Oh, those Republicans. They’ll sing songs about Gawd blessing America. They’ll pass laws to make it illegal to desecrate the cloth of an American flag. But when it comes to real liberty, what are they up to?
They’re gathering private information on your kids.
Under Bush Administration orders, the military is building gigantic files of private information about kids who aren’t even old enough to buy cigarettes. Using little-known powers granted through the No Child Left Behind Act, Bush Administration officials in the Pentagon are sending out soldiers to high schools across the country in order to gather information like students’ Social Security numbers, their email addresses, the classes they’re taking, and even the extracurricular activities that they are involved in.
The Washington Post quotes the official description of the project as stating “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.” The parents of American high school students are right to worry that this looks like the preparation for a military draft.
One cruel irony: Republicans have been fighting to eliminate Social Security benefits, but they’re eager to use high school students’ Social Security numbers in order to spy on their personal activities.
Another cruel irony: The Pentagon has informed parents that they can opt out of the effort to collect private information about their kids — by providing the Pentagon with private information about their teenagers, to be kept in another file. I guess that’s what the Republicans mean when they talk about family values.
This is what Republicans seem to think about liberty: It gets in the way of efforts to drag American high schoolers into the war in Iraq. Unfortunately for them, there’s a little old thing called the Bill of Rights. One of the freedoms in the Bill of Rights is protection from unreasonable search and seizure.
Grabbing personal information to feed into gigantic national files on underage students – it’s probable that Jefferson, Madison and Adams would have regarded such an act as unreasonable search and seizure. It’s too bad that the Republicans in government have taken America far away from the traditions of liberty that these founding fathers worked so hard to establish.
Peregrin,
I have to say this story is so outrageous that at first I didn’t believe you. But it’s all there in today’s Washington Post. How dare they exploit our kids in this way?
Jonathan Krim, author of the Post piece, says it’s all being subcontracted out to a corporation called BeNow. BeNow has not yet learned the corporate trick of hiding all its e-mail addresses, phone numbers and mailing addresses so it can avoid being bothered by real, live people.
I strongly suggest you write to BeNow at
500 Edgewater Drive
Suite 525
Wakefield, MA 01880
e-mail them at:
sales@benow.com
Barb.Sedita@benow.com
Call BeNow at 1-800-660-5125 — they’ll pick up the toll.
In all of these messages make it clear what you think of their collaboration with the Pentagon to sell out America’s kids.
I agree, that’s pretty disgusting.
Not even giving people the chance to grow up before they’re caught up in politics?
Why isn’t this all over the news?
I see it’s in the L.A. Times too.
Unfortunately, most Americans don’t read newspapers.
According to the L.A. Times, they’re even collecting kids’ G.P.A.!
It didn’t take them long to take the website down. Is this the real reason for the ‘separate internet’? So things can be done outside of the public eye?
More concealment from the Republicans in government. What a double standard! They get to snoop into our kids’ private lives, but we don’t get to know one bit about what they’re doing with our tax money in our names! We need to get these GOP BOZOS out of office ASAP!
Ok, the gov’t already has ALL the information connected to Social Security numbers. When I had to correct my name a few years ago, they had everything in the system. I would assume a simple filter on that info could provide the same info. Sounds more like a waste of my money to hire a company to do what they already have.
Also, last time I checked, the only ones pushing the draft were the likes of Charlie Rangle.
And while I am sure the Repubs resisted SS at it’s inception, it is going no where. Another mis-statement/scare tatic made.
Hoosier: Of course the gov’t could ultimately get access to SSN data; that shouldn’t really surprise anyone. What’s truly disturbing is the that the gov’t is paying a private company to gather specific personal data on high school and college kids: what they study, their GPAs, extracurricular activities, etc. They’re basically doing targeted marketing for military recruits. It’s pretty upsetting, in my humble opinion. I guess the DoD has taken a lesson from the credit card companies, who have already discovered that naive, vulnerable teenagers are easy to sucker. Soon the DoD will be mailing out those plain, official-looking white envelopes that say “DO NOT DISCARD!”—then you open it up to find Army recruitment propaganda (and that your credit line has just been increased, so go use these access checks right now!)…
What a great idea, Becca! Irregular people, can you draw up a business model for a DOD credit card? I think this is just what our country needs: young kids in debt and getting shot at.
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Rangel (D-NY) is the only rep on record for pushing for the reinstatement of the draft.
That does not upset me so much because when you step back and look at the Army’s commitments around the world; you start to see probable manpower shortages. If a conflict does occur, there will be problems that air and naval forces alone cannot overcome, therefore a draft will come.
Now this issue with mining data for potential soldiers, we all know that our personal data is available to anybody with the skills.
Yes, it is disconcerting because you do not have any control over your private information. What is wrong is using the various aspects of the Selective service act, NCLB, and cross referencing with SSN, to target potential teenagers for military service.
It is the obvious disregard for my rights (4th amendment), that reminds me to use the constitution to remind everyone that your rights are being taken from you in plain sight.
forgive my broken syntax. I am angry. That seems to be a constant state these days. I
Hoosier Texan, it’s crazy to me that you seem to think it’s not a bad idea for the Pentagon to be gathering data about underage kids. This about more than Social Security information. It’s email addresses. It’s about who’s getting good grades and who’s getting bad grades, and in which classes, and who’s in the drama club, or who’s in future homemakers of america, and which high school kids have had disciplinary problems, and for what.
Why can’t the Bush Administration let the kids be kids!?! Why are they so crazy about building these giant databases to keep track of Americans’ private activities? It reminds me of that Total Information Awareness thing – only now it’s our kids!
You’re not outraged about this???? What would outrage you, Hoosier? What would it take? If the military was keeping a database of our daughters’ bra sizes??
Becca,
The DOD is what keeps you from getting shot at. Obviously, if you had it your way, the military would be dispanded and we all could fend for ourselves. Recruiters sending out information should not be a worry in and of itself. Alot of countries require service for X years. And apparently only suckers enlist into the service according to your logic. I am sure they would appreciate hearing that.
I want to know what Marge wants to know:
What could the the Bush administration and the military do that would outrage you, Hoosier Texan?
Hoosier, I’m not even going to dignify that crap with a real response. I think you’re a nut, and I’m not going to waste time reasoning with an irrational person.
Well, Hoosier, you’ve actually hit the nail on the head in a way. But the GOP is just as up for a draft as Rangle. The military has to come from SOMEWHERE, and if they’ve mined places like where I live dry of enlistees, well, frog-march them is the only way. Of course, most will come from the neighborhoods that are just well enough to do where college isn’t really quite an option anymore.
I doubt that the draft will blow down the halls of the big ten, the leaves of the Ivy League won’t even flutter.
Now, my father, me, both my sons, and my daughter-in-law “served our country”. My son is right now in Iraq as I write this.
A person may enlist out of patriotism, but very seldom does one reenlist for such a reason. Most of the people I know, including my sons, enlist to get out of this hell-hole, get some chance at opprtunity, schooling, some training. That’s who was in up to 9-11. They got the reservists this time, and a lot of them are shucking the uniform at the earliest opprotunity, and the ranks are not filling. Who wants schooling funded when you won’t get a chance to go?
Rangel’s take is that this time, if the kids on my block get taken, then, so do the ones where they hire people to answer the doors of the homes. Let them feel some pain, too, if pain must be endured. It’s funny, when your own flesh and blood is anted up, how you hope the guy who anted it has a good hand to back it. Problem is, they don’t.
Also, as someone who’s BEEN on the inside, and who reads and listens to more than just the American Adjit-Prop apparatus, what the DOD is doing is NOT keeping anyone from getting shot at. They didn’t learn their lessons of thirty years ago, they disregard their own studied doctrine, they did not assess the situation in any meaningful way, and now we have to live with a mess that is only going to get worse and more dangerous as time goes on.
Thanks, Sarge.
I actually agree with Rangel. I think if we’re going to have wars, especially stupid-ass wars like this one, then there ought to be a lottery held at 7 pm every day on the TV, and everyone ought to be eligible to be picked.
I wonder how gung-ho, rah-rah we’d be if that system came to pass.
Hoosier, the DOD (Department of Defense – an Orwellian term) is NOT keeping me from getting shot at.
The DOD couldn’t do a damned thing to stop the September 11 attacks.
The DOD, as controlled by Bush and Rumsfeld, has shoved thousands and thousands of Americans into getting shot at in Iraq, when the war was not necessary at all in the first place.
The DOD’s activities have made recruiting easier for terrorists, and a CIA report now says that Iraq is giving terrorists a training ground for deadly skills that they can go and use in other countries and against the USA more directly.
The DOD is not making Americans safer, bucko. It’s the wrong tool for peace.
Bush kept on saying that he was for peace and that’s why he was taking us to war in Iraq. That claim has been revealed as a clear and stinking pile of bullshit.
Patricia, my father was on two occasions the cheif of security for the office of the secretary of defence. I once heard a man who should know ask about the change from War Department to Defence Department. Now, a War Department does something which is recognisabe, defineable, and oriented toward a goal: that is to make war. An enemy is identified, the War Department pushed buttons, pulled levers (metaphoriclly, of course) and war was waged.
What does a Defence Department do? Why, it DEFENDS. Against who? Well, that’s a sort of sticky question, I guess. So, I guess like the Boll Weevil, you go a-lookin’ for a home. Find something to do, look busy, find enemies, foreign and domestic EVERYWHERE. And that’s what’s been done. Roll your own enemies, who’d have thought?
My freind, Mr. Lampenfeld, wrote our congress puke and insisted that the draft, if it comes (when, more like), be extended to areas other than military sevice. He suggested congressional staff, among other things. Our congress puke wasn’t amused. Mr. Lampenfeld was serious. Why conscript for just things that might get you maimed or killed?
Anyone thinking of St George And The Dragon?
One bit I never liked about that story is how all the young girls in the village are getting sacrificed, but only when it’s the king’s daughter is it time to call in the hero. Just in the nick of time, haha.
And hey, has anyone else noticed that Hoosier disappears whenever:
a) Someone brings up a discussion he’s already avoided answering, or
b) When Sarge steps in and adds information from EXPERIENCE into the conversation?
Funny, that.
As a side note, though, it could be worse; they could be focussing their research on the religious and political leanings of the kids.
Yes, but apparently the Republicans have made sure that the military is including ethnicity as a part of the database – they’re racially profiling American kids so that they can target vulnerable populations to get them over to Iraq. Now that’s sick!
I will throw my two cents worth in at this point. Way back in 1971, I wason the receiving end of the Draft…as a result of me being swifter that the Selective Service system, I received my call-up at about week 3 of Navy Boot Camp.
I fully recall my fear of that letter. In a perfect world, I would never back a draft…but, as everyone knows, that pre-condition isn’t there. Realisticly speaking, there really is no way we can continue on this track without a Draft. For this reason alone, I would support it…but with a few pre-conditions. Leading the list is requirement for EVERYONE to be subject to it. It worked well that way in WWII when FDR himself had a son who served with distinction as a Captain in the US Marine Corps with the 2nd Raider Batallion ( LTC Evans Carlson, commanding),even making the Makin Island raid in 1942. If all they are going to do is the same old song and dance as the last Vietnam (drafting the poor, the undereducated, the ones without “political connections”, drafting primarily minorities) then it will fail…and rightly so. The FIRST ones to go should be Dubya’s daughters. What the Hell, maybe it’ll accelerate the end of this stupid war..and, at least, Dubya won’t be able to hide ‘em in the Texas Air National Guard til the shooting stops…
The idea, however, of a government agency of ANY kind, gathering confidential information on high-school kids, and using this info to lure these kids into the military, Is tawdry at best and, in anyone’s view (Except that of the current US Supreme court, apparently), is a gross violation of the 4th amendment of the US Constitution…A document that I swore to uphold and defend against all enemies, BOTH FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. I am sickened…what has happened to my country?
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See now, ol’ Hoosie, he just cain’t shoot straight.
Thousands of Americans get shot at every year, Hoosie. And the DOD doesn’t do a dang thing to stop it. The police are doing their best. but now that the assault weapons ban is history, they’ve got a new flood of guns to contend with that shoot at Americans a lot more times a minute.
Seriously, Hoosie, who tried to shoot at Becca? And how did the DOD stop them? Ease up on the trigger man, yer mouth is shootin’ em off faster than yer brain can re-load ‘em. Yee haw!
America has needed to DEFEND itself in 1812 and again at Pearl Harbor. That’s about it, Einstein. I really doubt the DOD stopped Becca from getting shot at on either occasion.
Besides, you’re suckin’ at a rusty ol’ propaganda spigot. The DOD never intended to defend us by going into Iraq. Nope, their goal was to liberate the Iraqis from arbitrary detentions, torture, and killings. So far under the U.S. occupation, the Iraqis have had over two years of killing, torture, and arbitrary detentions. Success!
That whole bit about protecting us from weapons of mass destruction–that’s propaganda from two years ago, man. Get it straight!
Do us all a favor: Go read some Orwell, then a big ol’ stack of old news on Iraq from 2002-2003, then a big stack of new news on Iraq from 2005. Then sit down and do some thinking. I know, your brain hurts, but that’s just because you never used it before. Do it Hoosie, and be honest with yourself, and you’ll see what it is we’re talkin’ about.
Otherwise, you’ll just keep bein’ the poster boy for how NOT to fulfill your civic responsibility as an American.
Happy trails, Hoosie!
Concise comments; always nice.
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Penguin sez “Unfortunately for them, there’s a little old thing called the Bill of Rights.”
Thank God we’ve got a Supreme Court that’s dedicated to protecting the individual liberties and States’ Rights as enumerated in that Bill.
What?