The Defense Department has begun work with a private marketing firm, BeNow Inc., to create a database of high school students ages 16 to 18 and all college students to help the military identify potential recruits in a time of dwindling enlistment in some branches.

They need fresh meat so they have turned to an old fashioned marketing company coupled with the growing power of this Republican Government to get it.

The new database will include personal information including birth dates, Social Security numbers, e-mail addresses, grade-point averages, ethnicity and what subjects the students are studying.

In anticipation of opposition, DOD put out a statement: “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.”.

They will use this compiled information information to target poor kids who will be more likely to join for financial reasons. The activity is profiling, and the military hopes it will enlarge their numbers without having to resort to a draft it desperatly needs to sustain this illegal war.

The Bush Regime No Child Left Behind Act already allows military recruiters data and access to high school campuses. Recruiters have been contacting kids at home and have angered parents. If schools bar recruiters from their campuses, they loose federal funding under the NCLB Act.

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.”
Like the No-Call list? Just look how well that works. What are the penalties for violating our rights? There aren’t any.

Poof! Just like that! There goes more of your rights and privacy up in smoke.