Rumsfeld's Scheme to Spy on Your Kids

[Wind Dancer]

Pentagon Database Leaves No Child Alone

By MIKE FERNER

All over the country, organized citizens are fighting to restrict the military's presence in schools. But having recruiters troll high schools cafeterias is just one way the Pentagon inundates our youngsters with messages to "Go Army!"

Since 2002, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has spent a half-million dollars a year creating a database it claims is "arguably the largest repository of 16-25 year-old youth data in the country, containing roughly 30 million records." In Pentagonese the database is part of the Joint Advertising, Marketing Research and Studies (JAMRS) project. Its purpose, along with additional millions spent on polling and marketing research, is to give the Pentagon's $4 billion annual recruiting budget maximum impact. And it has lit a fire under civil libertarians, privacy advocates and counter-recruiting activists across the nation.

Over 100 organizations recently sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and to the DoD oversight committees of Congress, demanding the Pentagon dump the JAMRS database.

Gary Daniels, litigation coordinator for the Ohio ACLU, declared, "The ACLU's work revolves around personal privacy, but in 2005, it's almost like the ship has sailed. It's clear the Pentagon's database does not bode well for privacy rights."

"JAMRS is a much larger issue than recruiters' presence in the schools," Daniels added. "Students who 'opt out' of having their information turned over to recruiters by their school are just shifted into another column in the JAMRS database, called the 'suppression list.'" With students' personal information now in the hands of the Pentagon, Daniels estimated that keeping recruiters from contacting youths directly is just about impossible.

Air Force Lt. Colonel, Ellen Krenke, a DoD spokesperson, downplayed the significance of the JAMRS database. It was initiated in 2002 and even then, she said, it was not a new project, simply a way to centralize information. "The individual services (Army, Navy, etc.) have been collecting this data since being authorized by Congress to do so in 1982."

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Mike Ferner is a freelance writer from Ohio. He can be reached at: [e-mail]