Copyright 1996 The Washington Post  
The Washington PostSeptember 11, 1996, Wednesday, Final Edition
SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. A07

LENGTH: 614 words

HEADLINE: Panel Probes Database Use By White House; Elaborate List Allegedly Recorded Contributors

BYLINE: George Lardner Jr., Washington Post Staff Writer

BODY:
Arthur Coia, president of the mob-influenced Laborers International Union of North America, is important enough to President Clinton to rank a spot on an elaborate computer database the White House put into operation last year.

The records on Coia, introduced at a House hearing yesterday, note among other things that he was "a 1992 Early Supporter" with a "Top Twenty" ranking, that he is a "DNC Trustee," and that he is "Caucasian/European Descent," specifically an "Italian."

Rep. David M. McIntosh (R-Ind.), chairman of a House Government Reform and Oversight subcommittee investigating the propriety of the $ 545,000 system, said yesterday, "It is absolutely astounding to me that the American taxpayers are funding this blatantly political database." He said he viewed about 30 other records at the White House last week and was "shocked and disturbed by what I saw. The system looked more like a campaign contributor list than an official record."

McIntosh said he has been trying for weeks without success to get an electronic copy of the database. It contains information on some 200,000 individuals. The only reason McIntosh had Coia's printout was that it had been obtained by another subcommittee as part of a separate inquiry.

Rep. Collin C. Peterson (D-Minn.), ranking minority member of the regulatory affairs subcommittee, said he also looked at the database and found much less to get excited about, especially in light of the fact the George Bush White House had a similar, though less expensive, system. The Bush database was expected to cost about $ 249,000, when approved in 1990 and was designed to keep track of "contribution leaders" to Bush's Thousand Points of Light program as well as "individuals identified as important to the president."

Peterson said the White House told him the Clinton system contained only 774 entries, out of 200,000, with the word "contributor;" 7,079 with ethnic identifications, which have been discontinued; and 7,252 with political affiliations, mostly elected officials.

Peterson said he agreed the contributor information should not have been entered. But the small number of individuals suggested to him that list may have been installed when the system was set up and that the White House has made no effort to expand it.

According to a White House summary, the Clinton system was set up at the request of the president and the first lady to provide them, first and foremost, "with a database that tracks all contacts with individuals and organizations who are important to the presidency." Auditors from the General Accounting Office, Congress's watchdog agency, faulted the system primarily for its lack of controls to guard against misuse. Jack Brock, GAO's director of information management issues, said the database has been operational since August 1995 and is used for such things as developing invitation lists and preparing thank-you notes and holiday cards. But he said he would give it a grade of "I" for incomplete, because the White House will not implement the "audit trail" capability that would show who was using the system and what they were doing with it.

Peterson said he was told a full "auditing" function would make the system, already sluggish because it has so many features, four times slower. He said it was "a big, overblown system" that the White House was "basically using as a Rolodex."

As it stands, however, Brock said, "there is opportunity for misuse." He said the users are not required to change passwords every few months and the heaviest users frequently fail to "log off," leaving their computers open for rummaging by anyone else who happens by.