TO PROTECT THEIR PRIVACY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000200590010-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 1, 1999
• Sequence Number: 10
• Publication Date: September 25, 1967
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For Release 2000/05/05: CIA-RDP75-00149R00
FOIAb3b
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To Protect Their Privacy
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SELMA, ALABAMA
TIMES-JOURNAL
S-10, 144
So-10,144
. SEP 2'51967,
Government workers and job applicants have been asked
by federal agencies all sorts of questions about their private
lives and opinions-their religion and religious beliefs, race,
national origin, family relationships, sexual matters, finances,
and outsde activities.
Sen. Sam J. Ervin Jr. (D) of North Carolina, along with
54 bipartisan cosponsors, introduced legislation forbidding
government agencies to require or request current or pros
pective federal employees to disclose this kind of information
about their private lives.
Senator Ervin and his subeommittea on eonotitutional
rights had previously heard extensive testimony complaining
that federal government personnel procedures violated per-
sonal privacy. They concluded that government has been
gathering and filing personal information much ,of which has
little or nothing to do with a person's ability or qualifications.
The bill, soon due for Senate floor debate, exempts from.i
its provisions only employees of the Federal Bureal of Investi-
gation. It makes special provision for the CPntral_ intelligence
A A enc but these are both seeking the same status as the
FBI.
With technical advances making it much easier to gather,
store, and widely disseminate personnel information, it is
all the more important that Congress pass this "bill of rights
for federal employees." The rights which this bill would pro-
tect are implicit in the Constitution of the United States.
But specific legislation is needed to erase any doubt
whether a man, by acceptng employment with the federal
government, thereby bargains away these rights. Some gov-
ernment agencies, judging by their questionnaires and their
psychological and polygraph tests, have apparently assumed
that he does. Passage of this legislation will make it plain
that he does not.
Senator Ervin put it more dramatically when he declared
that this bill is,based on the premise "that a man who works
for the federal government sells his services, not his soul."
Approved For Release 2000/05/05: CIA-RDP75-00149R000200590010-8