Senator Boxer:  End Pentagon Program to Collect Data   

Thursday, June 1, 2006  

Earlier this month, I wrote to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld about the Pentagon’s Joint Advertising and Market Research Recruiting Database (JAMRS) program. The Department of Defense created this new database in October 2003 to collect and analyze information on high school students over the age of 15, college students, and others in an effort to enhance the Pentagon’s ability to target qualified candidates for military recruiting purposes. The Pentagon did not publish a public notice about the existence of the new database until after it had been established. 

The JAMRS database, which holds million of records, includes information such as an individual’s Social Security number, date of birth, ethnicity, address, grade point average and telephone number. The data is held by a private marketing firm outside the Department of Defense and will be retained for a period of at least five years.

In my letter to Secretary Rumsfeld, I told him that I oppose the JAMRS program. In my judgment, all parents want to protect their children, and collecting personal data on their children that is given to a private firm puts them at risk. It opens the door to identity theft for millions of America’s youth, and the potential harm for its misuse or inadvertent disclosure outweighs any potential benefit.

Our youth face many pressures as they face adulthood, and we have a special responsibility to them to keep them safe. The JAMRS program contradicts this responsibility, and I will continue to oppose it.

Sincerely,