Donald Rumsfeld has been criticised over the relevation that a private marketing firm is gathering sensitive personal information about college and high school students for the purpose of military recruitment.

Information that is taken includes, social security numbers, academic data and racial data.

As a member of the Ways and Mean Social Security subcommittee which deals with issues of Social Security number theft, it is extremely disturbing that our Department of Defense is gathering personal, sensitive information from private marketing firms for use in recruitment, stated Rep. Tubbs Jones. "It is equally troubling that the Department is amassing racial data which raises concerns of profiling in a process that is supposed to be transparent. Additionally, this program is inconsistent with the Privacy Act of 1974, therefore I join with my colleagues in asking that it be rescinded."

In a letter to Rumsfeld from Rep. Honda and Rep. Hastings, they say.

"This program is inconsistent with the Privacy Act of 1974, which states that federal agencies may maintain in their records 'only such information about an individual as is relevant and necessary to accomplish a purpose of the agency required to be accomplished by statute or by Executive Order of the President.' The Pentagon's collection effort is an unacceptable infringement of the privacy rights of our nation's youth."

We fail to see how the amassing of racial and academic data assists the military in actively recruiting willing and capable men and women to serve.

Over 10 million Americans are victimized by identity theft every year. It would be a serious breach of trust for the government to distribute this kind of information to any marketing company.

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