L. Anthony Sutin letter to Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr., September 18, 1998

SEP-29-1998 17=04 REP. ROBERT L. EHRLICH JR. 202 225 3094 P.02/06 C U.S. Department of Justice Office of Legislative Affairs Office of the Assistant Attorney General Washington, D.C. 20530 SEP I 8 1998 The Honorable Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr. United States House of Representatives Washington, DC 20515 Dear Congressman Ehrlich: Thank you for your letter to the Attorney General concerning the implementation of the National Instant Check System (NICS) pursuant to the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (Brady Act). You express concern in your letter about the FBI’s proposal to retain for a limited time records of background checks that will allow firearm transfers to proceed. You also express concern about the FBT’s plan to charge a background check fee (or “user fee,” as it is sometimes called) to fund the costs of performing NICS background checks. These issues were the subject of recent action on the Senate floor when the Senate passed an amendment to the Department of Justice appropriations bill that would prohibit the FBI from charging a fee for NICS checks and would require the immediate destruction by the FBI of all information concerning approved firearms transactions. Both of these measures, however, would have very serious repercussions for the operation and integrity of the system. Below we address your concerns and set forth the FBI’s reasons for retaining records for a limited period and for charging a fee. Enclosed is a copy of the Department’s proposed regulation regarding the fees, which was published in the Federal Register on Monday, August 17, 1998. Record Retention by the FBI Addressing first your concern about record retention, the FBI has no plans to establish a federal firearms registry. As you note, the FBI is expressly barred from doing so by section 103(i) of the Brady Act. The FBI has proposed to retain records of approved transactions in an audit log for a limited period of time solely for the purpose of ensuring the security and privacy of the information in the NICS. By auditing the system, the FBI can identify instances in which the NICS is used for unauthorized purposes and protect against the invasions of privacy that would result from such misuse. Audits can also determine whether false names are submitted to the NICS by gun dealers to evade the name check system. For instance, a corrupt gun dealer may send in one name (known to have no disqualifying record) for a NICS check, but record a different name on the gun transaction record. If the record of the name sent to the system were destroyed immediately, there would no way of proving that the dealer had deliberately evaded the background check system by sending it a false name. Without a record of the different name sent Received Time Sep-29- 4:02PM