As our public and private institutions collect more and more information
and as communications and computer technologies advance, we must act to
protect the personal privacy of our citizens.
In the past four years we acted on the report of the Privacy Commission and
established a national privacy policy. We worked with Congress to pass
legislation restricting wiretaps and law enforcement access to bank records
and to reporters' files. We reduced the number of personal files held by
the government and restricted the transfer of personal information among
Federal agencies. We also worked with the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development to establish international guidelines to
protect the privacy of personal information that is transferred across
borders.