No matter how many awful things Bushco has done, I think it will be this - the targeting of kids across America - that will do them in.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002345284_privacy23.htmlPentagon creating student database
By Jonathan Krim
WASHINGTON — The Defense Department yesterday began working with a private marketing firm to create a database of all U.S. college students as well as high-school students between ages 16 and 18, to help the military identify potential recruits in a time of dwindling enlistment.
The program is provoking a furor among privacy advocates. The new database will include an array of personal information including birth dates, Social Security numbers, e-mail addresses, grade-point averages, ethnicity and what subjects the students are studying.
...
"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.
The system also gives the Pentagon the right, without notifying citizens, to share the data for several uses outside the military, including with law enforcement, state tax authorities and Congress.
...
Recruiters have been using the information to contact students at home, angering some parents and school districts.
As casualties continue to mount in the Iraq war, recruiters also are receiving more scrutiny as they venture into high schools to solicit potential volunteers. Seattle Public Schools this summer is expected to write its first formal guidelines for all recruiters who set foot on school grounds.
Amy Hagopian, who co-chairs the Parent-Teacher-Student Association at Garfield High School, earlier this month noted that the problem is that recruiters tend to glamorize military life and minimize dangers. Their presence at a school implies a tacit endorsement of the war by that school, she said.
...
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.
...
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.
"What's ironic is that the private sector has ways of uniquely identifying individuals without using Social Security numbers for marketing," he said.
...
Officials at BeNow did not return several messages seeking comment. The company's Web site does not have a published privacy policy, nor does it list either a chief privacy officer or security officer on its executive team.
According to the Federal Register notice, the data will be open to "those who require the records in the performance of their official duties." It said the data would be protected by passwords.
Some see the program as part of a growing encroachment of government into private lives, particularly in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.
"It's just typical of how voracious government is when it comes to personal information," said James Harper, a privacy expert with the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. "Defense is an area where government has a legitimate responsibility ... but there are a lot of data fields they don't need and shouldn't be keeping. Ethnicity strikes me as particularly inappropriate."
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
