WEBVTT - The Computermen 0:00:15.396 --> 0:00:23.236 Pushkin. Imagine there's a place in our world where the 0:00:23.396 --> 0:00:31.916 known things go, like old modems, or at the end 0:00:31.916 --> 0:00:36.676 of this brightly lit hallway, towers of computer servers, a 0:00:36.716 --> 0:00:42.956 little city of miniature skyscrapers. This vault, this data center, 0:00:43.556 --> 0:00:46.876 stores the facts that matter, and matters a fact. It's 0:00:46.916 --> 0:00:50.316 all that stands between a reasonable doubt and the chaos 0:00:50.796 --> 0:00:56.196 of uncertainty. The sign on the door reads the last Archive. 0:00:58.316 --> 0:01:02.556 Step through the door to Washington, d C. Capitol Hill. 0:01:03.236 --> 0:01:08.676 July twenty six, nineteen sixty six, a Tuesday, the United 0:01:08.716 --> 0:01:12.076 States was admired in a terrible war in Vietnam. Americans 0:01:12.076 --> 0:01:14.476 were engaged in a struggle for civil rights. At home. 0:01:15.196 --> 0:01:19.036 There'd been riots on the streets of American cities, protests 0:01:19.076 --> 0:01:23.996 of all kinds, anti War March's student demonstrations. To a 0:01:23.996 --> 0:01:26.996 lot of people felt as if the country was coming apart. 0:01:29.116 --> 0:01:31.956 Inside the office building of the House of Representatives, Room 0:01:32.116 --> 0:01:36.236 twenty two forty seven, hearings were about to begin. Hearings 0:01:36.236 --> 0:01:40.116 that weren't about any of those protests, Hearings that were 0:01:40.116 --> 0:01:46.516 about computer data. The subcommittee will come to order just 0:01:46.676 --> 0:01:50.676 after ten am. Cornelius E. Gallagher, a Democratic Congressman from 0:01:50.676 --> 0:01:54.716 New Jersey took his seat. The Special Subcommittee on Invasion 0:01:54.756 --> 0:01:58.636 of Privacy today begins its investigation into proposals to establish 0:01:58.676 --> 0:02:02.756 a National Data Center, a centralized facility within the structure 0:02:02.756 --> 0:02:05.796 of the national government into which would be poured information 0:02:05.916 --> 0:02:09.716 collected from various government agencies and from which computers could 0:02:09.796 --> 0:02:13.436 draw selected facts. At the time, more than three billion 0:02:13.516 --> 0:02:16.436 government records were stored on punch cards in magnetic tape, 0:02:16.716 --> 0:02:20.676 housed in over twenty different federal agencies. So many facts 0:02:21.076 --> 0:02:25.716 scattered all over the place. It was a mess. So 0:02:25.756 --> 0:02:29.916 the Johnson administration said, how about building a national data Center. 0:02:30.436 --> 0:02:32.996 It did, gather all the computer records of every federal 0:02:32.996 --> 0:02:36.316 agency all in one place, the same way the Library 0:02:36.316 --> 0:02:40.236 of Congress holds books, where the National Archives holds manuscripts. 0:02:40.476 --> 0:02:45.196 Seems straightforward enough. Congressman Gallagher, though, he thought this was 0:02:45.236 --> 0:02:48.956 a terrifying idea. If safeguards are not built into such 0:02:48.996 --> 0:02:51.516 a facility, it could lead to the creation of what 0:02:51.596 --> 0:02:58.276 I call the computerized man. The computerized man, as I 0:02:58.356 --> 0:03:02.596 see him, would be stripped of his individuality and his privacy. 0:03:03.676 --> 0:03:06.676 Congress is one of those lagging indicators of American fears 0:03:07.036 --> 0:03:09.556 By the time I fear gets articulated on Capital Hill, 0:03:09.596 --> 0:03:12.636 it's already been infecting the population for a while. Think 0:03:12.636 --> 0:03:15.356 about the times Congress has brought in baby faced Facebook 0:03:15.436 --> 0:03:18.556 CEO Mark Zuckerberg to ask him about computers and the 0:03:18.596 --> 0:03:22.916 invasion of privacy. Mister Zuckerberg, would you be comfortable sharing 0:03:22.916 --> 0:03:24.556 with us the name of the hotel you stayed in 0:03:24.636 --> 0:03:30.956 last night? No? I think that maybe what this is 0:03:30.996 --> 0:03:34.716 all about. You're right to privacy. It was too late. 0:03:35.636 --> 0:03:39.636 Congress is very often too late. Remember last episode about 0:03:39.636 --> 0:03:44.876 the defeat of National Health Insurance? Congress too little, too late? 0:03:45.996 --> 0:03:49.476 The National Data Center. It's a forgotten sequel to that 0:03:49.556 --> 0:03:54.796 story about National Health Insurance. Welcome to the Last Archive, 0:03:55.156 --> 0:03:57.236 the show about how we know what we know, and 0:03:57.316 --> 0:03:59.516 about how it seems lately as if we don't know 0:03:59.596 --> 0:04:05.196 anything anymore. I'm Jill Lapoor. But of course you can 0:04:05.356 --> 0:04:08.196 know things. For instance, you can know a lot of 0:04:08.236 --> 0:04:12.116 things by listening old congressional hearings and asking questions like, 0:04:13.356 --> 0:04:16.396 what the hell ever happened to the National Data Center? 0:04:17.676 --> 0:04:20.756 And did anyone listen to Congress in the nineteen sixties 0:04:20.996 --> 0:04:23.636 when it issued ominous warnings about a future in which 0:04:23.676 --> 0:04:27.356 we'd all be stalked and haunted and tortured by that freak, 0:04:27.756 --> 0:04:36.116 that monster computerized man. Everyone in the whole world seems 0:04:36.156 --> 0:04:38.796 to have forgotten about those hearings in nineteen sixty six, 0:04:39.516 --> 0:04:42.596 But forgetting about the means we keep having them all 0:04:42.636 --> 0:04:45.196 over again. It's like the horror movie where you think 0:04:45.236 --> 0:04:47.236 you've killed the monster, and then he digs himself out 0:04:47.236 --> 0:04:48.916 of his own grave and comes after you with the 0:04:48.956 --> 0:04:54.196 same rusty, bloody axe. Cornelius Gallagher, the Democrat who chaired 0:04:54.196 --> 0:04:56.596 the committee, wasn't the only member of Congress who was 0:04:56.636 --> 0:04:59.916 really worried about data and privacy. After Gallagher called the 0:04:59.956 --> 0:05:02.996 meaning to order, he was followed by Frank Horton, a 0:05:03.036 --> 0:05:05.556 Republican who felt more or less the same way about 0:05:05.556 --> 0:05:08.876 the whole thing as Gallagher did. I have become conver 0:05:09.476 --> 0:05:12.316 that the magnitude of the problem we now from front 0:05:12.716 --> 0:05:15.876 is akin to the changes wrought in our national life 0:05:16.076 --> 0:05:20.116 with the dawning of the nuclear age. Assuming the best 0:05:20.436 --> 0:05:24.436 for a moment, let us regard our computer systems as 0:05:24.516 --> 0:05:27.756 good and fair, and the computer men behind the console 0:05:27.876 --> 0:05:32.396 as honest and capable. That was the best case scenario. 0:05:33.036 --> 0:05:35.596 God forbid the machines were bad and unfair, and the 0:05:35.596 --> 0:05:39.556 computer men dishonest and incompetent. By the way, the term 0:05:39.556 --> 0:05:43.516 computer scientists didn't really exist then. They were called computermen, 0:05:43.796 --> 0:05:46.116 which I like better anyway, because it makes it sound 0:05:46.116 --> 0:05:50.756 as if they're half computer, half man. Anyway, there were 0:05:50.756 --> 0:05:53.396 all kinds of reasons the federal government wanted a national 0:05:53.476 --> 0:05:57.716 data center. For one, the government had taken on problems 0:05:57.796 --> 0:06:01.956 of bigger and bigger scale, a social security program, the 0:06:01.956 --> 0:06:06.396 building of atomic weapons. The government needed to collect and 0:06:06.476 --> 0:06:09.676 to conduct statistical analysis of data had to do with 0:06:09.716 --> 0:06:14.556 things like healthcare and economic development and racial justice. Lyndon 0:06:14.636 --> 0:06:17.876 Johnson's administration needed that information to fight the War on poverty. 0:06:18.196 --> 0:06:22.036 It also needed that information to implement the oversight requirements 0:06:22.236 --> 0:06:24.956 of the nineteen sixty four Civil Rights Act and the 0:06:25.036 --> 0:06:28.876 nineteen sixty five Voting Rights Act. To do those things, 0:06:28.956 --> 0:06:32.716 it needed what we would call big data. Modern life 0:06:32.716 --> 0:06:36.876 required taller and taller piles of facts, numbers, and data. 0:06:37.276 --> 0:06:39.796 Piles of data so tall that they had to be 0:06:39.836 --> 0:06:44.276 handled by computers. And remember this was decades before the 0:06:44.356 --> 0:06:47.636 personal computer, before people had their own computers and knew 0:06:47.676 --> 0:06:50.396 how to use them, which meant that people had to 0:06:50.396 --> 0:06:52.716 be willing to put a whole lot of trust in 0:06:52.756 --> 0:06:56.076 the very small number of people, mainly men who knew 0:06:56.076 --> 0:07:01.036 how to run those machines, those computer men. Because of that, 0:07:01.676 --> 0:07:03.996 it seemed as if computer men had all kinds of 0:07:04.036 --> 0:07:07.676 information about you, and they seemed to have limitless powers. 0:07:09.596 --> 0:07:14.556 Assuming a computer man who was dishonest, unscrupulous, or bent 0:07:14.716 --> 0:07:18.236 on injury, there would be nothing sacred. We could be destroyed. 0:07:19.116 --> 0:07:22.356 Whoa so crazy start to those hearings? We could all 0:07:22.356 --> 0:07:26.636 be destroyed. Then Gallagher called his first witness, the subcommittee 0:07:26.716 --> 0:07:29.036 is very fortunate this morning and having as its first 0:07:29.116 --> 0:07:32.956 witness in this series of hearings, mister Vance Packard. Mister 0:07:32.996 --> 0:07:35.956 Packard is more responsible than any man in our country 0:07:35.996 --> 0:07:38.476 for alerting us to the dangers that lurk in the 0:07:38.476 --> 0:07:43.156 twilight of our sophisticated society. The then famous, if now 0:07:43.396 --> 0:07:48.516 sadly much forgotten, mister Vance Packard. I guess we'd now 0:07:48.556 --> 0:07:52.076 call this guy an influencer. He wasn't an academic, but 0:07:52.236 --> 0:07:54.836 he was often mistaken for one. And I'm sorry, but 0:07:54.996 --> 0:07:58.556 I love this guy. In nineteen sixty six, he was 0:07:58.596 --> 0:08:00.836 a fifty two year old social critic, and he was 0:08:00.916 --> 0:08:04.316 most famous for a book called The Naked Society, in 0:08:04.356 --> 0:08:07.076 which he'd issued a warning about the loss of privacy. 0:08:08.036 --> 0:08:10.236 The book spent twenty three weeks on the New York 0:08:10.236 --> 0:08:14.636 Times bestseller list. Packard had written a whole series of bestsellers, 0:08:15.076 --> 0:08:17.356 a lot of them about things I've been talking about here, 0:08:17.356 --> 0:08:22.196 and the last archive lie detectors targeted advertising data surveillance. 0:08:22.876 --> 0:08:25.796 The Times, in a profile, described him as a man 0:08:25.996 --> 0:08:28.196 who acts on the whole like a professor at a 0:08:28.236 --> 0:08:32.316 small college, a little unsure of tenure. This was actually 0:08:32.316 --> 0:08:35.196 a gentle way of saying that Packard was incredibly boring 0:08:35.476 --> 0:08:39.796 to listen to. But the Times reporter added, at the typewriter, 0:08:39.916 --> 0:08:43.596 he is something else again. In other words, in person, 0:08:43.916 --> 0:08:47.636 Vance Packard was a dud. But on the page, Vance 0:08:47.676 --> 0:08:51.996 Packard was a stud. Sometimes newspapers referred to Packard as 0:08:51.996 --> 0:08:55.596 a sociologist. This really tugged at the well trimmed beards 0:08:55.596 --> 0:08:59.956 of the nation's actual sociologists. One social science journal published 0:08:59.996 --> 0:09:03.436 an entire issue trying to answer the question, is Vance 0:09:03.516 --> 0:09:07.116 Packard necessary? You'd feel bad for the guy, except that 0:09:07.156 --> 0:09:10.236 he was a famously happy man and troubled by his critics. 0:09:10.796 --> 0:09:13.276 Packard liked to work in bed. He'd spend hours a 0:09:13.356 --> 0:09:16.676 day lying there. He clipped stories from newspapers and magazines 0:09:16.716 --> 0:09:19.836 and read through them. He played the banjo, He swam 0:09:19.876 --> 0:09:24.036 in the ocean, fare asked every morning. He was famously thrifty. 0:09:24.276 --> 0:09:26.756 In the winter, he wore two pairs of pants, one 0:09:26.796 --> 0:09:30.396 on top of the other to stay warm. Famously thrifty, 0:09:30.796 --> 0:09:36.396 famously kukie, but either way, very very famous. We are 0:09:36.396 --> 0:09:39.116 indeed honored and privilege to have you opened these hearings today. 0:09:39.116 --> 0:09:43.156 Mister Packard, please proceed. Cornelius Gallagher welcomed him to the 0:09:43.196 --> 0:09:48.596 hearings with enthusiasm. Mister Chairman and members of the committee, 0:09:49.196 --> 0:09:59.316 thank you for inviting me. Records on individual Americans now 0:09:59.476 --> 0:10:05.036 number in the billions. We leave a trail of records 0:10:05.076 --> 0:10:09.356 behind us from the moment of birth. The individual rule 0:10:09.436 --> 0:10:14.716 citizen who is concerned about the erosion of his privacy 0:10:14.916 --> 0:10:19.316 has up until now had some consolation in the knowledge 0:10:19.356 --> 0:10:23.596 that all these files about his life have been widely 0:10:23.676 --> 0:10:27.356 dispersed and often difficult to get at. Are we getting 0:10:27.356 --> 0:10:31.196 prematurely overheated and are concerned? I do not think you 0:10:31.276 --> 0:10:35.596 are getting prematurely overheated at all. I think we should 0:10:35.596 --> 0:10:41.276 all be scared stiff about the possibility that these giant 0:10:41.356 --> 0:10:45.996 machines would be fed data about individual Americans, and that 0:10:46.116 --> 0:10:51.036 this information would be retrievable by a number of different 0:10:51.236 --> 0:10:56.596 organizations or groups. I think this would clearly create the 0:10:56.636 --> 0:11:01.836 preconditions for a totalitarian system. He went on like that. 0:11:02.356 --> 0:11:04.916 On the first day of the hearings, nearly everyone agreed 0:11:04.956 --> 0:11:10.916 with Packard, down to the last witness agenda. I got 0:11:10.916 --> 0:11:14.116 to wondering whether people outside of Congress were worried about 0:11:14.116 --> 0:11:17.796 the National Data Center, and once I started looking, men 0:11:17.916 --> 0:11:20.996 they were everywhere. The New York Times, so the Data 0:11:20.996 --> 0:11:24.196 Center would bring the United States closer to an Orwellian nightmare. 0:11:24.996 --> 0:11:28.436 Big Brother Never Rests, ran the headline in the Indianapolis 0:11:28.516 --> 0:11:34.156 Star from Pulpits priests and ministers and rabbis denounced the idea. 0:11:34.236 --> 0:11:38.196 Another newspaper called it a giant peeping tom and I'm 0:11:38.196 --> 0:11:40.916 not kidding. Even the Daughters of the American Revolution the 0:11:40.996 --> 0:11:45.356 dr passed a resolution against the Data Center. But what 0:11:45.436 --> 0:11:49.116 about just regular people? Almost everyone who wrote to Gallagher 0:11:49.276 --> 0:11:53.236 about the National Data Center was opposed to it. Dear sir, 0:11:53.716 --> 0:11:55.796 it is good to know that your committee is alert 0:11:55.876 --> 0:11:58.796 to the dangers of this gestapo scheme of the president. 0:11:59.356 --> 0:12:02.876 I'magene Armstrong, El Paso, Texas. A lot of the letter 0:12:02.876 --> 0:12:07.276 writers feared a vast government conspiracy, a socialist conspiracy, or 0:12:07.316 --> 0:12:10.916 a communist conspiracy. Let me just add here that in 0:12:10.916 --> 0:12:14.036 the nineteen sixties this sort of cockamami thing got sent 0:12:14.076 --> 0:12:16.556 by the postal surface and read by one person or 0:12:16.596 --> 0:12:19.196 maybe two, and then they got filed in a drawer. 0:12:19.596 --> 0:12:24.116 Today this stuff is on Fortune or Twitter, read possibly 0:12:24.156 --> 0:12:27.396 by thousands, clicked on and linked to. I always think 0:12:27.436 --> 0:12:29.836 about that when I read these old letters, that no 0:12:29.876 --> 0:12:33.116 one has heard these voices since nineteen sixty six, and 0:12:33.116 --> 0:12:38.636 that really hardly anyone heard them. Then, dear sir, what 0:12:38.836 --> 0:12:43.196 better way to inaugurate a police state? Already we have 0:12:43.356 --> 0:12:49.316 creeping socialism in our government. God help us yours truly. 0:12:49.596 --> 0:12:54.276 Donald F. Hammond, Flagstaff, Arizona. Gallagher was a Democrat, a liberal, 0:12:54.316 --> 0:12:57.596 a supporter of Johnson's Great Society, but the citizens who 0:12:57.596 --> 0:13:00.876 wrote to him on this topic were chiefly conservatives. Also, 0:13:01.036 --> 0:13:06.156 there was a lot of talk about Dossier's Dear mister Gallagher, 0:13:06.196 --> 0:13:08.396 a word of thanks for bringing to a lot of 0:13:08.516 --> 0:13:12.796 day the nations of the White House task force employed 0:13:12.876 --> 0:13:16.876 in the Soviet life procedure of turning every US citizen 0:13:16.996 --> 0:13:21.956 into a little white rabbit for governmental dissection, brainwashing, and 0:13:22.076 --> 0:13:29.676 intimidation via the dossier process. Sincerely, Elizabeth Nash, Front Royal Virginia. 0:13:30.196 --> 0:13:32.276 A lot of these letter writers were from what was 0:13:32.316 --> 0:13:36.396 then the very far fringe of the American right, anti 0:13:36.436 --> 0:13:44.836 government coups, white supremacists, John Bircher's conspiracy theorists. Dear mister Gallagher, 0:13:45.036 --> 0:13:50.036 please kill the idea of a central data bank. This 0:13:50.076 --> 0:13:54.996 looks like communist infiltration. Also kill the Civil Rights Bill, 0:13:55.596 --> 0:14:00.716 especially fair housing jail Martin Luther King for inciting rebellion. 0:14:01.636 --> 0:14:07.476 Most sincerely, Frank P. Sterling, Open California, veteran World War One. 0:14:07.756 --> 0:14:13.036 Dear Congressman, the federal government is already operating too much 0:14:13.076 --> 0:14:18.636 of our business, controlling our manufacturing, interfering in our medical establishments, 0:14:18.836 --> 0:14:24.756 taking over our educational facilities and procedures. The Great Society 0:14:24.876 --> 0:14:29.636 now demands to have prior control and jurisdiction over even 0:14:29.716 --> 0:14:33.476 our personal thoughts. Guess we might just as well move 0:14:33.556 --> 0:14:41.356 to Moscow. Please do everything in your power to defeat 0:14:41.476 --> 0:14:48.396 and rout these enemies of freedom and liberty. James s. Christie, 0:14:48.476 --> 0:14:54.196 Upper Darby, Pennsylvania. The congressman started to get a little worried. 0:14:54.636 --> 0:14:58.476 He'd right back trying to calm these people down. Dear 0:14:58.556 --> 0:15:02.516 mister Christie, what I appreciate you supported my inquiry. I 0:15:02.556 --> 0:15:05.076 can either agree with your views that the federal government 0:15:05.236 --> 0:15:08.876 is taking over our rights, nor that the great society 0:15:09.196 --> 0:15:15.636 is the instrument for such action. Sincerely, Cornelius Gallagher. Remember though, 0:15:15.676 --> 0:15:17.596 that at the time there was also just a lot 0:15:17.636 --> 0:15:21.316 of anxiety about computers, and especially men who were obsessed 0:15:21.356 --> 0:15:24.716 with them. In the nineteen sixties, Americans were terrified too 0:15:24.756 --> 0:15:28.036 of another machine, the war machine, that was calling up 0:15:28.116 --> 0:15:31.676 young men, number by number, for the draft to go 0:15:31.716 --> 0:15:37.716 to Vietnam. Before nineteen sixty six, the kids of the 0:15:37.716 --> 0:15:41.596 middle class, the college students, they got educational deferments or 0:15:41.676 --> 0:15:45.756 some other dispensation. But by nineteen sixty six, the number 0:15:45.756 --> 0:15:47.876 of young men called up to the draft every month 0:15:48.316 --> 0:15:52.156 was being raised from seventeen thousand to thirty five thousand. 0:15:52.836 --> 0:15:55.596 That meant that for the first time, middle class white 0:15:55.596 --> 0:16:01.156 men boys really were being sent to Vietnam. Meantime, the 0:16:01.196 --> 0:16:05.676 war began to seem as in fact, it was hopeless 0:16:05.716 --> 0:16:10.036 and immoral. The Vietnam War was the first war whose 0:16:10.036 --> 0:16:14.596 every move was plotted by computer. Johnson's Secretary of Defense, 0:16:14.876 --> 0:16:19.316 Robert McNamara, was a systems analyst, a computer man who 0:16:19.316 --> 0:16:22.156 appeared to be running this war with a giant computer 0:16:22.316 --> 0:16:26.836 that could calculate a victory index. Johnson said, there is 0:16:26.876 --> 0:16:29.116 no computer that can tell the hour and the day 0:16:29.116 --> 0:16:34.636 of peace. But apparently there was a story, has it. 0:16:35.076 --> 0:16:37.596 People at the Pentagon fed all kinds of data into 0:16:37.596 --> 0:16:42.556 that computer, population, gross national product, manufacturing capability, the number 0:16:42.596 --> 0:16:46.356 of tanks, ships and aircraft, the size of the armed forces. 0:16:46.956 --> 0:16:50.556 And then about nineteen sixty seven or so, men at 0:16:50.556 --> 0:16:53.356 the Pentagon went down to the basement and asked that 0:16:53.436 --> 0:16:57.596 giant computer, which had run all those numbers, when will 0:16:57.636 --> 0:17:01.836 we win the war? And the computer spat out these words, 0:17:03.516 --> 0:17:12.396 you won. In nineteen sixty four, conservatives hated Lyndon Johnson's 0:17:12.436 --> 0:17:16.356 Great Society and big government, and liberals were getting angrier 0:17:16.356 --> 0:17:19.716 and angrier about Vietnam, seeing it as a war being 0:17:19.756 --> 0:17:24.556 waged by the ruthless, relentless mindlessness of a giant electronic brain. 0:17:25.636 --> 0:17:28.196 That meant that things looked bad for the establishment of 0:17:28.196 --> 0:17:33.516 a national Data center. On the last day of Gallagher's 0:17:33.556 --> 0:17:37.916 hearings July twenty eighth, nineteen sixty six, a witness appeared, 0:17:38.516 --> 0:17:42.116 Paul Baron of Rand Corporation, a forty year old Polish 0:17:42.116 --> 0:17:47.916 born computerman. Baron had grown up in Philadelphia. He'd worked 0:17:47.956 --> 0:17:51.236 for the Remington Rand Company, the company that made the Univac, 0:17:51.396 --> 0:17:54.116 the machine that CBS had hired for election night in 0:17:54.196 --> 0:17:59.676 nineteen fifty two. Baron was brilliant. Suppose we build our 0:17:59.716 --> 0:18:03.756 future systems without any safeguards at all, and all information, 0:18:04.236 --> 0:18:07.996 this whole list of records did we accumulate during our life, 0:18:08.316 --> 0:18:12.716 is available in various systems. Barren told the committee something 0:18:12.756 --> 0:18:16.396 it hadn't expected to hear and couldn't really understand. He 0:18:16.476 --> 0:18:20.156 admitted that a national data center could destroy privacy as 0:18:20.156 --> 0:18:22.796 we knew it. But then he told the committee they 0:18:22.836 --> 0:18:25.316 actually didn't matter whether or not the national data center 0:18:25.436 --> 0:18:29.076 was built. It didn't require a building. Data was about 0:18:29.076 --> 0:18:32.796 to get all linked up anyway. Whether the information is 0:18:32.876 --> 0:18:35.996 centralized in one central data bank or whether it is 0:18:36.036 --> 0:18:39.596 spread around the country doesn't make a darn pitted difference. 0:18:39.876 --> 0:18:43.276 The result is the same. Basically, we could sum up, 0:18:43.316 --> 0:18:46.116 mister Baron, that we certainly should not attempt to impede 0:18:46.156 --> 0:18:48.476 the growth of technology. But at the same time, we 0:18:48.556 --> 0:18:51.396 should start devoting more time to building in the safeguards 0:18:51.756 --> 0:18:54.916 so that this technology can serve man rather than subordinate 0:18:54.996 --> 0:18:58.196 him to its decision. That's right. I don't think we're 0:18:58.236 --> 0:19:00.956 going to be able to stop technology. I think that 0:19:01.036 --> 0:19:03.636 decision is not ours. But what we can do is 0:19:03.676 --> 0:19:09.316 provide all the safeguards we possibly can. Barren's position came 0:19:09.356 --> 0:19:13.236 down to this, you can't stop technology, and you can't 0:19:13.276 --> 0:19:16.796 stop people from collecting data, but you can make data 0:19:16.836 --> 0:19:20.196 safer if you act right now. He told the committee, 0:19:20.316 --> 0:19:23.716 please do something. Set up a national data center, or 0:19:23.796 --> 0:19:27.996 don't set up a national data center. Just do something, 0:19:28.876 --> 0:19:32.756 set up some rules, establish principles before it's too late, 0:19:33.076 --> 0:19:35.036 because unless the government comes up with a way to 0:19:35.116 --> 0:19:38.876 understand what data is and what can be done with it, 0:19:38.876 --> 0:19:41.356 will be left wandering around in a world where anyone 0:19:41.396 --> 0:19:45.276 can collect data about anything and do whatever they want 0:19:45.316 --> 0:19:49.036 with it. The Special Subcommittee of Invasion of Privacy is 0:19:49.036 --> 0:19:52.356 a journ God damn it. The House investigation ended and 0:19:52.356 --> 0:19:55.116 they didn't come up with any rules. But then the 0:19:55.196 --> 0:19:58.716 Senate decided to hold its own hearings I've got the 0:19:58.756 --> 0:20:03.196 tapes stored here in this data center, in the halls 0:20:03.236 --> 0:20:15.996 of the last archive. The Senate held its own hearings 0:20:15.996 --> 0:20:18.556 about the National Data Center a few months after the 0:20:18.596 --> 0:20:22.476 House in March of nineteen sixty seven. Its chief witness 0:20:22.636 --> 0:20:25.636 was a then unknown law school professor from the University 0:20:25.636 --> 0:20:28.756 of Michigan. He was thirty two at the time. He's 0:20:28.756 --> 0:20:32.836 in his eighties now. I called him up. I'm Arthur Miller. 0:20:33.196 --> 0:20:38.156 I'm a university professor at NYU with a long tour 0:20:38.196 --> 0:20:41.676 at Harvard Law School, and I wrote in nineteen seventy 0:20:41.716 --> 0:20:45.316 one a book called The Assault on Privacy, which some 0:20:45.516 --> 0:20:50.076 say saw the future. Miller's retired now for a long time. 0:20:50.116 --> 0:20:52.476 In the nineteen seventies and nineteen eighties, he had a 0:20:52.476 --> 0:20:56.516 TV show called Miller's Court. On an upcoming Miller's Court, 0:20:56.596 --> 0:20:59.716 we'll be talking about the draft, the subject. Everyone has 0:20:59.716 --> 0:21:01.716 an opinion. I watched it when I was a kid. 0:21:01.756 --> 0:21:05.476 I thought it was like free law school. Miller really 0:21:05.596 --> 0:21:10.596 is a maid for TV law professor. He's a nimble, witty, combative. 0:21:11.116 --> 0:21:14.596 He's a very distinctive style. He wears three piece suits 0:21:14.596 --> 0:21:17.996 with flashy ties. Isn't it time for your day in court. 0:21:18.356 --> 0:21:20.876 I wanted to know how Miller got roped into testifying 0:21:20.916 --> 0:21:24.036 before the Senate hearing. He said it all started when 0:21:24.036 --> 0:21:26.076 he got a phone call from the office of Senator 0:21:26.156 --> 0:21:30.476 Sam Irvin, a Democrat from North Carolina who's best known 0:21:30.716 --> 0:21:33.996 as the guy who chaired the Watergate hearings. My phone rings. 0:21:34.076 --> 0:21:40.436 It's the staffer from the Senate Committee, Irvin's committee, and 0:21:42.156 --> 0:21:45.116 he says, we'd like you to be the lead witness 0:21:45.236 --> 0:21:49.756 on this hearing that we're going to hold on the 0:21:49.876 --> 0:21:53.396 National Data Center. And I say to the staffer, I 0:21:53.396 --> 0:21:58.116 don't know a thing about privacy, and he says, well, 0:21:58.116 --> 0:22:00.876 we're told that you've written about it. And I said no, 0:22:01.076 --> 0:22:05.156 I've written about computers and privacy. And he says, hang on. 0:22:06.196 --> 0:22:10.116 And the senator gets on the phone. What do you 0:22:10.156 --> 0:22:13.436 mean you don't know anything about privacy? And he says, 0:22:13.476 --> 0:22:18.796 I still want you as the lead witness in these hearings. Senator, 0:22:18.916 --> 0:22:22.756 I know nothing about privacy, and he screams into the phone, 0:22:23.116 --> 0:22:27.676 Well learn damn it. Miller says, okay, okay, I'll do it. 0:22:28.036 --> 0:22:30.796 You don't say no to Sam Irvin, so he reads up. 0:22:31.116 --> 0:22:33.196 I asked him why so many people had gotten worked 0:22:33.276 --> 0:22:36.396 up about the National Data Center. It just seemed like 0:22:36.436 --> 0:22:43.116 a damn good political issue that crossed Republican and Democratic lines, 0:22:43.956 --> 0:22:49.316 because when you're dealing with privacy, you're into the world 0:22:49.396 --> 0:22:56.436 of humanism, and the Democrats can rally around that, and 0:22:56.516 --> 0:23:02.316 the Republicans can rally around not creating big government that 0:23:02.516 --> 0:23:08.636 knows everything about you. The problem was that some people 0:23:08.796 --> 0:23:15.276 saw the government as the devil. Personally. I was concerned 0:23:15.636 --> 0:23:20.756 that there were no constraints on the broad outlines of 0:23:20.796 --> 0:23:25.756 the system that was being proposed. So March nineteen sixty seven, 0:23:26.236 --> 0:23:30.276 Arthur Miller gets dressed up, three piece suit, flashy tie, 0:23:30.396 --> 0:23:33.276 pocket handkerchief. He goes to the hearing in the Senate. 0:23:34.276 --> 0:23:38.116 Sadly it wasn't recorded, but Miller tells the senators with 0:23:38.156 --> 0:23:41.396 his usual flair, that it's stupid to oppose a technological 0:23:41.436 --> 0:23:44.556 development that will widen the sphere of knowledge just because 0:23:44.556 --> 0:23:48.396 it might be misused. I was not Carrie Nation with 0:23:48.516 --> 0:23:52.316 an axe out to smash the machine. Never have been 0:23:53.716 --> 0:23:57.836 looking for rational controls. And the problem back then was 0:23:57.956 --> 0:24:00.956 not only was no one looking at that, but the 0:24:01.076 --> 0:24:09.676 high technology people didn't know how to do it. Miller 0:24:09.716 --> 0:24:12.716 agreed with that rand guy Paul Baron, who testified before 0:24:12.756 --> 0:24:15.876 the House a few months earlier. Baron said data collection 0:24:15.996 --> 0:24:18.596 was going to happen, and it wouldn't require an actual 0:24:18.596 --> 0:24:21.516 building like the Library of Congress or the National Archives. 0:24:22.036 --> 0:24:28.716 It would just be there floating around like a cloud. 0:24:31.036 --> 0:24:33.036 The thousand A Senate we're supposed to keep on thinking 0:24:33.116 --> 0:24:37.396 about the National Data Center, but instead they tabled it everything, 0:24:37.476 --> 0:24:41.436 including the questions it had raised about data and privacy. Basically, 0:24:41.516 --> 0:24:44.156 they hoped everyone would forget about it. They'd killed the 0:24:44.196 --> 0:24:49.316 monster and buried him. One month after the Senate hearings 0:24:49.316 --> 0:24:53.236 were Miller testified. The first big, really big protest against 0:24:53.276 --> 0:24:56.556 the Vietnam War took place in New York. Martin Luther 0:24:56.676 --> 0:24:59.996 King spoke out against the war. We have the participants 0:24:59.996 --> 0:25:05.636 in today's unprecedented national peace demonstration are united in our 0:25:05.756 --> 0:25:12.276 conviction of the imperative need pond immediate peaceful solution to 0:25:12.436 --> 0:25:19.036 an illegal and unjustifiable law that fault. Robert McNamara, Lyndon, 0:25:19.116 --> 0:25:23.476 Johnson's Secretary of Defense, resigned a few months later. Johnson 0:25:23.556 --> 0:25:26.076 shocked the country when he announced that he would not 0:25:26.196 --> 0:25:30.196 run for reelection in nineteen sixty eight. The Great society 0:25:30.476 --> 0:25:33.556 was over and the proposal for a National Data Center 0:25:33.956 --> 0:25:37.316 was dead. What do you think was lost in the 0:25:37.396 --> 0:25:40.796 way that defeat happened? When one looks at the National 0:25:40.916 --> 0:25:45.316 Data Center, it's child's play. It's fun for the feeble mind. 0:25:45.916 --> 0:25:54.316 It was basically a statistical system. Its ability to harm 0:25:54.596 --> 0:25:59.356 was limited. Yeah, so, I mean that's exactly squarely. What 0:25:59.596 --> 0:26:03.356 fascinates me about this story is looking back, was there 0:26:03.396 --> 0:26:05.436 ever a moment, and if there was, was at that 0:26:05.476 --> 0:26:08.356 moment in sixty six or sixty seven when maybe we 0:26:08.476 --> 0:26:11.356 could have usher in a set of principles that might 0:26:11.396 --> 0:26:14.636 have spared us the course we're now seeming to be 0:26:14.676 --> 0:26:19.316 doomed too. If somebody had said, hey, this National Data 0:26:19.436 --> 0:26:24.836 cent a great idea, sleek, efficient, economical, but we better 0:26:24.916 --> 0:26:29.396 take two years out and figure out the delatarious side 0:26:29.396 --> 0:26:35.236 effects of it. If that occurred, the possibility that we 0:26:35.396 --> 0:26:39.836 shot ourselves in the foot because we defeated it may 0:26:39.876 --> 0:26:42.836 have been a reality, but I assure you back in 0:26:42.956 --> 0:26:47.916 sixty six, seven, eight, nine, seventy, there was no no 0:26:49.196 --> 0:26:52.436 ability to do that. In other words, a better version 0:26:52.516 --> 0:26:55.156 of the National Data Center never had a chance in 0:26:55.196 --> 0:26:59.156 the nineteen sixties because people just couldn't wrap their heads 0:26:59.196 --> 0:27:02.516 around it, or some people could. They could see what 0:27:02.676 --> 0:27:05.876 was coming, but not enough people to really do something 0:27:05.876 --> 0:27:09.996 about it, like make those rules and build those safeguards. 0:27:10.956 --> 0:27:14.316 You probably know what happened next. Killing the National Data 0:27:14.356 --> 0:27:17.676 Center didn't mean the end of data. It was then 0:27:17.876 --> 0:27:25.756 followed by years of expanded governmental and private systems, which 0:27:26.036 --> 0:27:31.956 in effect gives you a national data center maturing into 0:27:32.116 --> 0:27:36.716 today's world, which is in fact the womb to tomb 0:27:36.796 --> 0:27:42.756 dot cer. Womb to tomb, cradle to grave data chronicles 0:27:42.836 --> 0:27:47.716 every moment of your life, and that data is entirely unregulated. 0:27:52.996 --> 0:27:55.876 Even as the National Data Center was being buried, a 0:27:55.996 --> 0:27:59.636 new monster was rising. The Internet, or at least what 0:27:59.676 --> 0:28:03.156 would become the Internet, was first demonstrated in nineteen seventy 0:28:03.156 --> 0:28:06.036