Massachusetts Refuses

Once, the FBI's centralized criminal files seemed a gangbuster's marvel: a mere call to the computer in Washington could bring an instant rundown on a suspected Sacramento bank robber. Today Americans are more sensitive to the sinister uses of such rich stores of information. Massachusetts, for example, has gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure that its own statewide criminal-data system contains safeguards. Access to the files is carefully limited by law, and any citizen has the right to examine and correct any entry under his name. One crucial point: in Massachusetts arrests are not listed unless they have resulted in a conviction.

Such fastidiousness has gotten the state in trouble with the Federal Government. Under the leadership of liberal Governor Francis W. Sargent, the Bay State has refused to become part of the FBI's National Crime Information Center, partly on the ground that the FBI records arrests as well as convictions--a man could be in the criminal file even if he was innocent. In a letter to his second cousin, U.S. Attorney General Elliot Richardson, Sargent took a swipe at Watergate ("To be frank, recent revelations concerning top government employees do not inspire confidence"), and explained that Massachusetts would join the national file system only when it provides better guarantees of individual rights.

That attention to the Constitution is costing Massachusetts millions of dollars; federal agencies insist that if they cannot check on possible security risks connected with federal programs, they cannot send the state money that is due it under these programs.

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