Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!lll-winken!sun-barr!newstop!texsun!letni!rwsys!sneaky!gordon From: gordon@sneaky.lonestar.org (Gordon Burditt) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk Subject: Re: Lifestyle Information ( was Re: Safeway Stores to Accept Charge Message-ID: <53927@sneaky.lonestar.org> Date: 15 Apr 91 18:49:38 GMT References: Distribution: na Organization: Gordon Burditt Lines: 31 >Good point, but I still am not comfortable with the idea of a business making >a buck in this particular way (if they did indeed *sell* the list.) I hesitate >to make this cynical comment, but I wonder if some politician somewhere has >thought about this: requiring any business that asks you to sign an "I'm over >18" consent form to provide the names for cross-checking against draft >registrants. If you know a reason why it would be illegal or bad form to do >this, please speak up. It would be bad form to use this information because it's going to harass a lot of people needlessly. Of course, that never stopped the government before. Is everyone (male, and living in the USA) alive today over 18 required to be registered for the draft, with particular attention to those age 105? How many fathers are going to get their son with the same name except for "Junior" or "III" in trouble? How many women with male-sounding names will be harassed? Does the government still have a record of my draft registration in 1970? (Changes of address to the draft board bounce - they left no forwarding address.) I can just hear the excuses in South Texas: "I don't have to be registered, I'm an illegal alien (or legal visitor to the USA)". Is John Smith going to be able to prove he's registered sufficiently fast to leave him time to eat? And after all this trouble, how many draft-registration-dodgers are they going to catch? One for every 2 man-years of Draft Police effort? Maybe it would be easier to draft the Draft Police. This might work better if they got addresses also, but it's still inefficient. It would be a lot easier, and more in line with the way the government does things, to force the businesses to check draft cards. Gordon L. Burditt sneaky.lonestar.org!gordon