Congress may be inching closer to turning the United States into a full surveillance state with a new national student database bill. Now, federalist and 10th Amendment advocates are urging liberty-loving advocates to step up and fight the government’s attempted power grab.
In 2005, the George W. Bush administration proposed a federal student record system that would allow the Department of Education to request large amounts of information from post-secondary students, having the data stored in educational databases. But in 2008, the Higher Education Act of 2008 made this move illegal.
Recently, the ACLU, the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, and Parents Across America came together to urge the Federal Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking to bring an idea of pushing for a nationwide database of students down. In a letter, advocates urged officials to keep in mind that allowing the federal government to have a database with so much personal information would expose students’ privacy to a great deal of risk as abuse would be hard to prevent.
Currently, information on K-12 students is already gathered by state departments. Eventually, this data could be gathered by the federal government as states do not protect their students’ data from federal government abuse.
Unfortunately, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle in Washington, D.C., are looking into bringing the 2008 ban to an end, and if they succeed, they will be able to give the feds full control over personal information on millions of students.
Advocates for less federal government control are urging residents of varied states to act now to pass laws that would protect their students’ data ahead of any federal push for a nationwide database. Hopefully, states will begin to push back as to ensure that their resources cannot be used to enforce any unconstitutional push for less privacy.
Simply put, working locally to push for protections that would ensure state students and their data are protected from abuse is an easier task than going straight to the federal government for help. Still, the work isn’t an easy one. And unless advocates are dedicated to the cause, the results won’t be fruitful.
