COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Military Recruiting: Student Privacy
Pentagon Launches Invasion of Privacy, Boy Scout Says
Margie Boule, The Oregonian
May 18, 2006
Max Dennis is not anti-military. "He's always been all boy,"
says his mom, Diane Dennis. "When he was little he'd even make
guns out of toast."
Max even wears a uniform; he's a Boy Scout. But when Max started
to earn his citizenship in the nation merit badge last December,
he learned some things about the Pentagon that make him upset. He
uses terms like "invasion of privacy" and "profiling." And if he
hadn't done some research and then written a letter to Oregon's Sen.
Ron Wyden, Max says, "I wouldn't have known about this. I would have
had no clue."
Max, who just turned 16 and lives in Wilsonville, learned about a
provision of the law, Section 9528, buried deep within the 2001
federal No Child Left Behind Act. It was added after lobbying by
the Pentagon and requires secondary schools (defined variously in
different states to include junior highs, high schools and colleges)
to provide military recruiters with "directory information" about
every student. That's more than just name, address and phone number.
Recruiters also can be given date and place of birth, extracurricular
activities and awards.
They could have called it the "No Child Left Alone" section.
Before the act passed, one-third of all school districts in the nation
had policies against providing contact information to recruiters. After
the act passed, any school that didn't cooperate would lose federal
money.
The law included an opt-out feature. But it has been interpreted
differently across the nation. Parents must be notified about the
opt-out, but some schools bury it in registration forms, others put
in inside student handbooks. Some schools have all-or-nothing opt-outs:
If you want your information released to colleges, you have to agree to
let the military have it, too.
All of this was upsetting to Max Dennis, who has a friend who's
received many calls from military recruiters. "He's a freshman now, and military
recruiters keep trying to get him to join. He tells them, 'I'm a
freshman. I can't join yet and I'm not going to join.' They keep calling." Max
says his friend is not listed in any phone or school directories, because
his friend's father has a sensitive job. Max believes his friend's school
gave the number to recruiters.
Because Max was upset about all this, and because he wanted that merit
badge, Max wrote a letter outlining his concerns to Wyden. Two weeks ago Max
got back a letter from the senator that made him even more upset.
Not only are recruiters getting information from schools, "the Pentagon
has retained a private marketing firm to gather and analyze extensive
personal information about high school students," Wyden wrote, "for the stated
purpose of identifying potential military recruits.
"I share your strong concerns with the potential violations of privacy
interests . . . as well as the potential for identity theft and other
misuses of personal information."
Identity theft? Max and his mom, Diane, did more investigating and
learned the information being collected by the private marketing firm, on
behalf of the Pentagon (the program is called JAMRS -- Joint Advertising Market
Research & Studies) can include credit card records, Social Security numbers,
DMV records, e-mail addresses, grade point averages, ethnicity and the
classes they take in school.
The information is purchased from all manner of firms, including some
that process college scholarship and loan applications.
"I think it's horrible," Max says. "I started coming up to people in
school," telling them about the database being formed with their personal
information. He says, "They all hated that."
It's not about being for or against any war, Max says. "I'm not against
the military one bit. I respect that they're fighting for our country."
But he doesn't respect the way the Pentagon is accumulating its
database. "That's the really, really scary part for me. All of a sudden I realize
there's someone watching over me and knowing just about everything
about me."
Max says he believes it's unconstitutional. "It's against the Fourth Amendment," he says.
And he may be right. That amendment protects "the right of the
people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects. . ."
It also may be in violation of the Privacy Act, although some believe
that's why the military has contracted with an outside
agency to collect the information.
Max has opted out of his school's requirement to give his info to
recruiters. He's going to opt out of the JAMRS list, as soon as he and his mom can
figure out how to do that. But Max knows it's too late
for him. The government got hisinformation before he found out about the opts-out.
"But everyone who's not in high school yet hasn't
had it happen yet," Max says. He wants younger students, and their parents, to be aware
they're about to be studied by the Pentagon, probably without their knowledge.
"I just don't find it fair," Max says.
Oh -- and he got his merit badge.
Margie Boule: 503-221-8450; marboule@aol.com
©2006 The Oregonian
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