In an OpEd, history professor Dr. Margaret O’Mara writes:
In the fall of 1965, President Lyndon Johnson’s administration announced a plan to consolidate hundreds of federal databases into one centralized National Data Bank. It was meant as an efficiency move to make the Great Society even greater.
But there were many Americans who were worried about privacy — from civil rights leaders and student activists under surveillance by the F.B.I. to lawmakers who had begun to question J. Edgar Hoover’s use of his electronic arsenal — and the National Data Bank confirmed their darkest fears. In the years that followed, Congress convened headline-making hearings, slamming the databank idea and warning of government information-gathering run amok.
Read more on The New York Times.