How the Pentagon targets teens

[mom cat]

How the Pentagon targets teens
By Nick Turse

It's been a tough year for the US military. But you wouldn't know it from the Internet, now increasingly packed with slick, non-military looking websites of every sort that are lying in wait for curious teens (or their exasperated parents) who might be surfing by. On the ground, the military may be bogged down in a seemingly interminable mission that was supposedly "accomplished" back on May 1, 2003, but on the Internet it's still a be-all-that-you-can-be world of advanced career choices, peaceful pursuits and risk-free excitement.

While there has been a wave of news reports recently on the Pentagon's problems putting together an all-volunteer military, or even a functioning officer corps, from an increasingly reluctant public, military officials are ahead of the media in one regard. They know where the future troops they need are. Hint: they're not reading newspapers or watching the nightly prime-time news, they are surfing the Web, looking for entertainment, information, fun and perhaps even a future.

In addition to raising the maximum enlistment age, no longer dismissing new recruits out of hand for "drug abuse, alcohol, poor fitness and pregnancy", allowing those with criminal records in, and employing such measures as hefty US$20,000 sign-up bonuses (with talk of proposed future bonuses of up to $40,000, along with $50,000 worth of "mortgage assistance") to coerce the cash-strapped to enlist in the all-volunteer military, one of the military's favorite methods of bolstering the rolls is targeting the young - specifically teens - to fill the ranks.

What the military truly values is green teens. Not surprisingly, the Pentagon pays companies like Teenage Research Unlimited (TRU), which claims it offers its "clients virtually unlimited methods for researching teens" to get inside kids' heads. It was also recently revealed that the Department of Defense, with the aid of a private marketing firm, BeNow, had created a database of 12 million youngsters, some only 16 years of age, as part of a program to identify potential recruits. Armed with "names, birth dates, addresses, Social Security numbers, individuals' email addresses, ethnicity, telephone numbers, students' grade-point averages, field of academic study and other data", the Pentagon now has far better ways and means of accurately targeting teens.

Pentagon on the prowl

http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GG14Ak01.html

[mom cat]

1. How to fight back...opt out forms from Mothers Against the Draft:

http://mothersagainstthedraft.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=category§ionid=18&id=144&Itemid=152

[Massacure]

2. When do I have to send the NCLB opt out in by?

Also I hear they send info for Juniors and Seniors. If I am a senior this year, will they still have my info from last year?

[mom cat]

3. Check with Mothers against the Draft on those points... let us know what

you find out. Thanks.

[AndyTiedye]

4. That is Why They Are Buying Commercial Databases

They'll have your info even if you opt out.