UCLA will probably not turn over students’ private
information to a student database being compiled by the federal
government for military recruitment purposes unless it is served
with a court order, a university official said.
Bob Naples, the dean of students, cited university policies
governing the release of the student records and the Family
Educational Rights and Privacy Act, a federal law that protects the
privacy of student education records, as reasons why it is unlikely
UCLA would give records to the Pentagon or the private firm it has
contracted to manage the database.
The database, known as the Joint Advertising and Market Research
Recruiting Database, will compile information on high school
students aged 16 to 18 and on college students, according to the
notice of the program in the Federal Register.
The information requested includes students’ addresses,
telephone numbers, Social Security numbers, GPAs and areas of
study.
According to the notice, “The purpose … 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 information will be provided to the Services to
assist them in their direct marketing recruiting efforts,”
the notice said.
Reports of the database, which first appeared in the Washington
Post on Thursday, have raised concerns among civil rights and
privacy advocacy groups about the legality of the federal
government collecting private information on citizens, especially
minors who are still in high school.
“This is cause for great concern,” said Elizabeth
Brennan, a spokeswoman for the ACLU of Southern California.
“It’s like creating a master database of the youth in
this country.”
The Pentagon has contracted BeNOW, a private strategic marketing
firm, to manage the database, according to the notice.
The notice, which is dated May 23, also states that students can
ask to be removed from any future recruitment lists.
Naples said he is not aware of any requests from the federal
government or BeNOW asking UCLA to contribute information to the
database.
If the university is contacted by the Department of Defense, the
Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act and university policy
would prevent it from sharing such information.
“I can’t imagine how (the Department of Defense or
BeNOW) would expect to get what they need,” he said.
But if the federal government serves the university with a court
order, the university might have to comply with the
Pentagon’s requests.
“A court order would likely burden us to turn over the
information,” Naples said.
Other University of California campuses would likely follow a
similar procedure, Naples added.
Under the No Child Left Behind Act, the federal government is
already given access to some students’ information, including
names and addresses, which allows them to solicit potential
recruits through direct mail, phone calls and house visits.
But the new database goes a step further by asking for
students’ private information, Brennan said.
According to an interview transcript posted on the Department of
Defense’s Web site, the Pentagon intends to use
students’ Social Security numbers to eliminate duplicate
information files that appear in their database.
Pentagon officials did not return phone calls seeking
comment.
Brennan also said that by contracting a private firm to manage
the database, the Pentagon appears to be bypassing laws designed to
prevent the federal government from collecting information on its
citizens who are not suspected of doing any wrongdoing.
News of the database comes at a time when the military is
stretched thin around the globe, popular opinion is starting to
turn against the war in Iraq, and recruiters are having an
increasingly difficult time meeting their goals.
In May, while the Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps met or
exceeded their active duty recruiting goals, the Army fell short by
1,661 recruits, achieving about 75 percent of its goal for that
month, according to the Pentagon.
Meanwhile, of all the reserve services and the national guard,
only the Air Force Reserve met its recruiting goal for the month of
May.
In addition, President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld,
and top generals have all declined to set a timetable for the
withdrawal of troops from Iraq, though pressure from lawmakers and
the public has been mounting to pull U.S. troops out of a war that
has so far claimed over 1,700 lives.
Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.) said that though she sympathizes
with the difficult straits of military recruiters, she and other
members of Congress are concerned by what they see as the
military’s use of “high pressure tactics” to
target high school and college students, such as phone calls and
visits to students’ homes by recruiters.
Sanchez, who is also a member of the House Armed Services
Committee, said she has fielded complaints from parents in her
district about targeted recruiting of their children, and that the
new student database could exacerbate that.
“Until I understand how and why they use the information
… to me it doesn’t look good,” she said.