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Pentagon Creating A Database Of Students
needacoolnickname writes "The Washington Post is reporting that the Pentagon is working with a marketing firm to create a database of students ages 16 through college to help them identify recruits. A little chuckle from the Pentagon in the article: '...anyone can opt out of the system by providing detailed personal information that will be kept in a separate suppression file. That file will be matched with the full database regularly to ensure that those who do not wish to be contacted are not, according to the Pentagon.'"
Coral Cached Article
Pentagon Creating Student Database
Recruiting Tool For Military Raises Privacy Concerns
By Jonathan Krim
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 23, 2005; A01
The Defense Department began working yesterday with a private marketing firm to create a database of high school students ages 16 to 18 and all college students to help the military identify potential recruits in a time of dwindling enlistment in some branches.
The program is provoking a furor among privacy advocates. The new database will include personal information including birth dates, Social Security numbers, e-mail addresses, grade-point averages, ethnicity and what subjects the students are studying.
The data will be managed by BeNow Inc. of Wakefield, Mass., one of many marketing firms that use computers to analyze large amounts of data to target potential customers based on their personal profiles and habits.
"The purpose of the system . . . is to provide a single central facility within the Department of Defense to compile, process and distribute files of individuals who meet age and minimum school requirements for military service," according to the official notice of the program.
Privacy advocates said the plan appeared to be an effort to circumvent laws that restrict the government's right to collect or hold citizen information by turning to private firms to do the work.
Some information on high school students already is given to military recruiters in a separate program under provisions of the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act. Recruiters have been using the information to contact students at home, angering some parents and school districts around the country.
School systems that fail to provide that information risk losing federal funds, although individual parents or students can withhold information that would be transferred to the military by their districts. John Moriarty, president of the PTA at Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, said the issue has "generated a great deal of angst" among many parents participating in an e-mail discussion group.
Under the new system, additional data will be collected from commercial data brokers, state drivers' license records and other sources, including information already held by the military.
"Using multiple sources allows the compilation of a more complete list of eligible candidates to join the military," according to written statements provided by Pentagon spokeswoman Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke in response to questions. "This program is important because it helps bolster the effectiveness of all the services' recruiting and retention efforts."
The Pentagon's statements added that anyone can "opt out" of the system by providing detailed personal information that will be kept in a separate "suppression file." That file will be matched with the full database regularly to ensure that those who do not wish to be contacted are not, according to the Pentagon.
But privacy advocates said using database marketers for military recruitment is inappropriate.
"We support the U.S. armed forces, and understand that DoD faces serious challenges in recruiting for the military," a coalition of privacy groups wrote to the Pentagon after notice of the program was published in the Federal Register a month ago. "But . . . the collection of this information is not consistent with the Privacy Act, which was passed by Congress to reduce the government's collection of personal information on Americans."
Chris Jay Hoofnagle, West Coast director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, called the system "an audacious plan to target-market kids, as young as 16, for military solicitation."
He added that collecting Social Security numbers was not only unnecessary but posed a needless risk of identity fraud. Theft of Social Security numbers and other personal in
to create a database of students ages 16 through college to help them identify recruits.
It will start similar to "Student A has a rich family, pass. Ahh.. Student B is lower-middle class, offer Student B a scholarship attached to a term in the Reserves." and end with "Draft Student B."
Trolling is a art,
When this fails to get enough recruits can the draft be far behind?
Just when I think our society can't get any more Orwellian, we see this:
It's a hat-trick of privacy violation.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, too...soon this will be expanded to all americans eligible for military service...then all americans, period. Refusing to submit your info for this database will automatically label you as a dissident, although what with the new national IDs coming out, you'll be in that database whether you like it or not.
Welcome to the New World Order.
(P.S.: Here's a link to the various privacy advocates' letter to the Pentagon referenced in the article.)
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
16 through college. I am a recent graduate but I want to be tracked for recruitment. This is discrimination. It's unconstitutional!
Evolution or ID?
What do you do? Recruit, recruit, recruit like there's no tomorrow. Use every tool you can get your hands on. Raise the "financial incentives" of joining up--even if you were to double a grunt's pay, they'd still be waaaay cheaper than hiring another mercenary. Make lists. Get aggressive. Be persistent. Get every person you can lay your hands on.
One of the following things will most likely happen in the next few years:
The Pentagon would much rather have a healthy, full-strength, all-volunteer military force than an expensive, byzantine network of "independent contractors" doing more and more grunt work outside the scope of both military and civil law. To this end, they're gonna do everything in their power to meet their recruitment needs--and frankly, creating a database of students is pretty freakin' innocuous compared to some of the other recruiting shenanigans that have been going down lately...
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
School studies YOU!
The Pentagon is making a database of the poorest and most underprivileged high school students in order to hook them in to military service.
At my high school, which was in a relatively wealthy county, there were almost never military recruiters, and very few students went into the military. Those that did would do so via the rather prestigious military colleges (U.S. Naval Academy, etc.).
Meanwhile, I have relatives that live in upstate New York. Their school district is in a relatively poor section of the country, and they have recruiters almost permanently stationed in the high schools, preying on the students. At this point, even if parents complain, the school can do nothing about the recruiters' presence due to the No Child Left Behind act.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Officer: How many girlfriends have you had?
Candidate: None. I'm gay. A real faggot.
Officer: Nice try...your file says you are a confirmed hetero. Go pick up your uniform, maggot.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
For anyone who wonders why this would be necessary, let me give an example.
CapitalOne got it into their heads that they should send me a credit card application every week. After spending an hour trying to track down a telephone number that would let me speak with a CSR without having an account number, I asked them to stop mailing me. The CSR rep replied that the system takes 12 to 16 weeks to fully honor a request to not receive offers! Which is pretty funny, because I asked the rep "so if I sign up for the credit card today, you can take my name off the list, but if I just want you to stop sending me junk that someone can use to steal my identity, it takes 4 months?!?!" He didn't have a good answer.
Anyways, as soon as I move to a new address three months later, I started receiving two offers from CapitalOne every week! They obvious match solely on name and address.
I just don't feel like going through the same bollux again to get my address off the list. Sheesh.
Opt-out isn't as easy as it seems. You can't just delete somebody from the database, because then you have no record of them opting-out the next time you do a data load from your source. The only way to properly do opt-out is to put them in a separate opt-out DB.
dom
That will be recorded in the database.
It sounds like you are not happy with this.
Failure to be happy is treason.
In Soviet Amerika, our new Overlords welcome you.
A draft will be needed for the upcoming invasion of Iran, which Scott Ritter (former UN weapons inspector in Iraq) says has already covertly started.
Indeed, Iran is not like Iraq. Iraq was a very splintered social and religious community, while Iran is far more coherent. Iran is well armed. Considering how poorly the Americans have fared in Iraq, Iran is out of the question for anyone with half a mind. Unfortunately, such people are not at the helm of the United States.
I'm praying for all the American youth who may get mislead into dying in some desert battlefields in third-world nations.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Service guarantees citizenship!
Do your part!
Would you like to know more?
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
A couple of stories that may add a historical perspective:
.22 casings, and wondered: who was paying for the bullets? I couldn't imagine that the left-wing PTA would ever budget for them.
Plastic Army Men
----------------
Remember the great deals on plastic Army men that you could get on the back covers of comic books? This was back in the early '70's. My friend and his brother weren't satisified with their "one per customer" offer, so they made up a bunch of fake siblings with silly names and sent orders it their name.
About 10 years later, the brothers were getting a ton of military recruiting junk mail. As were their fake siblings...
Riflery Team
------------
I was a member of the Riflery team in high school, circa 1981. I lived in a pretty liberal place at the time.
At on practice, I looked down at the bucket of spent
I asked the teacher-coach. He looked at me funny, and said: "The Army pays for the bullets".
It took me a second to absorb this, and I asked what the Army was getting back in return. The teacher-coach said: "Your target scores".
Now, my parents hadn't agreed to that, and neither did I. I quit that day, not wanting to be "special need" drafted as a sniper.
jh
In my country, so called people's army had exactly such a database of all students, because every student was actualy a recruit on delay.
But that was deep past in the totalitarian communist era. Today it would be illegal to keep such data for any reason. What's exactly going on in the USA??? Is it a precursor to conscription?
There you are, staring at me again.
Thats funny - they already get names addresses and telephone numbers from schools in exchange for federal aid as noted in this article
A little-noticed clause in the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act requires high schools to hand over students' names, addresses and telephone numbers to military recruiters as a condition of receiving federal aid.
I guess this would fill in the gaps and really make sure 'no child is left behind'.
I wonder would this lead to more or less stories like this:
In one well-publicized case in Colorado, Army recruiters were tape-recorded encouraging a student journalist posing as a high school dropout to create a diploma from a non-existent school to comply with military enlistment requirements. They also were heard giving him advice on how to disguise a chronic "marijuana problem" and how to pass a mandatory drug test.
air and light and time and space
Go ahead and rant. Go ahead and tell your kids not to listen to the evil recruiters. At that age you virtually gaurantee they will want to join. The military is a valid career alternative for anyone regardless of their highschool grades or economic status. The military cranks out more skilled tradesmen and managers than any other organization or school.
I went from a 2.4 GPA in highschool to operating a nucleap power plant in two years. When I did finally go to college I was at the top of my class. I credit the Navy for gettign me where I am today.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
It never ceases to amaze that a large majority of the people on this board have an innate aversion to serve the country that has provided them with the most freedom and liberty of ANY government in the history of man. EVERY amercian owes a debt of gratitude to every soldier, sailor, airman, marine, and coast guardsman who serves or has served this country. Without them, you wouldn't be sitting here on slashdot spouting your displaced self-loathing. Only the last couple of generations of Americans are so self-involved that they cannot see the DUTY, the OBLIGATION for every American to repay the debt and serve at least a 2-year commitment their own country. I am an 8-year (disabled, service-connected) veteran and I appreciate the experience, motivation and pride that came with my service. I am now a much more successful person because of what I learned while in the service of my country. As a result, my work shows more motivation and attention to detail than almost any of my co-workers, and employers DO take note of performance. Yes, there were times when what I was called upon to do had a very high "pucker factor". There were times that I almost lost life and limb. I am thankful that I didn't, but that doesn't mean that I should whine, cry or run away from the responsibility to ensure that the Grand Experiment lives on. By all means, hold hands, sing Cumbaya, but realize the necessity of the defense of our country. And if you don't think islamofacism can spread to your back yard, read this: http://www.detnews.com/2005/oakland/0506/22/B04-22 3573.htm
peace, out.
No. You're wrong. There is a REASON that this war is BECOMING unpopular.
And tracking kids so the government can pressure them into fighting such a war is the PROBLEM.
No. Look up "Boston Tea Party". Our country was founded upon the belief in certain Rights.
Only recently. Before that, it was because of our vast natural resources and distance from the established armies of the other nations.
You might want to look at the Founding Fathers' views on a standing military.
That sounds a bit too much like "the ends justify the means".
Here's the flaw in that claim.
... but they still don't allow women to vote.
Because some people joined the military and fought and died for Freedom does not mean that everyone who dies in the military furthers Freedom.
Check out Kuwait. We "Freed" them from Iraqi invasion
This "Freedom" thing is a bit tricky, no?
So people who didn't vote for Bush are exempt from this database?
And now you're into "blaming the victim".
Why not just make it illegal for those companies to collect that information on me?
That can mean anything from filing a patent on your new, effective, cold fusion generator to filming your neighbor in the shower.
This is not about "defense of the country". Iraq was no threat to the USofA.
Getting a sample box of Tide == tracking kids to target them for recruitment
Right.
No one "gives" anyone else "Freedom".
And tracking kids is the OPPOSITE of Freedom.
That is correct. But this isn't about forcing them to sign. This is about tracking them to specifically target them.
You use that word a lot, but I don't think you understand what it means.
Okay, but shouldn't I also thank the people who funded the school system and paid the teachers' salaries?
You are, of course, aware tha
>Look at the world around you and realize that the reason you enjoy your
>freedoms is because of the blood spilt by hundreds of thousands of
>Americans who paid the price for you.
I've never believed this sentiment to be anything other than a
self-serving lie spoken by bullies. Given that there is no economic
model that I'm aware of that posits freedom in terms of price, it's
equally probable that we enjoy our freedoms *in spite of* the wars the
government has engaged in.
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
Is that the same Army whose recruiters attempted to commit two clear ethical violations just in the process of getting him in the door? You're right, sounds like a good influence.
I've had three pretty close friends enlist in the services -- two in the Navy, one in the Marines. The levels of alcohol and drug use they described were frighteningly high. That's anecdotal, okay -- but these were straight arrows going in, and they weren't anywhere near clean while they were in uniform. One at least was more Boy Scout than was maybe good for him before he joined. Two of them have returned to those selves after leaving, but the third is a hard drinking, hard smoking, heavily-tattooed and generally scary fellah now. Wants to talk about how cynical he is about "how things work," mostly.
(This story is basically "The services are desperate to recruit, and they got this 'in' in Bush's education bill to do it with." Why are they desperate to recruit? Because W., having talked so much about the armed forces not being ready for confict during the 2000 campaign, has spent his term in office making those predictions come true on his own watch. Everything the guy claimed about Clinton decimating the military's ability to fight, he's done himself in spades.)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
There is already some organized activity to counter the provision in the No Child Left Behind Act that requires public high schools to hand over private student information to military recruiters. They counter this by supporting, instead, the Student Privacy Protection Act of 2005, which reverses the current legislation and requires schools to first obtain parental permission before releasing private student information to military recruiters.
Here's a link to more information:
http://www.themmob.com/lmca/about.html
--- -a- "I'd love to change the world, but it'd be easier if the universe exposed its API."