If the Education Department Secretary, Margaret Spellings, has her way, next year every college student across America will be forced to participate in the largest student surveillance program in the history of the country. Whether students have Federal loans or not, they will be forced to hand over SSN, DOB, location, courses, majors, GPA, and a host of other very sensitive data to a centralized federal database. The goal: Create more accurate college rankings for parents, students, and congress. This database will also be available to congress and the Department of Homeland Security for fighting terrorism. Regardless of the intent, this program is a cure that is worse than the disease.

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  National Center for Education Statistics Committee Report :: A 2005 National Center for Education Statistics Committee Report, urging the adoption of a Unit Record system, or complete student surveillance.
  



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  AOL Search Records Database :: Demonstration that anonymizing records is not a solution to keeping identifications safe.
  

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