European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - March 30, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Sunday March 30, 1986 stars and stripes Page 17 changes easier. . Has scored a Success with its plastic panelled Pontiac Fiero and is said to be planning a total of seven models with plastic skins by 1990. Interest is also growing in developing cars with plastic frames. John c. Tumazos an analyst for Oppenheimer & company says the increased activity at . And elsewhere could be a crippling Long term threat to steel companies. It is fast becoming a question of which plastics technology replaces steel rather than whether steel loses volume at All he said adding that he expected "30 percent to 40 percent of Domestic steel usage in the Auto Industry to disappear Over the next five years due to both foreign sourcing and plastics  the plastics Industry says tooling to Mold plastic body parts is much less expensive than tooling needed to stamp Sheet Metal. But the steel Industry maintains that costs can be reduced through automation and that making a whole car out of plastic would be too costly. In the food Industry the development of plastic containers is threatening conventional can and Glass makers. Here again plastic s attraction is not that it is less expensive but that it offers conveniences that food manufacturers believe Consumers will pay for. The development of the microwave oven has been a major Force behind the move to plastic containers Industry analysts said. Campbell for example now Sells Frozen dinners in plastic plates that can be reheated in microwave or conventional ovens and it is test marketing soups some Frozen that come in plastic bowls. Under development by other companies Are plastic containers in which other precooked foods can be stored without refrigeration until placed in the microwave for reheating. In All cases the Container is an attractive dish or bowl from which the food can be eaten and then discarded leaving no dirty dishes. New York times photo plastic can for soft drinks in a test Market. Tech nolo alarms civil liberties groups up by William Kronholm associated press ederal investigators looking for fraud Are using computer technology to poke into some of the most private areas of people s lives not just tax returns but also death certificates divorce decrees marriage licenses and even school attendance records. The growing use of this computer match technology concerns civil liberties groups who fear that linking Distant computers for frequent checks May Lead to the backdoor creation of a National Dat Bank a vast repository of detailed information on the citizenry. Misgivings Over their possible misuse in various German Federal and local Dat Abanks Long delayed government approval of new computer linked forgery proof National identity cards that will be introduced in West Germany by the 1990s. If you can Access has health and human service social Security medicare medicaid veterans benefits Driver s licenses Bank records divorce records and marriage licenses you be got quite a lot of information noted Jerry j. German director of the privacy and technology project of the american civil liberties Union. But the problem is dismissed by Richard p. Kusserow inspector general of the health and human services department and one of the most aggressive leaders in computer match technology. Any computer match that does not consider privacy fairness and due process As among its major goals is not a Good project Kusserow has said. The government s need to ensure a program s integrity need not be incompatible with the individual s right to privacy and Freedom from government intrusion he said. The Point is to balance these competing  the potential benefits and problems came to Light most recently when the government published regulations covering a new program to use internal Revenue service and social Security tax information to catch welfare cheats. Beginning this fall the irs will Check the names of people reporting dividend and interest income against names supplied by state governments of those enrolled in major assistance programs including food Stamps Aid to families with dependent children medicaid and unemployment compensation. At the same time the social Security administration will Check the names of welfare applicants against income and wage figures reported to it. Both Cross checks were ordered by Congress in 1984 the government says there Are ample safeguards for privacy built into the system. State officials will not have Access to irs records they say the irs simply will identify possible instances of people having income they did not declare when applying for welfare. But the match still causes some concern because it is Only one of Many such programs now being conducted by the government. Has which runs most Federal benefits programs is a Leader in using the technology through Kusserow s office. Later this year has officials will begin a test program in California to match the names on divorce decrees against social Security spousal Benefit files to determine if any Are drawing benefits that should have ended with divorce. That program follows an earlier California test which attempted to match marriage records against social Security benefits for widows. Those Benefit checks Are supposed to end upon remarriage. In Connecticut Kusserow s investigators ran a test Check involving school attendance records. The 1982 Pilot program compared school records in eight Connecticut cities Bridgeport new Haven Hartford West Haven Stamford Waterbury Danbury and new Britain with Ardc files. The computer was looking for children who lived in households other than those receiving the checks and for children who did not exist except on applications for Ardc benefits. Of 35,000 school aged Ardc recipients in the first round of checks investigators determined that 52 children either were living with the wrong family or May in fact be  the matches Are not new. Kusserow a former Fri agent helped begin the Cross match programs with project spectre which compared death statistics with social Security beneficiary Rolls to detect people who attempt to continue receiving the pension checks of relatives who have died. Other match programs begun or planned by his office include comparisons of social Security disability Rolls with state unemployment compensation Rolls and comparisons of welfare and unemployment Rolls against immigration and naturalization service Rolls to find illegal aliens drawing Benefit checks. But civil libertarians say they Are concerned by the growing number and variety of files being linked into investigators computer terminals. Berman said the government s linking of More and More files raises the Issue of whether the government should engage in a kind of generalized surveillance of its citizens and whether the computers amount to a National data base when linked. But Kusserow has argued that government restrictions on computer use ensure that such would be impossible. Once a match is completed guidelines require that the files be returned to the custodian Agency or  but technology advances and soon there May be no files to be returned or destroyed. The Federal Register notice on the irs tax Check regulation notes in passing that social Security is beginning a Pilot program with Tennessee that will link that state s welfare computers directly with social Security computers in Washington. Social Security says the Tennessee officials will have Access to no More data than they do now. But for the first time the state officials will be plugged directly into the Federal computer on a Day to Day basis