The Department of Defense wants a database of high school students aged 16-18 as well all college students to be used for recruitment purposes. Information to be collected will be name, birth date, social security number, and addresses which, so far, is not unexpected. In addition, however, they will be looking at a person’s grade point average, ethnicity, and area of study.
Now I can understand that the DoD has an interest in achieving a certain readiness level by having a pool of recruits. Don’t they have that info from my registration with Selective Service? The government does not have a compelling need to have access to a person’s GPA, ethnicity, or area of study. In fact, my University does not release that information to anyone… not even my parents unless I give them permission. Now they must or possibly face the threat of losing federal funding. Of course, the DoD would say that individuals can opt out… but the procedures on how to do that are not advertised. After all, the DoD has to rely on individuals being either ignorant or lazy in order to maximize the effectiveness of their database.
This particular part I found amusing:
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.I love it! A database of people who don’t want to be on a database.
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