Dear Fellow Teachers,

Buried deep within the No Child Left Behind Act is a provision that requires public high schools to hand over the private contact information of students to military recruiters. If a school does not comply, it risks losing vital federal education funds. As if that weren't bad enough, the Pentagon has now built an illegal database of 30 million 16-25 year olds as another recruitment tool.
Protect our children by helping them "Opt Out"!

Working Assets has helped create the Leave My Child Alone coalition to make it easy to protect children from unwanted military recruiting by getting their names off both Pentagon and high school recruiting lists. To opt your child out, go to:

www.leavemychildalone.org/optout

Pass this on to parents!!!!!

BACKGROUND:
According to the Pentagon Public Affairs office (at 703-428-0711), JAMRS is the organization formed by the Pentagon to oversee the development of a database of 30 million 16-25-year-olds, including name, address, email addresses, cell phone numbers, ethnicity, social security numbers and areas of study. This database is updated daily and distributed monthly to the Armed Services for recruitment purposes. You may "opt out" of this list in writing at the address above, and your child's information will be moved to a "suppression file." The Pentagon retains the information, but does not release it.

NOTE: The Department of Defense was initially requiring a social security number, but has backed off that requirement. They have also agreed to get the Opt Out information up on their site and establish an information-only 800# with prerecorded instructions re: opting out, pending approval. They have had a storm of inquiries over the past week, and say they are looking at other ways to improve the process.

The Pentagon's Public Affairs Office read to us from a memo that the military branches had been collecting this data for years, and only contracted with the private marketing firm BeNow in 2002 to begin "consolidating the data for greater efficiency." Perhaps this is the rationale the Pentagon felt they could use to end-run the Privacy Act, which requires notification and public comment whenever new data is being compiled on individuals by any branch of government. The LeaveMyChildAlone.org coalition believes that any database being "updated daily" is certainly collecting new data on our kids, and therefore falls under the notification requirements of the Privacy Act.

For more information, go to the JAMRS website: www.jamrs.org

The LeaveMyChildAlone.org coalition is urging the Pentagon to add 800# and online Opt Out options for parents and students. However, the fact that the data is maintained in a "suppression file" hardly grants parents piece of mind. With recent reports of massive security breaches at data firms, the fact that such detailed information about our sons and daughters has been in use for 3 years without parental consent or knowledge is troubling. That it is being managed by a firm (BeNow) that fails to even state a privacy or security policy on their web site is of even graver concern.


Adopt a School Board

The Adopt-A-School-Board action is for anyone who wants to take the next step in getting your local school board to support "Optimum Opt Out" policies and implementation. Gather family, friends, neighbors, and students together for a School Board outing:
Adopt a School Board

Co-Sponsor a bill to change this law!

SIGN ON as a citizen co-sponsor of the Student Privacy Protection Act (H.R. 551)


Where children are concerned, it's time to make it a family decision (not a federal mandate) to release our home phone numbers and home addresses to military recruiters.

US Representative Mike Honda’s Student Privacy Protection Act does just that. It makes a simple change to No Child Left Behind ensuring schools release private information to military recruiters only if families request it, rather than the other way around.
Please help show Congress that there's broad-based support for family privacy by signing on as a Citizen Co-Sponsor below. U.S. Rep. Mike Honda will use this petition to urge fellow members of Congress to co-sponsor this important legislation.

I support H.R.551, the Student Privacy Protection Act of 2005, which amends section 9528 of No Child Left Behind. H.R. 551 prohibits military recruiters from contacting students unless these minors and their parents specifically “Opt In” and consent to receive such communications.

Click here to sign the Petition!!!!