IRS May Help DOD Find Reservists

[Bill Stewart]

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.