Clinton: Track Down Sex Offenders Meanwhile, Dole Focuses On Fbi Files Fiasco And Accuses President Of Failing To Keep Track Of Ethics In White House

President Clinton proposed a new plan Saturday to make America’s homes safer from criminal sexual predators, but found himself dogged yet again by questions about the ethics in his own White House.

Clinton, on a two-day campaign swing after a week’s worth of bad news at home in Washington, tried to keep the subject off the Whitewater affair and the investigation into his administration’s unauthorized use of FBI files on Republicans.

In his weekly radio address, Clinton said he wants a national system to track sexual offenders when they move.

Meanwhile his rival, Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole, kept up the pressure with a hard-hitting radio speech that accused the Clinton administration of unethical conduct.

Dole said the White House use of the FBI files hit at a core American tradition, the privacy of its citizens.

“Since our nation was founded over 200 years ago, the American people have held the expectation that their privacy was sacred, and that government could not, without serious cause, pry into the lives of our citizens,” Dole said.

He also said the Clinton administration misused the FBI by urging the agency to investigate former White House travel office employees fired to make way for Clinton allies.

“In doing so, they … revealed a pattern of ethical arrogance the full extent of which, even today, we are just beginning to discover,” Dole said.

Clinton did not respond directly to Dole, or refer to the FBI files.

Clinton preferred to talk about crime, using his radio address to boast of an overall reduction in crime nationwide and to announce that he had ordered Attorney General Janet Reno to prepare a national system to track sexual offenders. The move echoes legislation proposed in Congress.

He noted that the 1994 crime bill required states to compile lists of sexual offenders and gave them the power to notify local communities when sexual offenders move in. He recently signed a law making that notice mandatory.

“Now we must take the next step,” he said, namely letting one state know when a sexual offender moves from another state.