Databases. Millions of students are entered in them. Even here at Guilford there is the address book database online. Nationwide, there is a new system of collecting information. The Pentagon has compiled a youth database consisting of the information of students (ages 16 and up) in public schools in the United States. They have access to: social security numbers, birth dates, grade point averages, ethnicity, email addresses, and the subjects these students studied.

According to the Washington Post, the Department of Defense says of the database, “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.” This is supposed to be a more effective, efficient way of recruiting.

A private database marketing company, called BeNow, is the intermediary to find candidates for possible military recruitment.

Based on the Electronic Privacy Information Center’s research, “BeNow, does not even have a privacy policy, nor has it troubled itself to enlist in a privacy seal program”. EPIC’s further investigations show that there is “disclosure of records contained in the database for functions wholly unrelated to recruitment.”

Robert Duncan, a Guilford political science professor, says, “That must violate the Privacy Act somehow”. Ironically, the government is involved in this.

Because of an unrelated clause in Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act, the government has been granted the right to cut off federal aid from public schools if they do not release students’ personal information. Duncan calls this a “devious, slippery trick, characteristic of the current administration”.

How recruitment for the military should be addressed seems to be an issue that the government and the public seem to be divided on.