individual compiled in connectionwith bail, pretrial or post-trial release proceed-ings, presentence investigations, and proceed-ings to determine the individual’s physical ormental condition. The term also includes infor-mation on an inmate’s participation in correc-tional / rehabilitative programs, as w ell as infor-ma t ion re la ted to p roba t ion / pa ro le p roceed -

ings. f) Criminal intelligence record—informa-tion on identifiable individuals compiled in aneffort to anticipate, prevent, or monitor possi-ble criminal activity.

g) Criminal investigative record—informa-tion on identifiable individuals compiled in thecourse of investigating specific criminal acts.

h) Wanted person record—ident if ica t ionrecord information on an indiv idual agains twhom there is an outstanding arrest warrant.

criminal record information—See CriminalJustice Information.

data quality—A measure of the accuracy,recency, completeness, and validity of NCICrecords.

dedicated system—A computer or terminalcomplex, managed by a criminal justice agency,and used ent i re ly for a cr iminal jus t ice dataprocessing application.

disposition—See Criminal Justice Informa-tion,

d is t r ibuted data process ing (DDP)—An ar-rangement of computers and/or intelligent ter-minals that allows some processing to be doneat a central Iocation and the rest at remote loca-

tions connected to the site by communicationscircuits. In the NCIC system, remote processingusually occurs at the State level, but there mayalso be some done within terminals operated bylocal criminal justice agencies.

dossier society —A society in which com-puterized records are maintained on individualcitizens and are used b y government to monitorcitizen activities so as to discourage political dis-sent and other types of disapproved behavior.

downtime—The to ta l t ime that a computersystem is out of service because of system out-ages and/or maintenance. “Outage time” refers

to downtime which is due solely to system/com-ponent failure.

expungement —In connection with NCIC rec-ords, this term has been used interchangeablywith “purging” or “sealing” of record informa-

tion. It may or may not mean that informationhas been physically destroyed.

FBI message-switching plan—A proposal,currently under review within the Departmentof Justice and Congress, which would alter theoperation and architecture of the NCIC system.Basically, the plan calls for locating all single-State CCH records within the States originatingthese records and installing a computerized mes-

sage-switching subsystem at the NCIC in Wash-ington so that a user requesting informationfrom such a record could be connected directlyto the agency holding it.

flag-A proposed entry to the identificationportion of SSORI and full CCH records. Thef lag would s ignify tha t a specif ied cr iminal

justice agency wished to be informed if andwhen certain events occurred subsequently. Forexample, the flag could indicate that a parole orprobation agency wanted to know if the subjectof the record had been arrested prior to the ter-mination of his parole or probation.

front-end controller—An interfacing device,pIaced between a computer and an associatedcommunications network, which manages com-munications between the computer and remoteterminals attached to the network circuits. Thisfunction generally includes, but is not limitedto, initiation and termination of message trans-mission, error detection and control, routing of each message to its proper destination, and con-trol of the message flow to prevent excessivetransmission delays for specified types of mes-sages and/ or users . The front-end controllermay also switch messages among multiple users

of the network.hit—A positive response to a request from anauthor ized user for an NCIC record . The re-sponse consists of either the text of the record (if it is held by the NCIC computer center) or anabb rev ia ted summary con ta in ing a numer iccode which identifies the State criminaI justiceagency holding the full text.

identification record information—See Crim-inal Justice Information.

Justice Department Blueprint—The popularname of a plan for future development of theNation’s criminal justice information systems. A

basic aim of this effort, which began in the fallof 1977 after consultation with the House Sub-committee on Civil and Constitutional Rights, isto ach ieve a cons ens us —among us e r s , Con-gress, and pubIic interest groups—regarding the

82



needs for and uses of the NCIC system.LEAA—An acronym for the Law Enforce-

ment Assistance Administration, a part of theDepartment of Justice. LEAA dispenses Federalfunds to the States for criminal justice informa-tion systems and establishes many of the poli-cies concerning their operation.

NCIC—An acronym for “National Crime In-formation Center, ” the ph ysical location withinthe FBI’s Washington, D. C., headquarters of theNCIC system’s central computer complex.

NCIC Advisory Policy Board—A 26-membergroup which makes recommendations concern-ing NCIC operations and procedures to the di-rector of the system. The Board includes 20representa t ives of loca l , Sta te , and regionalusers, and six others appointed by the FBI.

NLETS—An acronym for “National Law En-forcement Telecommunications Systems, ” a na-tionwide communication network operated byState law enforcement agencies, which providesthem with the capability to exchange adminis-trative messages. Exchange of full, single-StateCCH records be tween Sta tes is par t of theNLETS communications traffic stream.

node—The po in t whe re a communica t ionsnetwork interconnects with access circuits to- / from a user ’s compu ter and/ or terminal equip-ment. Typically, the node contains switchingequipment designed to route messages amongnetwork users. The node may also include hard-ware / software to perform speed/ code conver-sion, error-detection / control, an d othercommunications-related functions.

overs ight—The process by which Congressexamines NCIC policies and practices to deter-mine whether they comply with relevant legisla-tion. (See audit. )

plea bargaining—The process of pleadingguilty to a lesser charge in order to avoid stand-ing trial for a more serious one.

pointer index—See “SSORI. ”Project SEARCH—A cooperative, 18-mon th

Federal-State effort, begun in June 1969, to de-velop a prototype, online, computerized crimin-al history exchange system. A key feature of the design for SEARCH (“System for Electronic

Analysis and Retrieval of Criminal Histories”)was the use of the centra l index conta in ingreferences to cr iminal h is tory records s toredwithin each participating State. A major goal of the project was to test the effectiveness of thisindex as a means of relating record inquiries to

the actual records. In December 1970, when theSEARCH demonstration ended, Attorney Gen-eral Mitchell authorized the FBI to take controlof the index. This file became the nucleus of thepr esent NCIC/ CCH system. Project SEARCHwas incorporated in 1974 as SEARCH Group,Inc., a research and policy advisory group rep-resenting present and prospective users of NCICservices . I t inc ludes par t ic ipa t ion of repre-

sentatives from each of the .50 States and 3 ter-ritories.

purging—As used in connection with NCICrecords, this term means the complete removalof information concerning an individual fromaccess, via either routine or special access pro-cedures. Purged information is not necessaril y

des t royed . H ow ever, a r e c o m m e n d a t i o n t omake destruction mandatory for purged recordshas been proposed by the Committee on Securi-ty and Privacy of SEARCH Group, Inc.

rap sheet—Synonymous with “arrest record. ”response time—A measurement of the speed

with which inquiries can be answered by an on-line information s y s t e m . T h e r e s p o n s e t i m emeasurement generally begins with the instantthe first message character leaves the inquiringterminal and ends when the last character of theanswer is received by that terminal.

sealing—As used in connection with NCICrecords, sealing means the removal of informa-tion concerning an individual from routinelyavailable access. The information remains avail-able but only through special access procedures.(See also: “expungement,” “purging”.)

SSORI—An acronym for the proposed “Sing-l e S t a t e O f f e n d e r R e c o r d I n d e x , ” c e n t r a l(“pointer”) index proposed to be incorporatedinto the NCIC/ CCH file un der th e FBI’s pro-posed limited message switching implementa-tion plan. The SSORI file would contain a phys-ica l descrip t ion , and poss ib ly information onthe first arrest, of each individual representedby a single-State NCIC/ CCH record. Completedetails of each such record would be stored inthe State which compiled it. When NCIC re-ceived a CCH inquiry, the SSORI file would besearched automatically to determine whether a

single-State CCH record, relating to the subjectof the inquiry, was in any State file. If such arecord was found, the inquiring agency wouldbe so informed and could then obtain a copy bycommunica t ing d i rec t ly wi th the “ho ld ing”State.

83



stakeholders—As applied to NCIC, th e te rm wanted person informat ion—See Cr iminalmeans individuals or groups whose interests will Justice Information.be materially affected by the manner in whichthe system is operated an d/ or i ts records areused.

o

A Preliminary Assessment of the National Crime Information Center and the Computerized Criminal...

Documents

Transcript of A Preliminary Assessment of the National Crime Information Center and the Computerized Criminal...