At 12:49 PM 5/18/2004, R. A. Hettinga wrote:
<http://www.military.com/Content/Printer_Friendly_Version/1,11491,,00.html?str_filename=FL%5Firs%5F051804&passfile=FL%5Firs%5F051804&page_url=%2FNewsContent%2F0%2C13319%2CFL%5Firs%5F051804%2C00%2Ehtml> Military Insider Newsletter
IRS May Help DOD Find Reservists Fort Worth Star-Telegram May 18, 2004
FORT WORTH, Texas - The Defense Department, strapped for troops for missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, has proposed to Congress that it tap the Internal Revenue Service to locate out-of-touch reservists.
The unusual measure, which the Pentagon said has been examined by lawyers, would allow the IRS to pass on addresses for tens of thousands of former military members who still face recall into the active duty.
Wow! It was "EXAMINED BY LAWYERS!" That's almost as reassuring as saying it was "Generated by a Computer"! (OK, these days it really _is_ better when the Pentagon says something was examined by their JAG corps rather than decided by the political appointees running the Pentagon...) They don't even say if it's DoD lawyers or IRS lawyers or other lawyers. There's a wide range in the types of methods they could use to find this information, some of which are the camel's nose in the tent and others of which are half the camel, but all of which are pretty much bad. I suppose the DoD could hand the IRS a list of names+SSNs and ask them to deliver the mail without any feedback to the DoD, but if the project has only been approved by "lawyers" and not by anybody with a clue about information technology or privacy protection, it's a bad bad idea. I get occasional junk snailmail as a veteran, trying to sell me something or other that veterans are apparently suckers for. I'm *not* a veteran (I was 1H in the last draft lottery), and I'm assuming that they're sending me the information because I'm male and the right age group, rather than because some database actually _does_ think I'm a veteran, but I'd really rather not have the IRS telling the Army where I live just in case they might think that. It's bad enough if they're acting on real information, but there are all kinds of other problems that can happen with bad info, such as them looking for a previous resident of this address, or getting mixed up with nearby addresses (my neighbor was Navy.) I'm also not thrilled with the DMV telling my local police the address of my neighbor's legality-challenged son, and getting it wrong, which led to the police pounding on my door at 6am with a warrant.