Wouldn't it be funny if this turns out to be the tipping point for the citizenry to rally against the Patriot Act, NSA surveillance of citizens, and other Bush-ite Big Brother initiatives? Sort of like the draft was a large factor in students being against Vietnam war. Enlightened self-interest is the operative phrase, right?
Data-mining of students raises alarms
WASHINGTON -- Some lending companies with access to a national database that contains confidential information on 60 million student borrowers have repeatedly searched it in ways that violate federal rules, raising alarms about abuse of privacy, government and university officials said.The unauthorized searching has grown so pervasive that the Education Department is considering a temporary shutdown of the government-run database to review access policies and tighten security.
Some officials worry that businesses are trolling for marketing data they can use to bombard students with mass mailings or other solicitations.
Students' Social Security numbers, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, birth dates, and sensitive financial information such as loan balances are in the database, which is covered by federal privacy law.
Or not. There are plenty of sheeple in schools.
Tags: Bush_donor, /Business, /deregulation, /surveillance
