|
Browse events |
| March 2010 | |
|---|
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
| 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
| 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 |
| 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 |
| 29 | 30 | 31 | | | | |
|
|
|
|
The Military & Your Child |
|
|
Page submitted by Horace Santry on Friday, February 3, 2006 - 2:36pm |
|
Mining for kids: Children can’t “opt out” of Pentagon recruitment database
By Kathryn Casa | Vermont Guardian - January 17, 2006 – Edited for length
The Pentagon has spent more than $70.5 million on market research, national advertising, website development, and management of the Joint Advertising Market Research and Studies (JAMRS) database — a storehouse of questionable legality that includes the names and personal details of more than 30 million U.S. children and young people between the ages of 16 and 23.
The database is separate from information collected from schools that receive federal education money. The No Child Left Behind Act requires schools to report the names, addresses, and phone numbers of secondary school students to recruiters, but the law also specifies that parents or guardians may write a letter to the school asking that their children’s names not be released.
Parents must contact the Pentagon directly to ask that their children’s information not be released to recruiters, but the data is not removed from the JAMRS database, according to Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke, a Pentagon spokeswoman.
Instead, the information is moved to a suppression file, where it is continuously updated with new data from private and government sources and still made available to recruiters, Krenke said. It’s necessary to keep the information in the suppression file so the Pentagon can make sure it’s not being released, she said.
Krenke said the database is compiled using information from state motor vehicles departments, the Selective Service, and data-mining firms that collect and organize information from private companies. In addition to names, addresses, Social Security numbers, and phone numbers, the database may include cell phone numbers, e-mail addresses, grade-point averages, ethnicity, and subjects of interest.
Some content the Pentagon’s conduct is illegal under the federal Privacy Act, which requires notification and public comment whenever new data is being compiled on individuals by any branch of government. The Pentagon maintains it has provided that notice, posted in the Federal Register on May 23, but LMCA and other JAMRS critics point out that because new data is being collected daily, JAMRS is failing to fulfill the notification requirements of the Privacy Act.
Last fall, 100 privacy and civil rights groups sent a letter to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld urging him to dismantle the database. “The Privacy Act requires that agencies publish in the federal register upon establishment or revision a notice of the existence and character of the system of records” 30 days before the publication of information, they noted. “The maintenance of a system of records without meeting the notice requirements is a criminal violation of the Privacy Act.”
But Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU’s Technology and Liberty Project in New York, said protection offered by the Privacy Act — the 1974 statute aimed at reducing the government’s collection of personal data on U.S. citizens — might be overestimated. “The federal Privacy Act is to some extent an over-hyped statute,” said Steinhardt. “It is largely a statute that requires notice; it doesn’t give you any substantive rights.”
In his July 11 response, Undersecretary of Defense David Chu said the database was an important component in the nation’s volunteer military — one that enables the United States to avoid a draft. “The department collects basic information on youth in response to a congressional mandate in 1982 that noted ‘it is essential that the Secretary of Defense obtain and compile directory information pertaining to students enrolled in secondary schools throughout the United States’ to support recruiting for the all-volunteer force and avoid conscription.” Chu said the central database was designed to save the Pentagon money. “In the past, the data were compiled by each of the services independently. In order to achieve significant cost savings, the data are now purchased by the department, housed centrally, and sent out to the services. The services use these data to provide information and marketing materials to potential recruits.”
Chu also said the Pentagon had no intention of using the information for purposes other than targeted recruitment.
But according to the privacy group, BeNow, the direct marketing company chosen by the Pentagon to compile the data, is owned by the credit reporting company Equifax and does not have a privacy policy, “nor has it troubled itself to enlist in a privacy seal program regarding the handling of information collected for this purpose.”
Parents seeking to determine whether information about their children is contained in the JAMRS database system should address typewritten inquiries to:
The Department of Defense
c/o JAMRS, Direct Marketing Program Officer
Defense Human Resources Activity
4040 N. Fairfax Drive, Suite 200
Arlington, VA 22203-1613
Requests should contain the child’s full name, date of birth, current address, and telephone number. Do not include a Social Security number.
To ask that your child’s name be added to the suppression files of the database, send a typewritten request to:
Joint Advertising and Marketing Research
& Studies Office (JAMRS)
Attention: Opt Out
4040 North Fairfax Drive, Ste. 200
Arlington, VA 22203-1613
Include the child’s full name, street address, date of birth, and telephone
number. Do not include a Social Security number.
*******************************************************
In the past when I heard “No Child Left Behind”, I thought of an attempt at an education program, now I hear it as a military recruiting program. The Bush administration signed the No Child Left Behind Act in January 2002 - which it hailed as an important social initiative. In the small print is a provision that threatens the withdrawal of federal funding from any high school, which refuses to provide students' details to military recruiters. Section 9528, Armed Forces Recruiter Access to Students and Student Recruiting Information, enables the military to make unsolicited contact with children as young as 11.
PUBLIC LAW TITLE
PL 107-110, This title may be cited as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001
LAW SECTION
ELEMENTARY & SECONDARY EDUCATION
Subpart 2 ? Other Provisions
SEC. 9528. ARMED FORCES RECRUITER ACCESS TO STUDENTS AND STUDENT RECRUITING INFORMATION.
(a) POLICY-
(1) ACCESS TO STUDENT RECRUITING INFORMATION- Notwithstanding section 444(a)(5)(B) of the General Education Provisions Act and except as provided in paragraph (2), each local educational agency receiving assistance under this Act shall provide, on a request made by military recruiters or an institution of higher education, access to secondary school students names, addresses, and telephone listings.
(2) CONSENT- A secondary school student or the parent of the student may request that the student's name, address, and telephone listing described in paragraph (1) not be released without prior written parental consent, and the local educational agency or private school shall notify parents of the option to make a request and shall comply with any request.
(3) SAME ACCESS TO STUDENTS- Each local educational agency receiving assistance under this Act shall provide military recruiters the same access to secondary school students as is provided generally to post secondary educational institutions or to prospective employers of those students.
(b) NOTIFICATION- The Secretary, in consultation with the Secretary of Defense, shall, not later than 120 days after the date of enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, notify principals, school administrators, and other educators about the requirements of this section.
(c) EXCEPTION- The requirements of this section do not apply to a private secondary school that maintains a religious objection to service in the Armed Forces if the objection is verifiable through the corporate or other organizational documents or materials of that school.
(d) SPECIAL RULE- A local educational agency prohibited by Connecticut State law (either explicitly by statute or through statutory interpretation by the State Supreme Court or State Attorney General) from providing military recruiters with information or access as required by this section shall have until May 31, 2002, to comply with that requirement.
See http://www.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/pg112.html
***********************************************
WE DID IT!!! USD 259 will put opt-out forms in enrollment packets.
Peace Center members, lead by the “What’s Next Action Group, succeeded in an 18 month effort to restrict military recruiters access to private home contact information. This action helps protect privacy and allows those opposed to how the US uses its military personal to made informed decisions.
Thank you letters were mailed to USD 259 BOE members Connie Dietz, Shirley Jefferson, Sarah Skelton, Lanora Nolan and Kevass Harding. A thank you letter also went to Winston Brooks and was cced to his staff members Kathy Busch, Denise Wren and John Updegrove.
Chip Gramke and Lynn Rogers voted in opposition – needless to say, they did not receive thank you letters.
A huge “Congratulations” and “Thank You” goes to all those that worked tirelessly to make this a reality in our community.
This letter went to the Wichita Eagle June 27, 2006
Dear Wichita Eagle “Reader Views” editor:
This week the USD 259 Board of Education, with a 5 to 2 vote, acted to provide parents a method to help protect the privacy of high school aged kids.
USD 259 receives funds from the federal No Child Left Behind Act, and consequently is required to give military recruiters private home contact information of its high school students. Parents can request that their children’s privacy be protected by giving the school a letter at enrollment, but how many families know their kid’s information will be going to the military? Parents expect to consider sports, band, lunch, field trips, sex education, but Army recruiters wanting their names, addresses and phone numbers? Recruiters are often at schools and interested students can choose how and when to respond directly.
We approached USD 259 and requested that an opt-out form be placed in enrollment packet to help parents. Following a study started in 2005, district administration recommended a form be provided. The Board of Education agreed and Wichita parents can now make an informed decision. We applaud the Board’s action and thank all involved for showing their concern for the welfare of our students.
Horace Santry
Executive Director
Peace and Social Justice Center
**********************************
Parents can keep recruiters at bay
The Wichita school board will give parents the option on whether their child's information will go to military recruiters.
BY JOSH FUNK, The Wichita Eagle
A group of parents left Monday's Wichita school board meeting glad that another form will be added to their enrollment packets.
The board agreed to adopt a simple form for one year, telling parents their child's information would be sent to military recruiters unless they sign and return the form opting out.
Several people working with the local Peace and Social Justice Center had urged the board to do that.
"The school district tonight took a step to make it easier," said Horace Santry, executive director of the peace center. "They stepped up tonight."
Schools are required by federal law to provide secondary students' names and contact information to military recruiters, but parents must also be notified and be given a chance to opt out.
In the past, the district included a statement of student privacy rights in a single page filled with legal disclosures. But that one-page form did not say information would be given to military recruiters.
Superintendent Winston Brooks recommended a revision of that legal disclosure form to mention military recruiters, but he did not want the opt-out form because it will have to be tracked manually and because the number of people opting out could jump from the roughly 200 who do so now.
But board members Connie Dietz and Lanora Nolan pushed for the opt-out form.
"Anything that we can do to help parents at enrollment, I'm all for it," Nolan said.
Santry and three other speakers on the topic stressed that they were trying to protect student privacy, not that they opposed the military.
"The issue must be brought to their attention clearly, so parents can make an informed decision," Santry said. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
