ABSTRACT
Computer systems enter the worlds of organizations, whether it's a bank or an insurance company, a police department, or the Social Security Administration. The first thing one has to do is have an accurate snapshot of how that organization functioned before the utilization or the adoption of various kinds of computer techniques and telecommunication options. The chapter discusses things such as the planning and evaluation function in organizations, their decision-making processes, the ways in which oversight functions were handled inside organizations, and the way in which various kinds of administrative-efficiency judgments about centralization and decentralization could be dealt with. It looks at the areas of individual rights, and in particular, is concerned with privacy and confidentiality. Much of the struggle over the way in which computers are being used or should be used has been between, really, several camps in the US.
