The New York Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit in federal court in Manhattan that alleges the U.S. Department of Defense violated the law by improperly collecting data on potential military recruits, according to wire service reports.
The lawsuit filed on behalf of six teenagers charges that the Pentagon collected data on individuals as young as 16, and kept records on race, ethnicity, gender and social security numbers illegally. Such data included students’ grades.
It names as defendents Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Matt Boehmer, the Pentagon’s director of advertising and market research studies, among others, according to published reports.
Last year the Pentagon acknowledged in the Federal Register that it had created a database with information on 12 million potential military recruits.
Students were reportedly approached by recruiters, after they asked that their personal information be deleted from the government database.
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