From Draft NOtices, January-March 2025
— Rick Jahnkow
A proposal by the Selective Service System to begin automatic registration of young men for any future military draft almost made it into the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Both the U.S. Senate and House of Representative had previously included the proposal in their versions of the NDAA, but language for it was deleted by the joint conference committee that met to produce a final version of Act. Selective Service was counting on automatic registration to reverse the growing rate of young men who are not complying with the legal requirement to register themselves.
There was also a proposal in the NDAA, approved by the U.S. Senate, that would have expanded draft registration to include young women. It was also rejected by the joint conference committee; however, it's not the first time such a proposal has been attached to the annual NDAA and, thus, it could very well come up again in the future.
One proposal that did make it into the final version of the 2025 NDAA will, unfortunately, strengthen the link between draft registration and military recruiting. Previously, recruiters were given access to the names and addresses of men when they registered with Selective Service. Now, language in the NDAA will require Selective Service to include individuals' birthdates and any available email addresses and phone numbers. This will give predatory recruiters more ways to track people down.
This article is from Draft NOtices, the newsletter of the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (http://www.comdsd.org/).
